ESCAPE FROM HELL: CLEAN AND SOBER FOREVER
by
Angel Grace and Dr. Gary Brennan
Cover Art Work By Yasuko Bockman
SMASHWORDS EDITION
PUBLISHED BY:
Speranza Productions and Don Miller, Ph.D. on Smashwords
Escape From Hell: Clean and Sober Forever
Copyright 2011 by Angel Grace, Dr. Gary Brennan and Don Miller, Ph.D.
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In Angel on Probation, a book by Don Miller, Ph.D., in between sobering up reluctant teens in Dr. Gary Brennan’s (Doc) and Angel Grace’s Clean and Sober Forever Program, and while they enroll those leaving prison before they descend back into the Hell of drug addiction, Grace keeps pushing Doc to put his ideas on paper. He can’t keep up with her demands and says, “You help me write it!” and she does. They alternate writing the chapters. Their final product is this book.
ESCAPE FROM HELL: CLEAN AND SOBER FOREVER
CHAPTER ONE: THE FINAL BATTLEGROUND
Where will the final battle of the drug wars be fought? Will it be on the high seas, with our superior naval forces capturing and confiscating one boatload after another of illegal drugs? Will it be at our borders where people smuggle in marijuana and Cocaine in a million clever containers? Will it be in the high Andes of Peru? There, the Indians are finding that growing the poppy is a way to stave off starvation in a country that is in economic ruin. Will we fly in legions of bombers and dump paraquat on those poppy fields, or on the coca crops in Colombia? Or will we go in with flame-throwers, utilizing a scorched earth policy?
Will the final battle in the drug wars be some place in Mexico, where cannabis abounds? Or will it be in Northern California, where cannabis has become a major cash crop? Or, will the final battle in the drug wars be fought in those Pacific Rim nations growing poppies and exporting Heroin? Will we invade those countries to teach them that they better stop growing the dope that is ruining America?
We could spend billions of dollars storming through one third-world country after the other. Then, we could drag one third-world country dictator after another back to America for a trial. Will that be our final battle in the drug wars? No, these are all merely very costly skirmishes. There is more and cheaper dope coming out of Panama than before we locked up Noriega.
The final battle will not be fought in Colombia, nor in the Peruvian poppy fields, nor won by the dope-sniffing dogs on the Tijuana-San Diego border.
THE BATTLE FOR THE HEART
America's final battle in the drug wars is going to be fought in America. The final battle in the drug wars will be fought for the hearts and souls of our lost brothers and sisters and our addicted sick children; and sometimes our mothers and fathers. In the final battle of the drug wars, we will turn our loved ones, our substance abusing families, friends and neighbors into human beings again. In the final battle of the drug wars we will bring all the substance abusers back from their living hell. When we do this, and nobody is buying drugs anymore, the drug wars will be over. And, we will have won.
We will say to America's substance abusers, "We don't want to lock you up or punish you. We want to help you find the heart and soul you have lost. The search for these precious items begins the moment you are sober." We will take back our lost brothers, sisters and children on drugs that have been stolen from us. We have suffered far too long the pain of losing so many of those we love to substance abuse.
Drugs steal the mind, the body, the soul and the heart. Drugs dehumanize. Drugs give their users a few moments of bliss, a brief feeling of total and absolute power, followed by a living hell. The conscience of the substance abuser is destroyed by the very same substances designed to make them feel good. While under the influence they stop worrying about what's right and wrong. The major concern of the substance abuser is to make sure they never run out of this wonderful chemical.
The longer and heavier the substance abuse, the further from human the user has become. Without a conscience, drug addicts do despicable things with no remorse to make sure they keep supplied with drugs. They would never commit such unspeakable acts when sober. Once sober, they slowly become human beings again and their consciences return.
MILLIONS FOR DEFENSE
In 1798, the French offered to stop robbing American ships if we paid them enough money. Robert Harper said, "Millions for defense, not one cent for tribute." The battle cry hasn't changed. We are willing to spend billions of dollars going all over the world burning up poppy fields. We spend billions more building new jails to lock up our citizens. But we are not willing to spend one cent for tribute.
Translate the word "tribute" to prevention and treatment. Out of every dollar dedicated to the drug wars, more than ninety cents goes to cover the non-treatment costs connected to drug abuse. These costs include police, courts, judges, lawyers, stolen property, medical and social services. Less than ten cents of every dollar in the drug wars is spent on prevention, treatment, or stopping people from taking drugs. If nobody was using drugs think of the billions that could be spent somewhere else.
HOW TO BALANCE THE BUDGET IN A FEW YEARS
Nobody is paying taxes on the billions being spent on illegal drugs. If all that money was spent on goods and services, taxes would be paid on every transaction. Once sober, the $15 a former drug addict spent on dope will take him and a friend to the movie. The theater pays taxes on that money and pays the ticket taker, who pays income taxes. Then he buys a hamburger, which is taxed. Get it? Every dollar put in the economy can earn a dollar in taxes. We could go a long way toward paying off the $4.5 trillion national debt if the billions of dollars changing hands in the underground drug economy were taxed.
Most of the billions of dollars in goods stolen in America each year goes to buy dope.117 Imagine what a multi-billion transfusion would do to our economy when we don't have to keep replacing stolen goods.
