I Apologize and I Unload

I’m at the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility (MSDF), an institution in the Wisconsin Prison System (WPS), participating in the Earned Release Program (ERP).  Today we are scheduled to take our Phase II test.  We were all hoping it would be easier than the Phase I test which had been very difficult.  But our ERP group leader Ms. Grey had already advised us not to get too worked up over the test.  I certainly didn’t.  It was again another essay test but the 5 questions were much easier including one asking how our perception of OWI crimes has changed since the beginning of the program.  At the end of the morning session, Ms. Grey asked me to stay behind as she wanted to speak to me.  It seems she had taken the time to sit down and read this blog after it had been discovered and was clearly unhappy.  The only thing she expressed dissatisfaction with was the fact I refer to her as the “ERP Group Coordinator” or as the “ERP Group Leader” in this blog.  She wanted it to point out she has 2 Social Work degrees and has the title of “Social Worker” here.  So that is put here in case any of you were under an incorrect presumption about her.  I had felt that none of this had been relevant to her character in how she interacts with us nor had I even known about her educational background until today which is why I hadn’t mentioned it.  Apologies to Ms. Grey if I have offended her.  While I’m at it, I apologize to anyone written about here, or who think a given character represents them, that are offended.  These are my impressions of what has gone on around me and the facts the way I see them.  Does it mean I dislike you, don’t think highly of the work you might do in many respects or am trying to get you?  No, of course not.  I strive to be objective but I’m also human.  Most of the time I try to let the reader draw their own conclusions but I also am allowed to use this space to vent my frustrations with prison life.  Again I stress, I am human and that can happen.  We’ve had almost 200 entries by now and if you write that much you’re going to write something people won’t like.  It would have never been an issue had not some very unprofessional people at MSDF spread the word about investigation of this blog to other staff and inmates alike.  We went 16 months undetected.  Keep in mind as well I didn’t write this with the idea that people would pierce the anonymity shell around me, that everything that happened in my past (read the first several entries in the blog) would have become common knowledge to all staff here and certainly not to be joked about by such staff.  Yes I know about that too but I’m not going to mention your name yet because at the end of the day writing this blog has done far more for me in my life than your petty, stupid, and ignorant remarks could ever do to hurt me and throwing mud would mean I lie in the same puddle of pig vomit you reside in with your life.  If you don’t understand what I’ve done here with this blog, the idea you work in corrections for the purpose of rehabilitation of inmates is frightening. 

There, thank you for allowing me to apologize and unload.  At the afternoon session, Ms. Grey gave us our Phase III badges and assigned us to read therapy projects two and three (p. 205-210) of Driving with Care:  Alcohol, Other Drugs, and Impaired Driving Offender Treatment by Wanberg, Milkman, and Timken.   These revolve around if your current work matches your job and learning to search for a job.  Apparently, other ERP programs have resources like cameras to practice interviewing, and allow inmates to go into the communities on Phase III, but not here.  So, Phase III should be interesting alone for those reasons in and of itself. 

