Solum Community Transformation Initiative

Life with meth is a mess. For 14 years, I cooked, sold, and did meth. My brain was a fried egg with sizzling bacon on the side. Then I got into this parole workshop on thinking. I can’t write my thoughts they are so jumbled, but I am learning to organized my responses to life. For most of my life, I have been extremely violent. In high school, I carried a gun and pulled it every once in a while. My dad was hard and abusive and I hate him, even today. But that is gone. It isn’t that I don’t have the same problems, but I handle them differently and they don’t throw my life out of whack anymore. And I’m a dad. I love my daughter and am giving her what I never had. Her mom and mom’s partner fight me every step of the way, but I am determined to be a good dad. It’s been six years since I took that first workshop. Now it has been four years that I have been helping others by attending and helping the facilitator. My life is one of serving and my thinking is clear. I have a good job, a fun daughter, and a great future.

As a child, my stepfather abused me for years. Mom never listened. He still hangs around even though I am an adult. I wonder how many he has abused like me. How many has he robbed of sexual innocence and filled with terror? This probation workshop is a Godsend. Why am I on probation? My boyfriend got in trouble and I just tried to help. But the police took me to jail with him. But, here I am learning stuff I never knew and glad for it. Talking to the facilitator is gut wrenching. All the pain and grief of many years is overflowing and somehow, I am able to tell him what I’ve told no one else. I want my new child safe from all this and don’t’ know how. Here I am spilling the story in hopes of a better one for her and me. Now, I know I can build a better life forward. I can write a new life story with new skills, release from years of pain and silent sorrow. I can do this, I know I can.

County jail is not a pleasant place. Here I am again imprisoned in a pod. Screaming women 24/7 locked in the same pain surround me. Across the glass is a face I don’t recognize. The guard summoned me to this hard, cold visiting chamber blocked by cinder block and glass with only drilled holes to hear and be heard. And there is this face on the other side. Then he speaks. I know that voice. He is the one my mom listens to in the mornings for devotions and encouragement. I’ve heard him many times and the words have pierced my pain. Here he is looking at me with a warming smile. How is this possible? How can hope find me in such a desperate situation? Over the weeks and months, we meet again and again. The studies I receive give me something to work during the week. After a few weeks, I am sharing the studies with others in my pod. They calm. The screaming stops inside me and inside the pod. Once I finish the full study sessions, something wonderful happens. The judge offers me a one year spot in a recovery prison to get my stuff together. I’m going to do that.