Billions of underground and untaxed dollars are going to other nations to supply Americans with illegal drugs. When America is sober we will move those billions out of the underground and into our economy. Why should America's precious dollars end up in Colombia? When the Drug Wars are over and nobody is buying drugs those billions now spent on dope will jump-start our sluggish economy. Hundreds of thousands of new jobs will be created by those billions that will be staying in America.
This new money flowing into our economy would provide cheaper capital for new businesses, money to finance new homes at low interest rates. When the money now spent on drugs is spent for goods, the millions of dollars collected in taxes could start retiring the national debt. It is time to stop mortgaging our children's future.
RETURNING FROM A LIVING HELL
Our battle cry used to be "The British are coming." That has been changed to the "The Dope Fiends are coming." We are out to get them. Half the movies are about catching dope dealers and dope smugglers. How many hundreds of dope busts have we seen on "Cops?" We all feel really good when kilo after kilo of that white powder is loaded into the police vans. We cheer when the long haired degenerates are lined up in handcuffs and dragged away. But let's stand close enough to the front lines in our drug wars to see who is really on the other side. We will not see the British, not even the Colombians.
We will see our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters, and sometimes our mothers and fathers. What Pogo said has never been truer - "We have met the enemy and they is us." Isn't it time that we brought our loved ones back from a living hell?
A NATION IN DECAY
Substance abuse is the direct or indirect cause of most of the major horrors that are rotting away the soft under-belly of the American Dream. These horrors include escalating violence and crime, homicide, child abuse, gang warfare, drive-by shootings, and most of the homeless problem. Our medical resources are being exhausted with crack babies and drug-related emergencies. The emotional and financial resources of our great nation are being drained and exhausted by substance abuse.
There is no speculation involved in the statement that substance abuse plays a major role in virtually every social problem that we face. This book offers a solution: The “Clean and Sober Forever” Program, which is an involuntary sobriety program. The promise of this book is that, once implemented, the “Clean and Sober Forever” Program will greatly reduce most of this nation's crippling social problems. The “Clean and Sober Forever” Program can and will reverse most of the horrors that have caused a pervasive sadness over our land. Documentation will be given in this book to back up these promises.
SOBERING UP AMERICA
There is no alternative to a program of involuntary sobriety. Everything else has been tried. We have played endless variations of the cops and robbers game. We have caught dope boats coming in from Colombia. We have shouted at the dope dealers on the corners with megaphones. We have crammed as many substance abusers as we can into packed prisons. Yet, the drug/alcohol abuse problem continues to escalate on a daily basis.
Wherever an involuntary sobriety program has been tried it worked. But such programs have been tried only sporadically and inconsistently. There has never been enough understanding of the problem to implement such a program on a broad, nationwide basis.
Nobody seems to get it. The simple fact is that if substance abusers sober up, they stop buying drugs. When nobody is buying drugs, there will be no drug wars. There will be no turf battles with dope dealers shooting it out. When America is sober, there will be no Colombians getting rich by pouring poison into the veins of our children.
The proof is there. Sobering up criminals stops five out of six of them from committing crimes. The step by step procedures to implement the “Clean and Sober Forever” Program are given in Chapter 11. That program will reverse most of the horrors now haunting America. After you have read the first two or three chapters, jump to the chase, or Chapter 11. You'll be curious to know how we will sober up America. There, you will read about the program that will give us back our hope and the American dream. Then come back and slowly read the other chapters. There, you will find all the sad details about America's out-of-control substance abuse problem. You will see the costs, in dollars, emotions and lives that we pay for this problem. But also in this book you will find hope as the results are given of the programs that work.
FINDING THE LOST SHEEP
America’s parents are sick to death of their sons and daughters trading the family's heirlooms and possessions for drugs. Our fellow Americans are selling their bodies for drugs. They are murdering for drugs. Drug-crazed devil worshipers are sacrificing babies. We cannot keep building more jails and hiring more police officers forever. It is time to bring our lost sheep back into the fold.
If only one person wants to take illegal drugs to temporarily feel a little better than they have been feeling, there will be someone to sell them what they want. Many say that we can solve the problem by locking up drug dealers for life. They say that the risk of a life sentence will convince dope dealers to get out of the business. But 95% of all dope dealers are dope users.119 Dopers often use poor judgment. They can't be counted on to quit selling dope even if it gets more risky. They can be counted on to do whatever is necessary to guarantee their drug supply. It won't matter if we increase the risk of selling drugs by locking up drug dealers for life. There are very large amounts of money involved. There will always be a supplier to take that increased risk as long as there is a consumer.
HOW LOW WILL A DOPE FIEND GO?
A husband and wife on drugs had their children removed from their home. The children's grandmother applied to be their guardian and began raising them. She brought the children to me for family counseling to help them recover from the chaos drugs had made of their lives. Their mother had died of an overdose. Their father promised he would sober up. His mother allowed him to come home to be with his children. But he slipped badly, and at Christmas time. His mother had saved money to buy bicycles for her son's children. On Christmas morning when the children got up and ran to see what was under the Christmas tree, their bicycles were gone. Their father explained, "I needed a fix real bad." Let's make a promise to America's children: "Your drug addict parents will never steal another Christmas from you."
How can a mother or father do that? MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) studies have identified the areas of the brain that ‘light up’ or are activated by a baby’s cry, a baby’s laugh, a longing-for-love child. The urge then is to take care of that baby or child. Unfortunately, the same areas of the brain that stimulate caring for a child will be occupied and made ‘busy’ by a wide variety of drugs. So, the caring response is dampened or totally eliminated. That’s why parents high on drugs can ignore the needs of their children with equanimity. That’s why Child Protective Service workers across the land are tipped off and then arrive at homes where hungry babies sit in dirty diapers because their parents are in dream land.