A Guard Makes a Bad Choice

I’m at the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility (MSDF), an institution in the Wisconsin Prison System (WPS), participating in the Earned Release Program (ERP).  It was an uneventful weekend until Sunday.  I revised my goals and objectives for Phase II and am hoping they’re right this time, as well as completing the worksheet review for the movie 28 Days.  But what really got our attention was the blonde female guard who rarely works on this unit.  She had for some reason looked up the account balance of the swamper who we know is setting up my cellie Brian Whalen to be robbed when he gets out by pretending to be his friend now.  It seems this swamper has a large amount of money on his books.  This guard commended she could use ‘a loan’ and asked for his contact information which he willingly provided.  If I heard this story I wouldn’t have believed it either except I happened to be in the dayroom area when it went down. This swamper is assuming either she wants drugs, sex or both from him as he bragged on this conquest to others.  Either this guard isn’t very bright or this swamper is getting set up.  For her sake, I hope it’s the latter, because he’s not a nice guy.  Never mind the fact she’s been completely compromised in her role as a guard.  Speaking of Whalen he has lost over 50 pounds since coming to MSDF.  He’s always making proclamations how he’s going to stop eating this or that or making bets he’s going to lose a certain number of pounds. He’s betting cellie Larry Sands he’ll lose 20 lbs in the approximately 40 days he has left until graduation.  It isn’t realistic but it’s motivating to him to have this kind of thing out there.  He’s gone from 330 lbs to 280 lbs so he really has done well.  We (Sands and I) continue to discourage his involvement with this swamper in a very careful way but to no avail.  He is a people pleaser and desperately wants to be liked, as we’ve learned.  It’s kind of sad to watch.  Come Monday we were all assembled in the dayroom when we were informed our ERP group coordinator Ms. Grey wouldn’t be coming in and we were to keep working on our goals for Phase II.  Since none of us had them approved yet we had a lot of time on our hands.  While sitting in the room Whalen confided something to me that kind of made my blood run cold.  It seems the now departed former cellie Andre Charles had managed to get his sister’s address and sent her a letter saying how much he wanted to meet her.  Whalen was furious, understandably so.  I could just imagine how I’d feel if he had gotten addresses of my former stepdaughters or friends.  Fortunately all mail between the sponsors including the things you folks send me to read is done through a PO Box.  But it gave me the chills.  He threatened to go to Andre’s parole officer (PO).  I urged him to do so.  Later on,  a guard came down and shook down the cell next door where he collected a whole ton of food the swampers had swiped from the meal trays and medication from the swamper who’d been forced to move to another cell in one of their lockers.  Nothing came of it that I knew of but regular first shift guard Roscoe Peters had us all come out as if it was count and warned us to get rid of any extra food and if he finds any he’d get us kicked out of the program.  The swampers guilty of it all took a bag to collect any donations.  Not a thing was given up.  I’m sure no one was taking the threat seriously.  Anyway, we went back about our business. I just keep to myself, follow the rules and try not to let it get to me, you know?

Just A Good Old Boy

I’m at the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility (MSDF), an institution in the Wisconsin Prison System (WPS), participating in the Earned Release Program (ERP).  This morning started off with Kevin House’s autobiography. Again, his story was very general, portraying himself as the good old boy gone bad, that if he had only not drank any alcohol he wouldn’t be in prison.  Ms. Grey, our ERP Group Coordinator, questioned him extensively trying to pull specifics out of him.  At the end, not having gotten the specifics she wanted, told him he was going to have to make additions, like she had done to group member Larry Sands but he didn’t interpret it that way.  He was clearly frustrated with her as well.  After he was done and their conflict passed, Ms. Grey started in on Scott Dietz about how he might get an intervention if he didn’t clean up his attitude and temper with her  An intervention is when you are assigned extra work by the group coordinator to correct problems you might be having in the treatment process.  You are then required to disclose what has occurred at the next community meeting.  Dietz didn’t take well to this at all.  I of course for some reason raised my hand and defended him, reasoning that I had thought she was taking what he was saying personally. This was a mistake on my part and she let me know that.  Dietz had more arguments of course.  His cellies report that my suspicions that his autobiography may complain some problems as he seems to contradict himself when telling stories of his businesses and travels to them.  Obviously, he wants to impress us.  The question is why?   Ms. Grey gave him a huge book on self-esteem to work through so maybe she senses it too.  That afternoon we watched another video from Dr. Samenow.  This one dealt with the offenders crime on its victims.  I’ve been real impressed with his video series.  We shut down a little early but Ms. Grey and Larry Sands stayed behind in the group/rec room putting the posters back up that had fallen over the weekend.  They spent a good amount of time talking.  Of course we had to give him a hard time when he was done talking to her, but all meant in good fun.  He reported they’d had a good talk and came to an understanding of each other.  I hope that’s a good thing.  The next day (Wednesday) we had no program at all in the morning and in the afternoon it was group member Dean Stark’s turn to read his autobiography.  It was very general too and we were all pretty amazed Ms. Grey let it slide.  But I’m just more nervous as it’s my turn on Friday.  I’ve been very upfront about everything.  But it’ll be ok. 

