Recovering alcoholic releases CD

Next to the record shops, News Five seems to be one of the main stops for recording artists who have released a new album. This time, the CD comes with a message: “don’t depend on drugs.”

Jacqueline Woods
Thirty-nine year old Francisco Escobar is a recovering alcoholic who has been using his musical talent to help others like himself.

Francisco Escobar, Musican
?It started from being a little boy; three years old and two, three drinks could get you intoxicated. And it continued until I was seven years old and they would send me to buy it and I would steal it from them. In ?93 when I went to the U.S. it became worse, then I had it by stacks. When I came back in 2000, then I went to Tropical and Caribbean [rum], and that just zoom up everything and nearly kill me more than three times. People don?t know me, that?s why I used to hide home and drink, so whenever I came out they always saw me looking the same, they never knew I really had a bad problem inside.?

Escobar says it was not until two years ago that he sought the help he needed after he was blessed.

Francisco Escobar
?I see many negative people, people that are taking drugs and alcohol and there is no way out. And if God did it for me, I?m no special than anybody else, I was all the way down, I hit rock bottom and he picked me up and up to now, he is uplifting me, so I am trying, with the songs and the melody. Some my call my songs replicas or the songs of drunkards, but the voice of it and the words are enticing the people to live, that?s what God wants us to do.?

Soldier of War is Escobar?s latest release and he is counting on the support of the general public.

Francisco Escobar
?To join hands with me and to help me, to let everybody hear that there is life and there is a new beginning. For me there is a new beginning.?

In 2004, Escobar released Muchacha Bonita, which, along with Soldiers of War, is available at the record shops for fifteen dollars.