SUPPLY AND DEMAND
There was a time when even the smallest of towns had at least one smithy who shod horses. What if it was against the law to make horseshoes, but people still had horses instead of cars? There would be a thriving black market business in horseshoes. Any time there is a highly desired product, substance or service which is illegal, a black market and underground supply system will emerge to fill that demand. This is the law of supply and demand.
If people stopped buying illegal drugs, drug suppliers would be out of business. We need to eliminate the demand for illegal drugs. The focus on eliminating the supply of illegal drugs has never worked in the past. It will not work in the future.
Natives in Colombia spend all night stomping on coca leaves treated with lye. They work with bare feet because they cannot afford protective foot wear. They earn ten dollars a night and have severe foot ulcerations. When they are too sick to work or they die of their infections, ten other natives are there to take their place.
The astronomical amounts of money involved guarantee that each drug peddler/supplier/grower locked up for the rest of their lives will be replaced by others. What would happen if just half of the money now spent trying to cut off the supply of drugs was spent on sobering up America? The demand for illegal drugs would almost vanish within a few months. Law enforcement would then need much less money to make a serious dent in a much lower volume of illegal drugs.
JUST SAYING "NO" ISN'T ENOUGH
Aren't we focusing on demand now? What about the anti-drug messages such as, "Just say no." The educational campaign is working on some populations. The groups influenced by media and school educational campaigns tend to be professionals, middle class, Caucasian junior high school, high school, and college students. Many of them are getting the message.
But the illegal drug problem is intensifying in ghettos and gangs, in the poor and in the minorities. They are not getting the message. Who is using illegal drugs might be changing, but the number of people using illegal drugs is increasing. Extensive media efforts to educate people, but not the ones using are most likely to use drugs.
I heard a black woman in a ghetto apartment building say, "It is not the drug dealer who beats, robs, rapes and kills you. It is not the drug dealer who urinates and defecates in the building where he lives and I live. It is the one who buys drugs from the drug dealer."
THE PRISON FRONT
As in any large scale battle, we will be fighting The Final Battle in the Drug Wars on several fronts at the same time. In World War II, we had many fronts. There was the Italian front and the Russian front. On the African front we chased Rommel across the desert. In the new Drug Wars, we will be battling to win back the hearts and souls of our addicted brothers and sisters. In the new Drug Wars, there will also be many fronts. One will be in the prisons.
Raoul's story: "At the age of fourteen, I was strung out on I.V. (Intravenous) morphine. Over the years, I've abused every drug there is. When I couldn't get the drugs it was alcohol. I was married at the age of 18. The marriage lasted less than two years. If I had to blame the failure of the marriage on any one thing, it would probably be the drinking. But even after we were divorced we had gotten back together and split up again off and on for seven years. I think my wife loved me. I'd stop by to visit her during those years and our sexual relationship continued even though we were divorced.
"During one of my drinking episodes, during a time we were separated, I called her. I asked her to stop by. She must have been able to tell over the phone I was drunk. But she came anyway. But instead of coming in, she just stopped outside and honked the horn. She wanted me to come out there to talk. Usually when she came by we ended up having sex.
"When she honked I hollered out the window 'Just a minute!' I went and got a knife and went down to her car with it. I said, 'You're coming up,' but she screamed. Some policemen, having lunch at the Taco Bell across the street, came running over and arrested me. I went to jail for assault with a deadly weapon and for threatening my wife."
A WHOREHOUSE IN TIJUANA
"After a few years I got out of jail and I did real good for awhile. I had never really been able to talk to a woman all those years. I was not sure what I was afraid of. When I had been out for seven months I still hadn't met a girl. I didn't know how to speak to them. Just a month before I got arrested again I went to one of the whorehouses in Tijuana. But it was like nothing, there was no satisfaction. Masturbation would have been more satisfying.
"I had a son. I had even arranged visitation. He came and spent all summer with me one time. It was great. But after he went back home I got depressed. I went and had a drink. When I did, that led to several days of binge drinking. I got very drunk. I left the people I was staying with. I was sleeping in my car. I'd wake up, drink, and pass out. Then I'd do it all over again. One of the times I was awake I kidnapped a woman and raped her. I ended up getting sentenced to 21 years. I did 11 years.
DOING MY TIME GOT EASY
"Here's what happened in prison. I was at C.M.C., The California Men's Colony, by San Louis Obispo. That's the biggest prison in California. It has 5,000 inmates. It is built like four separate prisons. There are four yards, four chow halls. At first, in spite of my other time in jail, it was very hard on me. But after two and one-half years I got institutionalized. I didn't think about the outside anymore. You can almost be as happy in there as you can out here, once you get used to it for so many years. If I was arrested again, I could take that many years again.
"You're locked in with these people. But there's more drugs in prison and easier to get than drugs on the outside. The first two and one-half years I was there, I drank home-made wine and used some drugs, but mostly I smoked marijuana. Then I got in with the people using I.V. drugs, speed, heroin. I was using all that stuff for about five years. But then about three years before I got out, it dawned on me that if I was ever going to make it on the outside I had to quit. So I did.