Don’t Stop Believing

I’m at the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility (MSDF), an institution in the Wisconsin Prison System (WPS), participating in the Earned Release Program (ERP). Due to the snowstorm canteen got pushed back to Thursday night.  It didn’t matter to me though as I had somehow forgot to turn in my canteen order last week.  I’m the type to plan ahead so the only things I will come close to running out of were the prepaid stamped envelopes and single blade razors.  I used to think I couldn’t shave my head without my 4-blade Shick razor.   Now I can do it with a previously used disposable single blade razor.  The secret is just to take your time!  The rest of the night was pretty quiet except cellies Andre Charles and Brian Whalen arguing usually in a good natured way about who owes what to whom.   Today it was my ERP group member Scott Bunker’s turn to read his autobiography.  We were joined by intern Nikita which made all the guys happy. There were a couple of significant things I took from his story.  First, he said he had expected great things of himself as a kid and is saddened he won’t achieve it.  At the end I raised my hand and told him that he shouldn’t lose hope, that at 57, there is still time for him to do great things. I sensed in him a great despair, a beaten spirit.  I had similar thoughts when I was in Waukesha County Jail (WCJ) and occasionally as you’ve read, on this blog.  But we’re 4 months from release and if we don’t start believing now we never will.  Bunker has lost 6 1/2 years in prison to OWI offenses (he has 7) and lost his love of 26 years and another wife of 11 years due to it.  But it was clear he was still mourning the loss of his first wife not even able to look at pictures of her with her new husband or the kids with him.  I understand that pain too.  People we love move on without us and we feel the desperation in our hearts, wanting to cry out that they will wait and not forget.  In many ways, for us its like mourning the death of our loved ones or at least we think it is.  Truth is though, and as it was pointed out with Bunker, the opportunity for a relationship with them is there.  It’s just not the one we might want.  His first wife had reached out to him but he wasn’t receptive to what was offered.  That would have required him to let go of his anger and resentment.  But I think that anger and resentment was there to prevent him from feeling the pain that she is gone produces.  I so understand that.  But you may only make yourself miserable doing this.  I had to accept and extend forgiveness in order to move on.  It’s not an overnight thing or one where those feelings don’t come back some days.  But it gets easier.  I imagine it’s the same for the loved ones out of prison as they try to move on.  Anyway, Nikita struggled in asking questions but did okay.  We were done early again but this time there was no talk of real estate or such as Ms. Grey, our ERP Group Coordinator, didn’t allow it in front of the intern.  Our afternoon session began with a video called Good Intentions, Bad Choices, Overcoming Errors In Thinking featuring Stanton Samenow Ph.D by EMS Productions.  This video focused on bad intentions and choices then can be done by those newly out of prison or in recovery and unrealistic expectations.  It was far better than the video from yesterday.  We reviewed the worksheets from yesterday as well and then Ms. Grey brought in posters related to recovery or promotion of African American hero’s for ideals.  We taped them to the walls of the rec room that doubles as our group room.  It would have been pretty funny to watch all of us along with Ms. Grey and Nikita, none of us really knew for sure if any of this will actually stick to the wall.  But we’ll see.  We have this thing where we end each group day with reciting the mission statement I had written. In the confusion it’d been forgotten.  Group member Mark Hogan prevailed upon Ms. Grey to pull us all back together so we could do just that.   We were all still smiling as we finished and wished Ms. Grey and Nikita a good weekend.

