Jeezy is doing some reflecting as of late and it’s not just about his successful rap career.

The Atlanta rapper sat down with PEOPLE on Wednesday (August 9) to discuss his new book Adversity For Sale and described a time long ago when he attended the Youth Challenge program in Fort Stewart, Georgia after selling drugs for years and stealing cars, noting it was no “walk in the park.”

“You’re basically in the Marines or the Army and people are telling you what to do. You gotta shine your boots,” the Snowman described. “I don’t know about anybody else [but] I’m just not good at being told what to do. And I’m coming from a place where I’m basically a boss. But maybe a few weeks in I’m like, ‘Hold up, I’m working out.'”

He continued: “It taught me structure. And it took me out of the environment that I was in for me to become even more focused than I was because I thought I was focused, but I really wasn’t. I didn’t have a plan. I just was going through the motions.”

As the program, which he spent nine months at, was starting to end, he recalls a defining field trip he took to a naval base and stood aboard one of their ships.

“I remember standing there and saying to myself: ‘Man, if you go back home and you don’t figure this out. Because I don’t want to end up like my friends,'” he said. “My friends became junkies and they were getting killed and all these things.

“So it was all this stuff in my head. I just remember standing there and it was for a brief moment, I would say at least about 10 minutes, I actually contemplated jumping in the water,” Jeezy added. “I had never had suicidal thoughts, but I [thought], ‘Well, s**t, if I just jump in the water, I ain’t gotta deal with this. I ain’t gotta go back home. I gotta do none of these things.'”

Additionally, Jeezy says that thinking back to these tough moments has been therapeutic and brought a sense of closure. Read the full interview here.