TEN PERCENT OF THE INMATES ARE ALWAYS LOADED
"I'd estimate that at any one time, about ten percent of all the prisoners in there were loaded when I was there. That's about 500, a lot more than that use off and on. But ten percent is probably the number who basically stay loaded all the time.
"How do you get drugs in there? It was brought in by the guy's girlfriends, or their wives. Women usually put it in their vagina, in several small balloons. Sometime during the visit, they would excuse themselves to go to the bathroom. They'd take the dope out and put it in their bra and come back out. They would slip the little balloons to their husband or boyfriend. After awhile during the visit, the husband or boyfriend would tell the guards they had to go use the bathroom. Once they got there they would use Vaseline to insert the little balloons in their rectum.
"You're only put behind the glass to visit if they suspect you of smuggling drugs, or if they caught you smuggling drugs. If you're caught, you can't have any contact with your visitors for a year. It has to be visits behind glass.
"If they suspect that somebody brought you in some drugs they assign you to the potty watch. An officer watches you 24 hours a day until you go to the potty twice. Of course they check to see if there was anything in your stool. The 24 hour period is because some of the guys swallow the little balloons. I guess they figure it will all come out after 24 hours. Come to think of it, they would keep them on potty watch and in restraints up to 48 hours. They'd give them a pan to use to go to the bathroom.
CUTTING A DEAL
"My cell mate was on potty watch several times. He was bringing in large quantities of methamphetamine, or speed. He must have been caught but he always had some way of getting out of it. I think he was telling on the higher ups, the bigger dealers who were in the prison. It's the same in there as on the outside. Sometimes you can cut a deal by fingering someone else.
"A lot of the guys who were the heaviest users paid for their dope by selling drugs to the other prisoners. They would send the money back out with their wives or girlfriends so they could buy more. They got a lot more selling it in there than you could sell it for on the outside. But then it was more available inside the prison. They were very active selling it on the inside. Long after I quit using entirely, they would still come up to me and say, 'Some good stuff is coming in.'
“I was good with my hands and I made these cute little things. Then I would put them in the gift shop. Visitors could go to the gift shop and buy stuff the prisoners made to take home with them. I used to get enough money from that to buy all the dope I wanted in there.”
“It was very rare that the guards were involved in the drug deals. I'm not sure, but I think a teacher was involved once. They took the hobby store manager out in handcuffs once.
IT’S A TOUGH JOB
“I was real good friends with a guard for awhile. It started with me noticing how smooth he was and admiring how he operated. He told me lots of stuff about his job after that. Lots of guards get hurt; once in a while one gets killed. Guards get hurt wrestling prisoners, getting them into or out of their cells when they don’t feel like following orders. Jerry said he knew the unit he just transferred to had most of the dope of the prison. That’s because the guards before him never bothered anyone. He had lifers. He said that also he knew they had a lot of stuff. They call it contraband, things they shouldn’t have. Porn pictures, radios, you name it.
“Jerry knew that if he took their stuff away, they’d be mad. Then there would be trouble. Sometimes someone would give Jerry trouble, they didn’t move fast enough or they’d mouth off to him. He would say, ‘Let’s check your cell for contraband.’ He and the other officer on that unit would go in and look around the cell for a minute or two then come out saying, ‘Well, we didn’t find anything.’
“That was a warning. If they messed up again or gave Jerry a hard time he would say, “Gee, I think we might have missed some contraband.” This time he would spend two hours in the guy’s cell. He would look in the bottles of Listerine, deodorant, toothpaste tubes, hat bands, inside the mattress. He would turn every page of every book in the cell looking for black tar heroin. He always found something, usually bags of stuff. Everybody caught on real quick.
“Nobody messed with Jerry. He would be warned if anything was being planned against him because it was like a deal between him and the prisoners. Many were lifers and their little possessions made life a little more tolerable. If everything was taken, like I said, there would be trouble. Almost everyone on that unit had a pet. A bird, a rat they caught outside or even some insect.
“Jerry decided to let them keep the pets but his fellow correction officer wouldn’t go for it. He said that if someone came in there and found that everyone had a pet they (the two guards) would be in trouble. They gave everybody three weeks to get rid of their pets, let them go back in the yard where they got them. But Jerry talked his fellow correctional officer into letting them keep their contraband and even their dope, because it kept the peace. And all the prisoners didn’t want to mess up the deal so Jerry didn’t have to do much to keep the prisoners in line after awhile. If someone started breaking the rules other prisoners would handle it for Jerry.
HE-SHES IN PRISON
“Jerry had prisoners helping him keep the place in order. There were some special people on that unit, transvestites and guys with breasts. I don’t know how they did it, but they even got shots so their breasts would stay big. If you walked into the unit you’d think it was mixed sexes because there were a bunch of guys that looked, acted and dressed like women. Jerry would take a couple of them down to clean the bathroom and stand outside because he didn’t want anyone to see him in there with those guys. Even so, someone put in an anonymous complaint that he had gone into the bathroom with the transvestites but witnesses said that wasn’t true. It wasn’t long before the guy who ratted Jerry out got hurt real bad.
“One day Jerry smelled alcohol on a prisoner’s breath. He sat down with him and extracted a promise the guy would stop making booze. A week later the guy was drunk again. Jerry didn’t want other guards and supervisors on other shifts thinking he was letting some guy get away with getting drunk. He told the guy to pack up his stuff and move to another building. Every Sunday you could decide to move to another building. The guy said he liked it there and wasn’t going. So every time the guy talked to someone Jerry went to whoever he talked to and patted him down and harassed him. Pretty soon everyone caught on that if you talked to the boozer you got in trouble. The boozer lost all his friends and was shunned by everyone and he moved after two weeks. Jerry didn’t want to report the boozer then have to try to prove that the guy was making booze. Jerry didn’t like to snitch on people. He preferred to handle things himself.