I Love You But I’m Not Your Hostage

I’m at the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility (MSDF), an institution in the Wisconsin Prison System (WPS), participating in the Earned Release Program (ERP). To start off with I wanted to mention these entries may seem different to you than in the past.  The entries are shorter and I don’t engage in much reflection or commentary like I used to.  Basically its because I don’t have as much time as I used to with all the ERP work I have now.  So please bear with me.  Anyway, our ERP group started with the final 2 videos from The Price of Freedom Is Living Free by Jack D. Cooper.  It dealt with our resistance to change, responsibility, irresponsibility, respect and disrespect.  Cooper’s video and workbook thus far are by far the best I’ve seen so far despite the age (one of the main characters sports a mullet if that gives you any idea).  Ms. Grey, our ERP Group Coordinator, I think has taken advantage of my inquisitive nature I think as it seems to jump start group discussions. She’ll challenge me on something and that gets the group discussion going. I am probably more willing than some to engage her in the discussion that some others.  Today her challenge was that I was playing the role of victim by not being willing to challenge my ex-wife and daughters on decisions they made.  If you’ve been following along you know that situation was a difficult one.  I’d learned to pick my battles and by the end I was fighting for my own survival.  But its another example of things I’ve realized on my own while blogging before I got here.  I’ve got to respect and care for myself first before anything else will work.  LOL.. I should have written a book instead of blogging – as if anyone would have wanted it.  But I’m beginning to understand this groups dynamics.  Just cause I’m called out, its not personal and might be done for other people’s benefits too.  After group, I got the poster ready  with my quote for the community meeting next Wednesday.  It reads “I Love You But I’m Not Your Hostage”.  I came up with that earlier when I was realizing I really had no right to be angry with those that claimed to love me yet might seem to have forgotten me, deserted me or not done what I wanted them to do.  And of course, the idea that when I got out, I’d “punish” them by cutting them off somehow would follow.  But the point is, that’s not love, that’s blackmail and it’s a continuation of the same kind of manipulation I practiced in my relationships prior to prison.  As soon as the quote went up, people started approaching me about the quotes meaning.  Some agreed, some didn’t.  It’ll be an interesting meeting next week.  After supper, cellie Malik Pearl, appeared and announced he was out of here.  It seems that dispute between the cellies next door I told you about had gotten so bad and they decided to move the instigator and Malik asked to move.  We’ve all been getting along so his timing is curious but I certainly don’t blame him.  The guys there are friends of his and lets face it, its just a matter of time before cellie Andre Charles blows again.  But for now our cell has gotten really quiet and peaceful.  I’m going to ride that wave while it lasts!

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The Six Million Dollar Man

I’m at the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility (MSDF), an institution in the Wisconsin Prison System (WPS), participating in the Earned Release Program (ERP). Yesterday was a “Training Day”.  We have no idea what our ERP Coordinators were doing.  In the morning we started on our own and in the afternoon we watched a video called Alibi vs. Denial by Delbert Boone.  It was ok.  I still think if your making excuses so you can drink, you are in denial.  But really this is word play.  If I’m drinking, it doesn’t’ matter what I call it.  It’s death in the bottle.  We wrapped up.  Today was a little more eventful.  We watched videos that support “The Price of Freedom is Living Free” by Jack D. Cooper.  They were ok.  At one point the group went around the room and identified a childhood hero.  Mine was the Six Million Dollar Man, Lt. Col. Steve Austin.  Ms. Grey, our group coordinator, pushed me to see that I like him because of my desire to exert control over my life as I felt powerless over what was happening.  I wonder if this is the right place to do this.  I also found out the room next door to us the guys there are all ready to fight each other, making the problems in my cell look like child’s play. I’ve never been in a drug and alcohol rehab before but its kind of an interesting environment for it.  Afterwards we had our community meeting.  It’s a pretty slow day too.  Obviously, I’m not here for the pleasant environment but to learn.  I’ll continue to take what I can from this experience and try to grasp all of this.  Next week I was assigned the quote to share for the community meeting.  It’ll be “I love you but I’m not your hostage”, from yours truly.  I’ll explain what I mean then.  Off to our best meal of the week, Pizza!

