The Range War Between Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous – Tom I.

Well, good morning, folks, and it's nice to see you. I'm Tom Ivester, an alcoholic, a member of the Primary Purpose Group of AA in Southern Pines, North Carolina. And I'm going to be mobile because I've noticed that when I speak to a group, sometimes they start throwing stuff, and I want to be quick on my feet so I can get out of the way. I'm glad to see you. This is going to be a challenge to do. Ron, this one, said he didn't want me to do much, just tell about my early birth and development and about my alcoholism and every kind of pickle I ever got into, about my history as an inmate in a system, about my recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous, about my professional career in corrections, and now about my quite active career in retirement, which would be hard to detect. So now I can do all that, no problem. We're starting a little late, but we will end on time. They've already told me that it would be severe punishment if we went one minute past 1030. So we're going to quit. I tell you what I'd like to do, and of course I'm going to honor what my host asked me to do. But I wanted to get loose not only to be mobile, but also because I'd like to get as interactive as we can. And I'm not going to be highly organized. I'll do what Ron asked me. I'm gonna do it quick. And then I really would just like to just talk with you about stuff that that we're both concerned about, about the work that we try to do in corrections, about some of the frustrations and exasperations that we feel. So I'd really like to get into some interactive stuff if I could. I wanted to be mobile because they're taping, and sometimes that's the bad news because you're chained to a podium. And so when you try to get interactive, you get answers on the microphone to no questions. And it is maddening when you're listening to a tape and you hear pointless answers and try to figure out what the question was. So with that kind of an introduction, feel free to jump in any time. And you're not going to interrupt me because I don't know, well, I do know essentially where I'm going, but I'm hard to get off track. I mean, I'll pick up and you probably won't even know I don't remember where I left off. So I'll just sort of wing it through there. So jump in any time you like if there's anything you'd just like to ask about. I always promise time at the end, and it's always a lie. So just jump in when you're ready. Let me tell you about that career. I'm a fairly typical alcoholic. I was one of those guys that was a chaotic type of case that got in trouble with booze right off the bat. And I was just one of those train wreck type of folks that just rushed through life, screwing up everything he came in contact with. Jail a lot, all kinds of stuff. And I wasn't particularly a criminal on some predatory career. I was juste a guy, an alcoholic with an awful lot of disregard for convention and decorum. I just crashed through a lot of stuff And I was one of those who, unfortunately, in my blundering through white life, wound up doing extremely, extremely serious damage to other folk. I was unof those like most, I'm sure most of you have lived with the haunting notion that you might wind up doing something unfixable in the pursuit of things, and I was on of those that did. that I came to in jail one time, greeted with the fact that the night before, driving down the main street of a city, had run down and killed two people. And so even that wasn't an end for me. I thought surely I would never drink again. I was drunk the next day after I got out of jail. And I was charged with manslaughter, wound up getting sentenced in November of 56 to five to 15 years Michigan State Penitentiary. And so far, so good. You can tell I'm on a roll, you know, that things are really working well. And I walked into that penitentiary absolutely convinced that I would never come out of there, and I truly believed that and truly didn't care. I mean, I was just done. I was so full of guilt and remorse and shame and you name it that I could not, I didn't even try to conceptualize a future, much less have any notion of one. And so it was over for me. And I'm sure it would have been over except for the intervention of some folks. There was a staff member at that prison interviewed me one day and made the first suggestion I'd ever heard about dealing with a problem I didn't even believe I had. I didn'T think I was alcoholic. I thought I was a real guy with a tremendous amount of potential on the way to fame and fortune, but I wasn't acting like it. And so all the people who had ever interacted with me about that thing always would carry on about how serious the problem was, but I never heard anything about a solution. And in that prison, I was interviewed that day by a little social worker, became the first human who ever suggested to me that there was a way out. And all he said was, you've had a lot of trouble with booze. And I said, yep. And then he said, I think you ought to go to AA. Just as conversational as let's go to lunch, you know. And that was the first invitation I had ever heard to anything that even rhymed with helping an alcoholic, and I've never looked back. Responded to the first invite I'd ever heard. And they walked into my first meeting in February of 57, and I'm skipping through some careers real quick because I do want to visit with you about stuff. I was extremely fortunate. I was in the maximum custody penitentiary in the state of Michigan and never got out of it, you know. And I didn't