“In spite of his best efforts it wasn’t long before the prisoners on Jerry’s unit decided to get rid of him. This was because he thought that he should do the five cell searches a day that he had been ordered to do. He would just walk in and out of the cells and say, ‘Looks good.’ But the guards before him on that unit never did anything. So the prisoners left a note saying he was going to be stabbed. For his safety, Jerry was removed from that unit until an investigation was conducted, which could take months. In the meantime, the prisoners would get a guard who would be easier on them. If they got another officer who came in and decided to do his job they would get rid of him too. Jerry had a way of handling fights. The prisoners liked the drama of a bunch of guards running in to break up a fight. Jerry would pretend he didn’t see the fight and after awhile the guys fighting would get tired and quit. That way there were less reports to write. Jerry had an interesting idea. He said that people came into prison as humans and then turned into animals. When I asked him why he said the longer you lock people up in a cage all day the more they turn into animals. I was sorry to see him go but his replacements knew the drill – don’t take away their pets, alcohol and drugs. Any correctional officer doing their whole job as ordered would be in trouble with the prisoners.
GETTING A LIFE
"I've been out of prison for five years. I'll be off parole pretty soon. I haven't drank or used drugs for eight years now. I've had to test twice a month in the five years I've been out. I got remarried four years ago to a good woman. She has never drank or used drugs. I've got a good job. All my life, I never had anything. Now I have cars, stereos, anything I want. Both my parents are alcoholics who finally sobered up. They go to five meetings a week. It's a way of life for them.
"For me, once I decided to give it up, it was easy. I've been out for five years and in all that time I have had no desire to drink or drug. At the tender young age of 43 I finally got a life. My son is 22 and lives with a girlfriend. My ex-wife still drinks and drugs off and on. She's been in and out of the nut house several times. That stuff can really get to you."
Raoul either got lucky or smart or both. He had a drug/alcohol-free environment to come home to from prison. Also, he had been sober for three years when he left prison. His first prison sentence was for threatening his wife with a knife. Too bad he wasn't watched very closely and enrolled in a fail-safe sobriety program after he got out of jail the first time. If he had been, prison term number two would never have happened. A few sober buddies, a support group he met with regularly, would have kept him from drinking that summer when his son went back home. Not drinking would have prevented the kidnap/rape and the second prison sentence.
SINCE MY WIFE ONCE LOVED A HEROIN ADDICT I BECAME ONE TO IMPRESS HER
Robby wasn't as lucky. His story is more typical. I saw him just after he was released from jail for the second time at the age of 46. He had a lot more than jail on his rap sheet but he ended up doing time just twice. He said, "I met this girl in the fourth grade. I started going with her in high school. We started living together when I was 17. I married her when I was 20. We stayed together another six years after we got married. We got along better before we got married.
"My dad was a drunk. There was always a lot of shouting and fighting in the house. At the age of 12, when I was in the fifth grade, I occasionally took diet pills. I started using more speed when I was in high school. I started smoking marijuana when I was 15. I only took acid six to twelve times in my whole life. I didn't like it. I jumped off a roof on acid once. Reality escapes me easy when I'm on acid. I preferred speed in high school though I experimented with downers.
"My wife used to have a crush on this guy who used heroin. So when I was 18 I thought if that's the kind of person she wants, I'll use heroin. I quit meth (speed) from the age of 18 to 25 and just used heroin on weekends for a few years. But from the age of 23 to 25 I got really strung out. I was hooked, bad. I guess that ruined our marriage. We weren't getting along. I got divorced and went to Alaska.
"I was off drugs for three years. I came back to California and started using meth again. I committed my first crime. I robbed a drug dealer with a gun. I handcuffed a guy to some pipes in an abandoned building. They were selling drugs there, marijuana and meth. I went in to rob them with three other people. A shotgun went off, that scared us off. We ran out but one of the people who was driving by at that time saw me. We got away, but the other three guys got caught later. Somebody informed on me and I got picked up. But I bailed out before they took me to trial. I went back to Alaska.
TIRED OF BEING A FUGITIVE
"I came back three years later and turned myself in. I was tired of being a fugitive. I did two years at San Quentin. Right after I got out I started using a lot of speed again. I was dealing drugs, that's how I lived, selling meth. I had basically sold dope for a living since the age of 18. I did have a regular job off and on for a few months when I was in my twenties.
After San Quentin I had a girlfriend living with me. I was in a small town. I didn't have a lot of traffic coming to my place. I'd drive to a big city and get the dope and just drop it off to some other locals.
"But my girlfriend went someplace for a couple days. She either got caught with some dope or was picked up for doing something illegal. She had made a deal. She had promised to help them catch me for a lighter sentence. She had dumped all my bleach out. I had bottles of bleach to stash the dope in, in case of a raid to make it disappear. She walked into town and took my keys. I was supposed to be trapped there. But I had an extra set of keys. So I drove into town.
