ADDICTION RECOVERY COURSE

ARC or Addiction Recovery Course. I remember those classes vividly. From being scared at first. Unwilling to let go. Afraid to let someone in. I still have my folder and the work sheets from my original class. The teacher that would bring it into the jail, the one that would fertilize the seed first, Miss Mitzy. A petite little thing with a gangsters persona. She could not have been more than 5’6″. The stories and accounts she would give. Not the war story type, but the story that makes you see the same behavior within your own life. She had been a pimp and been pimped according to her own accounts.

Now she was clean. A peer recovery advocate. She came from the city and had that embedded into her character. You could tell she had seen that life. It was still fresh on her. The wounds from the years of abuse fresh in her attitude. Addiction was life or death to her. She would resound it in every class. Get clean. Live in institutions. Die. I recognize these three as the only options now. At the time I didn’t see it this way. In the beginning I would mock the process. I still thought I was tough and strong. Thought I had it all figured out. I could still manipulate my way through active use.

I was wrong. I would withdraw and start recovery in a jail cell. To prideful to play the game for state dope. The coctail mix that would be prescribed if you told the medical staff the right mixture of your use on the streets. There were others who had mastered the game with the medical staff. Rehearsing the story to tell it just right so to be prescribed the “good” state drugs. Wellbutrin was abused frequently within those walls.

I would spend almost 18 months at Cecil’s finest public hotel. The days at CCDC are long. There is no movement off the tier. A room 16 feet wide and 40 feet long. 4 jail cells on each long wall. A shower stall and a telephone. Housing 16 inmates we would often have 1 or 2 other inmates sleeping on the floor. Plastic beds called boats would be furnished for the “floaters”. The inmates who had no cell.

To say the least the living conditions were cramped. To add to our misery, there was no movement. Our meals were brought to the tier. The only time you left the tier; For court, the medical unit, and for classes. The choice was simple. I would sign up for everything that removed me from the tier. NA, AA, ARC, Chapel, anger management, GED, which only lasted till the learned I had already obtained a GED IN 2004. Anything I could sign up for, I would. It made the time bearable.

I would complete the ARC program 3 times. There would be 3 different teachers. I would recieve 3 different perspectives on addiction and recovery. Each time was a new experience for me. Each time would get deeper. As Miss Mitzy had said, “Recovery is life or death. To have the freedom to live and experience life. Or our souls can die and our body will follow”. It was becoming real. It would slowly creep in and take hold. That feeling of despair, loneliness, and trapped. But not by the walls that imprisoned me, it was the feelings and thoughts that had me trapped. The overwhelming uncomfortable feeling that comes with the idea that everything has to change.

This feeling would slowly disappear. Still clearly eveindent for the tasks at hand. I would attend meetings regularly in jail. Alcoholics anonymous and narcotics anonymous meetings. 2 or 3 meetings a week. I would attend. I would participate. Actually try for the sake of willingness.. that even though it was scaring me. Taking me out of my comfort zone. Anything had to be better than the way I was living. I had gotten sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I would learn the skills to work the steps. With the step work, came real work. I would use my connections with the recovery advocates to get the worksheets for the step work. Recovery became my mission. With a willingness to complete my step work, I was able to grasp my recovery. Things started to make sense or rather I could make sense of things. That overwhelming feeling was there, but in check.