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Getting Caught Up

I’m at the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility (MSDF), an institution in the Wisconsin Prison System (WPS), participating in the Earned Release Program (ERP). I haven’t written in about a week because I wanted to focus on getting my autobiography done.  Yes, it’s done.  Thirty pages it took and I was extremely detailed particularly in my early life not just the broad strokes I gave you.  I’m sure I’m going to get a lot of strange looks and treatment from some group members but I feel its important I be honest.  To get you caught up on what is going on, we lost the dryer on our unit for several das.  We had to use the washer for our clothes and then hang them in our cells, from the bunks, TV stands and such making the cell block look like a homeless camp with the smell of mildew in the air.  Those that work out a lot had the worst of the situation.  I had an interesting encounter.  I had my laundry bag lined up in order to get washed.  But the swampers in cahoots with my neighboring cell pushed their bags in front of min, claiming that 2nd shift guard Ruth Bartowski had told them to do so and she was going to take these folks over to the other cell bock where there was a working dryer which in fact she did.  Why Bartowski did this is unknown to me.  The fact all those guys were black and led some to conclude they felt they could do this to me (step in front of me) was because “I wasn’t tan enough.  The only problem with that is Bartowski is white.  But as I’ve said, this place is far more open about racial prejudice than anywhere I’ve been.  But I’m 20 weeks from release.  No way I screw it up over something like this.  In my ERP group, I got jumped on by group members Larry Sands and Scott Dietz for wanting “to fix people” especially in regards to my conflicts I’ve had with Andre Charles.  It is true people find me easy to talk to and some say, including Andre, think I help them.  I wish I knew a way to make it my life’s work.  But its clear to me that they have no idea what it is like to live with him.  By the time it was over, Sands and I were yelling at each other.  Russ Johnson, who has taken his turn as group leader and is experienced at treatment says this is typical of treatment group sessions.  They did ask me one important question.  Where did this need to fix people come from?  Was it because I couldn’t save my biological mother or even my biological father or others who suffered?  The other accusation was I manipulate people by helping them to my viewpoint or desired action.  I suppose to a degree it’s true.  Ms. Grey, ERP Group Coordinator, handed out a track called “King Baby” by Hazelden that seems to point to that (it’s an excellent read by the way) along with many other personality types.  But its something to consider.  We finished up through Chapter 8 of “Houses of Healing” book and read letters we wrote to our inner child.  In general they were, including mine, well pretty general.  But that’s ok.  We also watched a movie called “Antwone Fisher” starring Denzel Washington that was quite good.  Everyone in my cell is getting along.  Nothing has changed on where I’m going when I get out.  I still don’t know.  But I got an interesting letter.  My sponsors monitor my email and relatives of my biological father have made contact.  I had had out feelers for years on ancestry.com and they finally found them.  I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet.  It’s not as simple an answer as you might think.

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The Inner Child Blues

I’m at the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility (MSDF), an institution in the Wisconsin Prison System (WPS), participating in the Earned Release Program (ERP).  Cellie Andre Charles must have woke up on the wrong side of the bed.  But his demands of cellie Malik Pearl who is on the upper bunk above him, are just crazy.  He wants him to put a chair by the bunk so when he hops down he won’t wake him.  This is prison, not a for your comfort hotel.  Besides those of us on top bunk deal with that whole inconvenience! 🙂  But Malik said he wasn’t going to do it anymore because it isn’t all about him.  Andre thought I put that in his head.  He was right!  But one thing led to another and Andre threatened him.  Malik was clearly ready to go.  Andre back down.  Malik went to guard Roscoe Peters and told him who referred him to his ERP coordinator.  Even cellie Brian Whalen was on board this time.  Because it was guard training day there were no ERP program activities this morning.  Instead we cleaned the unit.  The afternoon session was interesting.  First, we got a new book.  It’s title “Driving With Care: Alcohol, Other Drugs, and Impaired Driving Offender Treatment” by Kenneth W. Wanberg, Harvey B. Milkman and David S. Tinken.  What’s with the long titles anyway?  But we didn’t open it.  Instead we delved into the third House of Healing video (Ms. Grey skipped the second) by Robin Casarjian concerning not letting people hit your emotional triggers.  Then we went into the follow up on the inner child healing assignments from yesterday.  Larry Sands talked about how his failures to deal with his father’s suicide affected him.  Jeff Dietz talked about how his father beat him in front of family after he’d been drinking which was often.  Augie Prescott expressed disdain for the whole idea of inner child damage.  I wondered aloud if my inner child was dead.  Mark Hogan made fun of those who suffer from Post Traumatic Delayed Stress Disorder (PTSD). I must have been clearly drifting in all this as Ms. Grey called on me in front of everyone and asked me what was on my mind.  After a couple of minutes of dodging, I told the group I had PTSD and I’m trying to fit together the concept of inner child damage and PTSD.  I wasn’t very eloquent in how I said it.  Most of these guys knew all the right words and I feel very far behind and they are so much further in their autobiography than I (I’m up to age 8 and meeting my adoptive parents – 12 pages) than I.  But in the last 12 months on this blog I’ve written about acceptance of my past and how I used drinking to mask it.  So I’m wondering if I was doing the same thing just not aware of it.  Tonight’s assignment is to write a letter to the inner child.  This is quite difficult.  But I’ll do my best.  After I got back to my cell, Malik told me his ERP  Coordinator would be meeting with all of us about Andre tomorrow.  So it continues…….