"This cop came toward me and said 'Come here.' I said, 'Just let me cut off my engine.' I jumped in my truck and drove off. There was a chase. I threw the drugs out. The cop blocked me off. I accidentally hit his police car. He hurt his arm. They found the drugs. I was charged with assault and bodily injury. I got four years but served two. I got high about 15 to 20 times when I was in prison."
I LOST MY TEETH AND I'M DYING OF A LIVER DISEASE
"I'm on general relief now. I lost all my teeth because of drugs. I'm supposed to get false teeth later sometime. I got hepatitis a few times from drugs and needles so now I have this liver disease. I'm weak, tired and this disease gives me sharp pains. The doctor says I am disabled from this disease. It is a virus that attacks your liver.
"I've used heroin maybe four times in the six months I've been out of prison. I'm being tested every two weeks for drugs. Tomorrow is the day. I clean up for 72 hours before the tests. I drink a lot of water for three days. It's worked so far. I haven't gotten caught. But then I'm not using like I used to. I'm playing it cool. I'm mostly using Tylenol 3, or Tylenol with codeine now, 8 to 12 tablets a day. I have a friend who gets them with a prescription for pain. I basically get them for free. What are friends for?
"I've used a little speed, but not like I used to. I can't afford it. I'm not dealing now. I've gotten very paranoid and depressed. I stay in the house. I try to stay out of trouble.
"Even if I could work and got a job, I think the parole people would go over there and ask questions and make me lose my job. The DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) would make sure I wouldn't work so I would have to go back to dealing drugs because they want to see me back in prison.
"The agency that is supposed to work with you to get you a job is a joke. The guy gives you a big speech about places you can go look for work, like Caltrans. But Caltrans isn't hiring. Even if I wasn't sick, I couldn't work. I just don't get along with people very well. I get mad easy. I don't like taking any bullshit off anybody. If anybody thinks that they're Mr. Uppity I get upset. I don't like authority figures.
"My disease makes me weak, tired, sleepy, and I'm in a lot of pain. I sleep 14 to 16 hours a day. I sleep a straight 12 hours at night; then I take a two to three hour nap during the day. If I get some speed I have a little more energy. But when I take speed, it runs me down even worse when it wears off. But then I get so tired and I'm not feeling good, so I take some speed. I can't seem to concentrate on anything anymore."
Were DEA agents determined to get Robby back in jail? - Very unlikely. We know how drugs, especially speed, create paranoia.15
NO ONE REACHING OUT FOR ROBBY
Upon release from expensive incarceration which taught Robby no new skills, parole supervision was haphazard and ineffective. The system was still failing Robby. He had been thrown out with no parachute, no meetings he had to attend, no support group, no buddy system to help him stay sober. No one had tried to change his values, teach him morality or a work ethic. He sat alone, figuring how to clean up long enough to beat his very predictable urine test every other week.
He grew more paranoid, more depressed. His drug use caused physical and psychiatric problems which were growing worse daily. His sole goal and ambition for the future was to try to prove he was totally disabled, unable to work, so he could collect social security benefits. Our failure to sober up Robby when we first had the chance about 24 years ago has cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars. The continued failure to sober Robby up will cost us many more thousands of dollars.
Ray had just gotten out of Westfork, an "honor camp" in rural San Diego County when he came to see me in 1993. While in Westfork, he had helped to build bridges and repair drainage ditches. He made fire trails and repaired roads. His sordid story is so much like many others it is not worth telling in detail. Briefly, drugs cost him two jail terms, loss of one eye and getting shot in the hand by his father. He said, "I lost interest in my family." The street/drug life proved to have much more allure than home. He had two boys in their late teens he had not seen or heard from for years. In the past 20 years he had been sober one year, the year he had just spent at the Westfork prison honor camp.
The time Ray went to jail in 1980 for four years did not interfere with his getting high on drugs as often as he wanted. He didn't do drugs in 1993 at Westfork because they did periodic urine testing inside the prison. He didn't want to come up dirty on a test and have four months tacked onto his sentence, which is what happened to several people Ray knew at Westfork who had come up dirty on their urine tests.
As soon as Ray was released he got back on cocaine. Nobody bothered him about going to treatment or taking urine tests. He had to mail in a report to a probation officer once a month.
The system failed Raoul, Ray and Robby. Raoul was lucky enough to finally get clean and sober on his own. The system consistently failed to help Robby for 34 years. Someone should have noted Robby's diet pill use at age 12 and got him help. Failing that, when he was first arrested (but didn't do any time) for stealing a car at age 18 should have been the time he was sobered up. Probation did nothing at all to impact on Ray's and Robby's use and sales of drugs, their primary life-long career. Every arrest and jail time since then, since nothing was done to keep them sober, was one more system failure.
The law was changed in 1995. It was finally recognized that less than one percent of the people who received Social Security for drug or alcohol addiction ever quit alcohol or drugs. Until the law was changed, the United States Government and the Social Security Administration were enabling many thousands to continue to abuse substances. Now, though Social Security disability benefits can no longer be awarded for being a drug addict or alcoholic, many thousands of people whose bodies and brains were destroyed by drugs and alcohol have qualified for Social Security benefits.
200 DOWN WITH ONLY 99,800 TO GO
Of the over 100,000 people locked up in California prisons in 1992, two hundred were involved in a therapeutic community treatment program at Donovan Prison in San Diego. Only 200 in the whole state were in a program that would make a difference in their drug/crime rate when they get out. Two hundred down and 99,800 to go.43
The need for a combination of programs involving inside prison job training and a Stay'n Out type in-prison drug rehab program is critical and very cheap. Such programs keep people out of jail after they are released. Combine those programs with the “Clean and Sober Forever” Program described in Chapter 11, and we will see our nationwide re-arrest rate drop to around five percent.
