Rehabilitating Rehab

With my final stint in a corrupt gated community ending this past month, I was wide-eyed as I realized how much of a pathetic circumstance being behind bars is. With the intended purpose to rehabilitate and "fix" the damaged population jailhouses lose focus on the mission at hand and offer a home to broaden and support whatever vice you encompass.
As I laid awake through the past thirty-day sentence I was able to realize the devastation behind the cold steel bars and beyond damning walls.

With this being my first time lock-up since my sobriety began a new world emerged from the disillusioned one I remembered. With the same faces and facades, the reoccurring garbage meals and paper thin bedding, the punishment s understandable if it was to be enforced in a correct manner.

The first day in is always the most grueling, as you contemplate how you'll ever survive the complete sentence and scheme up ways to lessen your underlying charge everything seems absolutely hopeless and irreversible. The overabundance of lighting and incredible strength of the noise permits a euphoria of torture one has trouble conforming to.

Motioning through the routines of being herded as sheep through a pasture the visually pathetic and twisted lifestyle consumes you and the power of the demented begins to unfold. The lifers that embrace the style whether for juvenile reasoning, passion to be helpless or purely mental instability are of intriguing nature. The common conception is the "Three hots and a cot" expression or as I prefer "Three warm in a dorm" draws people in to help them evade normalcy and responsibility. Your clothes are washed for you (as minimal as you have), no bills to pay (besides pleasures of canteen or phone time) and an assurance of meals (as stomach churning as they are) convicts fall in love with the carefree lifestyle as if it's a vacation from reality.

My main focus of this article however is the misconception that sobriety and reformation is a product of incarceration. The stigma that addicts are corrupt and deserve their impending imprisonments couldn't be farther from the truth in my eyes. The argument of my bias rant has been argued by many, simply due to the fact I struggle with my own addiction. No matter what your DOC may be, a snort of the nose, a long calming swallow, a lift of a bottle or veins turning hallow the fact of the matter is that many times your vice is more accessible behind bars than in front.

With corrupt officers, easily persuaded staff, smugglers and strategic outsourced participation, the accessibility to substances are obtained. It's a widely known fact that some of the most ingenious citizens are behind bars. They way of life as it institutionalizes its victims leaves nothing but time to scheme up plans and innovations on how to fuel their addiction. Homemade alcohol, medication and as well as drugs smuggled in provide a near impossible challenge on continuing sobriety.

One common denominator between all addicts is we use through boredom in many cases. Being incarcerated allows nothing but boredom to ravish your mental state many times seemingly forcing your hand in relapse and remorse.
Although the institutions provide opportunities for alcoholic meetings and recovery classes they are not widely used for that purpose. They provide more of an escape from the four walls your in and an hour long change of scenery. Most use these outlets for non-intended reasons thus ruining the true participants experience.

Being behind the bars however during this global pandemic of Covid these meetings were not permitted nor attempted in any fashion. As a believer and participant of meetings and rooms on the outside I was devastated knowing I had no outlet. The big book circulates and grapevine magazines are around but many are claimed by others for illegitimate purposes. Being able to discuss your addiction and vocalize your powerlessness is impossible when surrounded by others fiending for a fix and unwilling to change. Watching the crowd partake in drinking the hooch, (my vice) I found myself craving the luxurious taste and sense of no control encompass my mind. Knowing if I was to consume anything I would struggle through the withdrawls from sobriety.

With a two years journey of rehab and recovery I have trained my mind to disregard any alcohol consumption on the outside no matter the circumstances. I've found solace sobriety and even with a major relapse occurring one year ago I've worked hard to never break stride in my toxic-free atmosphere. Being in lock-up however pushed my mind to wonder as I contemplated the fact there was nothing else to do or the thoughts of getting away with it in the system that fails.

The inexperienced ones do need the understanding that cameras are in abundance, there are rarely blind spots and the officers do circulate quite often. But with the criminal mind there is always a will and a way.

I strongly believe this system that was designed for rehabilitation has lost its values long ago. Through the manipulation of staff or the lack of care most encompass the institutions do nothing but provide a drug-fueled lodging with no responsibility. It is an easy way of life with an undoubted mental fold. I've seen several enter the gates with a sober mind and release in full-blown addiction. It's a powerlessness I hope many people never experience. I am all for law and order as well as the necessity for reform but through my experiences over the past ten years of charges I have seen first-hand how it is failing the occupants of the cells. Mixing addicts and fighters, sellers and speeders drowns people into ways of life they never considered. I believe separation is needed for the crimes that have been committed. Not solely by the color of your stripes but by the level of threat you and your crime hold.

Basing my opinion on the addicts side, I honestly believe a rehabilitation process behind bars is the answer. Many factors and variables can make or break the idea, through the serious approach from staff and inmates alike to the content provided. Many addicts want solace and peace in their lives and whereas, yes, the larger percent has never had a needle forced into their veins or a pill pounded into stomach, a cup funneled in or a powdered nasal spray. The ones who took that first shot and lost all control are willing to fight for serenity, sadly they (as I did) are unaware on where to start.

We can make the system work for good as it was intended but I also believe we need better processes on who is hired and allowed to lead this change. Many of the officers appear more corrupt than the inmates they are controlling.
Nothing is perfect and there will always be the bad apples but the passionate ones will be able to weed through the masses. Instead of looking down on us we can meet eye to eye and together rehabilitate this rehab into a structure that reforms rather than condemns the ones who want a way out. Not out of the institution but out of their lifestyles. Good into bad. Poo into sugar.

As a favored quotes goes "Addiction was never my problem, addiction was the response to my problems"