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Opening a Can of Worms

I’m at the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility (MSDF), an institution in the Wisconsin Prison System (WPS), participating in the Earned Release Program (ERP).  I started out the morning working on my autobiography, getting up to the point of my arrival in Wisconsin, separation from my biological mother, and living with my foster parents in Waupaca, WI.  Ms. Grey, our ERP coordinator, arrived and had us assemble in our group room.  She introduced another thing to do to begin our group.  She played a recording from India Arie off the CD Testimony Vol 1 Life and Relationships that sang the Serenity prayer. It had an African type beat.  We then did our breathing exercises.  Then we went over the last part of orientation workbook explaining what we’d come to learn.  Surprisingly, I’ve been quite vocal in group.  She asked for more reflection on the quantum discussion.  I rendered my opinion, she was not so concerned with getting us to change the world around us but to be open minded enough about alternative ideas.  I could tell Ms. Grey was disappointed not a one of us seemed more open to the specific ideals she had presented.  We then moved onto a group reading of Chapters 1-2 of Houses of healing.  We ended the day with being assigned Chapters 3, “The Long and Winding Road; From Childhood to Prison” and Chapter 4, “The Fallout from Childhood Wounding…. and How to Start Recovery”.  Chapter 3 deals largely with inner child issues and Chapter 4 deals with more of the same issues.  We were suppose to do the “Pause and Reflect” sections but mostly dealt with imaging things as opposed to writing things down.  We called an impromptu meeting without the group leader and all decided we’d put nothing on paper as it wasn’t asked for.  But yet I know I need this stuff, but not a thing we’re going to spend a day or two on.  It’ll open a huge can of worms and I’m not sure its safe to do that here.  But lets just see what happens. 

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What the Bleep Do We Know?

I’m a the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility (MSDF), an institution in the Wisconsin Prison System (WPS), participating in the Earned Release Program (ERP).  The Cold war has begun between cellie Andre Charles, his ally cellie Brian Whalen, cellie Malik Pearl and myself.  So silence reigns our cell now.  And guess what?  I like it that way!  The next day, normally between 8 and 9 am, we can study our ERP materials in our own cells.  But not the last two days.  With Ms. Grey, the ERP Coordinator, gone all week, the structure of our ERP group has kind of broken down.  Ok, I admit to being a bit of a routine guy, and disruptions can throw me off my game.  But inmate Larry Sands who had been appointed our ERP group leader had assembled us to watch the video Ms. Grey had assigned this morning called “What the Bleep Do We Know”.  It was one of the strangest things I’ve seen for a self help video.  It dealt with the idea that there is an universal observer that appears to be their version of God.  I wrote down a quote which was interesting.  It was “the height of arrogance is the height of control who create God in their own image”.  At another point it was stated the idea that us mere carbon based life forms could somehow influence an almighty being was ludicrous.  Our oldest group member, named Mark Hogan, just couldn’t contain himself throughout.  He is in his seventies and looks like the old drunk that hangs out in a bar at two in the afternoon, but he has a heck of a wit.  So too was it the same with Dean Stark and another group member, Russ Johnson, who is extremely knowledgeable on this treatment stuff.  He tells me he’s been to Hazelden and other famous programs.  I wish I had his knowledge.   He often gets fired up and tries to intimidate others by his physical presence if you do something he doesn’t like and is very confident in his own knowledge and you could say he likes himself.  But like I said I wish I knew all he knows.  After lunch we returned to the video room to watch “Portrait of Addiction” by Bill Moyer.  Unfortunately Sands nor any of us could get the DVD to work without the remote which was missing.  So we had to abandon the effort after an hour.  I really think Sands has done a fine job considering the situation.  I continued to work on my autobiography, ending with an interesting life!  But nobody got much done.  My favorite guard, Ruth Bartkowski, was on duty and really with everyone on vacation she and other guard don’t know what to do.  I did share the first pages of my autobiography with John Lloyd, whom I’ve come to trust a bit, in order to gage his reaction and get his opinion on this being read to the group.  He was clearly shaken but felt it would be okay to share.  But really, I’m an idiot.  If he said don’t do it, I still would have had to.  So why bother asking the question?  Supper was the most awful – Chili Mac casserole.  But its okay.  I’m okay with things so far.

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