The “Clean and Sober Forever” Program focuses not only on what happens to prisoners after their release, but on everyone else after their first arrest which involved substance abuse in any way. This includes all the people who were drunk or loaded at the time of their arrest. This includes anyone who was caught with drugs in their possession or caught selling drugs. This includes people who didn't commit any crime except to be noticeably under the influence of an illegal substance.
JUMPING FROM TWO MILES UP WITH NO PARACHUTE
Imagine that there is a plane full of prisoners with a few guards flying at 10,000 feet and this conversation takes place:
Guard: "Okay you guys, it's time to jump."
Prisoners: "When do we put on the parachutes?"
Guard: "Sorry, guys, we had a real budget problem. We had to cut costs somewhere. There are no parachutes. But here's $200."
Prisoners: "What are we supposed to do with that?"
Guard: "Don't spend it all in one place."
This happens thousands of times every day all over America. Only it isn't an airplane they are ejected from. Thousands are released from jail or prison daily with $35 and no parachute. What can you do with $200? Can you pay first and last month's rent on an apartment and fill it with food? Can you go to school and learn a trade? Can you start a small business? No.
These prisoners are leaving 'three hots and a cot' for the unknown and that’s scary. There is something you can do to take care of that fear with the $35. That's just enough money to get drunk or high. After that, if you're lucky enough to have done something stupid while you were loaded, you may be able to get back to the security of 'three hots and a cot' right away.
There are very few programs designed to catch the prisoner on his way out the jailhouse door. It is rare that the prisoner is provided a parachute so he doesn't splatter on the concrete 10,000 feet below. Where such programs do exist they do work.
Without a parachute, the prisoner heads for the only place he knows, which is where he was before he went to jail. He goes back to his gang, his 'hood,' his old dope-using girlfriend, to his drugs and alcohol. How do they survive? They do what they did before, which usually involves drugs and crime. That's the only way they know to earn a living. In jail 85% of them were given no new social, educational, or job skills. Most of them sharpened their criminal skills in jail.
STAY'N OUT OF JAIL
A few prisoners, but less than 15%, are exposed to some kind of drug rehabilitation program in jail. A frequently quoted model is Stay'n Out, based in the New York prisons. The few lucky enough to be in that program were housed separately from other inmates. They were supervised by a staff of recovered addicts and ex-cons. Counseling, encounter sessions and group seminars were designed to build respect for authority, discipline, confidence, and self-awareness. They were assigned work in the program. Half of them continued treatment in residential programs in the community after leaving jail. Prison costs were $35,000 per inmate. Stay'n Out costs another $4,000 a year.
On follow-up, after being out three years, Stay'n Out program graduates were being arrested one-third to one-half less often than non-participants. Offenders with the most serious drug problems are each responsible for as many as 90 robberies and burglaries a year. Without treatment, nine out of ten return to crime and drugs after prison and the majority will be rearrested within three years. The threat of rearrest does not deter addicts from using drugs.
The general public's idea seems to be that if we lock up people longer, they will stop committing crimes. This is a fallacy. It is true that while they are in prison they are not doing as much robbing, stealing, killing and usually not as much drugging. But while in jail they earn their advanced C.A. (Criminal Arts) degree.133 The longer they are in the joint the less likely they are to commit crime when they get out. Right? Wrong. Whether the time served is long or short, without treatment in jail, the chances of committing more crime and going back to jail are the same.14
Anyone who thinks that the best way to keep people from committing more crimes is to keep them in jail must be willing to give up our park system, road maintenance, garbage collection, etc. It costs a lot of money to lock people up. The longer you lock them up the more it costs.
HIGH PRICED NURSING HOMES
Many of our prisons have been turned into nursing homes. Prisoners given absurdly long sentences years ago are growing old, senile and decrepit. Many of them are in wheelchairs and have Alzheimer's disease. They must be wheeled to the chow hall and are spoon fed and they don't remember their names. But we must continue to spend $30 to $70 thousand a year protecting the public from these dangerous felons. We all know what they would do if released to the outside world. Within 24 hours they will have tooled down to the nearest 7-Eleven, jumped out of their wheelchairs and pulled the heist of the century. Give me a break. Nursing homes outside of prison do not cost $30 to $70 thousand a year.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons reported on studies of its Federal Prison Industry's $343 million business that employs over one-fourth of America's 58,000 federal prisoners. Of 7,000 federal prisoners released between 1984 and 1986, the ones who were trained for jobs behind bars were more likely to work when they got out of prison. They were less likely to slide back into a life of crime.
This program in the early 1990s available to perhaps 15,000 of America's two million prisoners, and is operated only in federal prisons. Goods produced (including office furniture, gloves, optics, etc.) could be sold only to the federal government.115 By 2005 the prison population had doubled to over two million.
DISAPPEARING INTO ADDICTION
Over and over I have seen people stop cooperating with probation or parole when they were slipping back into drugs. Many prisoners show up for their tests for a couple of months after release from prison, then they "disappear" when they know they will fail their tests. Whether we are talking about ex-prisoners with a substance abuse history or people with just one substance abuse related arrest, none should be allowed to "disappear."
They must be provided with a support system consisting of a place to live, food to eat, sober buddies to guarantee their sobriety, job training and random, not predictable testing. We will know about their first slip within minutes or hours after it happens (not months or years). A series of steps will be taken to guarantee that that person is returned to and kept in the fold of sobriety. We do not need so many lost sheep. Probably 20 to 40 million Americans fit this category, though over 2 million are locked up at this time. For each one in jail, it is safe to say that another 20 are on their way to or from jail or the hell of substance abuse.
Robby could work through his authority conflicts in therapy. Robby could get over his paranoia. Robby could learn that though the world is against him and other substance abusing criminals who prey on society, it doesn't have to be that way. Robby could learn to work through the lingering pains of a childhood with a drunken, abusive father. Those were the childhood experiences that have left him resenting and fighting orders of any kind. If the “Clean and Sober Forever” Program described in Chapter 11 is implemented, these good things can and will still happen to Robby.
Robby could still become sober and stay sober. He can still use what is left of his body and mind to make whatever contributions he can to a good life for himself and to society. Without the “Clean and Sober Forever” Program, Robby, and the millions like him who were ejected from 10,000 feet with no parachute, are going to splatter on the pavement. They will go deeper into drugs. They will try to disappear. They will die early deaths. They will return to jail over and over.
It is easy to say that all Robby and the millions like him have to do is start making phone calls and going to meetings and reaching out for help. The help is there, for the persistent. But Robby and millions like him are not going to reach out for help. That is what this book is all about. We must reach out to them with the help. And when we get hold of them, we must never let go, lest they slip back into the substance abuser's hell.
THE GANG FRONT
Another major battleground for the hearts and souls of our substance abusers will be fought in the gangs. Here is Terry's story: "I got jumped into that gang three years ago, when I was twelve. I had to fight three guys to jump in. They beat me up. But I didn't feel it till the next day, because I was drunk. I had a headache and a fat lip.
"There were 150 members in that gang. They were mean and rough. They would go shoot people, jump people, drink, smoke weed, and go look for trouble. Of the 150 members, about 30 were dealing in drugs. About 75 of the 150 used cocaine. They were tweakers (heavy drug users). One guy didn't use drugs, but he drank heavy. I had to dress different to be in that gang. But it got dangerous because they got into big fights with other gangs.
"I guess I got scared when another gang drove by and shot at my house. Nobody was hurt but it could have killed my brothers or sisters or my parents. Another time a car was parked in front of my house. As I walked by they pulled out a gun and aimed it at me. I jumped into the bushes and ran up a hill.
"Most of my friends are taggers. They go around with spray paint. All this time they've been telling me, 'Don't gang bang, it's too dangerous. You'll get killed.' Finally my friends told me, 'You better decide, you have to pick: The gang or us.' By then I was scared of the gang. There's a bunch of crazy guys in that gang and they’re always looking for trouble. So about five months ago I got jumped out of that gang. This time I had to fight four guys. Getting jumped out, they beat you up even more than when you get jumped in. But I was drunk this time too. But I sure hurt the next day.
TAGGER BATTLES
"Now I'm 15 and after three years in that rough gang I'm in this tagger gang. It's a lot better and safer. There are about 100 members in our gang. We will have tagger battles. Like maybe in a one block area. We work in crews of six to ten. A crew is a smaller bunch of taggers. All 100 members of the gang out there at once would be too much. Then the tagger gang that has left the most marks gets the highest number of points and wins. The marks are like the symbols for your gang. We have judges who decide who wins.
"Sometimes there are tagger battles at different places where there is a big wall. Like if you go to the Euclid trolley station, at Euclid and Market. You walk along the trolley tracks then jump a fence. You go down about 100 feet from the trolley station and there is a half mile long wall. It is completely filled from taggers spraying it. They let you tag (spray paint) in there. The media has been there taking pictures. But don't try to go in there by yourself.
"About an hour before a big tagger battle at the trolley station wall, someone will go down and roll a big section. They paint it over with fresh white paint. Then the battle starts. And after an hour the judges decide who won. We'll paint people, dogs or clowns jumping out of a box. Some people draw in what they're going to paint with a marker pen before they start. Some just start spraying. The judges decide whose is best. Like whose looks the best, whose has less paint dripping, whose is cleaner? The group that loses has to change the name of their gang.
NO GANG BANGERS ALLOWED
"Being a tagger is a lot better and safer than being a gang banger. We have parties. But we have to be careful. Nobody knows where the party is until the last minute. First you hear that you should make a phone call to somebody. Then if that guy thinks you are okay, he'll tell you that you should go to a certain store in the big shopping mall. When you get there you'll see a couple guys standing out in front of that store. If they know you and think that you are okay, they give you the address of the party. If you look at them bad, they don't tell you. They don't like gang bangers. If gang bangers get into the party they always mess up the parties. They cause the fights. They take guns. That's why they don't let them go to the parties.
"I haven't drank anything for six weeks. Before, I was drinking three or four 40 ounce bottles of malt liquor a night. I beat up my girlfriend a few times when I was drinking. She had two black eyes. I was arrested. I was in juvenile hall for three days. Me and my girlfriend are getting along really good since I haven't been drinking. It turns out that she is pregnant. She'll be 14 when she has the baby. She wants me to quit the tagger gang. She said that we do vandalism. Some of the guys in a gang that my old gang used to fight are still looking for me. They said they want to kill me. I hope they forget about me pretty soon. My dad is still drinking."