think I was all that dangerous. They didn't take me for granted. They didn' t think I wasn't all that dangerous. I was just goofy. And I guess they thought and probably do if I ever got into any kind of a loose structure I'd be gone. I really don't think so but it doesn't matter. I stayed in Mac's the whole time I was there. And I walked into my first AA meeting on the 2nd of February, 1957, not believing I was an alcoholic, knowing that I was totally unworthy, felt ashamed to be in any place where folks are talking about hope and help because I'd committed a crime so horrible that there's no suitable punishment for it. It's pretty hard to feel any sense of hope or worth when you've got that frame of mind. And so that's who walked into AA. And there were a number of things that were tremendously important to me, and I'll just glide through this quick, that the group I walked into, the recovery group at Jackson, when I was in it was as fine an AA group as I've ever seen. And I mean that literally. not the finest institutional group, the finest group that I've seen. And I am so thankful for that because it was a well-ordered group. It was very purposeful, the guys in there. I mean, we weren't all Bill Wilsons, you know, but it was a bunch of guys trying, and you had a lot of spectators, but there was a core group of people who were serious as a heart attack about AA. And so I was introduced to the program in a very logical, thoughtful way by other guys in the group, other inmates. And all they had to offer was the experience they'd had. You know, they had learned a little something, they'd have some experience, and then they shared it. And I became one of those guys. Later on I became someone who was doing that. And it was just a service ethic within that group, just like any place where you've got a successful deal. And I'm so thankful for that group. The outside people who came in, and I know that most of you are people who have occasion to go into institutions, and you just never know whether you're being helpful or not. I'll give you just one little clue, that it's not always the guy that's standing in your face grinning that you may be having the most impact on. I was in the program for over a year before I ever spoke to an outsider. Couldn't, couldn't. just couldn't suck it up enough to go. I'd sit back there and almost cry with gratitude, but it took me that long to be able to walk up to somebody. So it's not always the guy that's standing in front of you that you may be getting to. So it was a good group. And then the outsiders who came in were just an absolute lifeline to me. The guy who spoke at my first meeting was tremendously important in my going to my second meeting. Not because of anything he said, not because of any real power of example that I identified with. No. The only thing that brought me back to my 2nd meeting was that magnetic spirit of enthusiasm that was that guy's life. He became my first sponsor, but not that day. The first day I met him, I didn't identify with one syllable of one word that he said. It was different for me than anybody I've ever seen, a little old short plug-ugly guy, third-grade education. And I mean a junkyard dog. I swear he was just an awful dude. He'd been a professional boxer and apparently a poor one. He was one beat-up dude. What a great guy, though. So he was the delegate for the state of Michigan the day I met him. I thought he was on the run from a goonie roost somewhere. I could have heard, why in the world was he there? You know, I mean, why would you get up in front of 300 crazy-looking convicts and tell some god-awful story like that? It made no sense to me. But I found myself back, and so I got deeply involved in that group over time. Got into the steps, got into the program. I became a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, sure enough, sure enough. And I'll tell you this just to sort of gloss it over real big time. When I got into this program and practiced these principles as a way of life in a maximum custody penitentiary, there is no gift that comes from that that was not mine. I've never been rewarded more richly in my life than i was there because i was able to get turned on to living i got uh you know some alcoholics it's not it'snot across the board but many of us you don't have to say giddy up to us you know once we get sober that same compulsive drive that went into the drinking just switches over and i was the same way i mean and so i dug in i finished two years at michigan state while i was coming off speed it made me a real good student i could read a book in 30 minutes And so I got turned on to living and got extremely active in AA. Started groups. Started one in the mental health ward, I remember well. It was an interesting group. Usually have 10 meetings going on at the same time, you know, whatever they were doing. It was zany. But I'll guarantee you I was growing in the process. Who knows? Somebody else may get struck sane or something. I don't know. We were doing it. TB ward, a strange-looking thing in a maximum custody penitentiary. Back when TB patients wore those masks, it always struck me so odd that you're sitting in a penitentiary with a mask on. I'm glad you made it. I am so. What are you going to do? Oh, jeez. You worried me here. That man was sneaking up on me. Well, if you've ever done time, you don't get too comfortable with people getting around behind you. But it was happening. It was going on, and that's – I tell you, if there's just some way to cut through and help guys see that it really is possible to take on a new life while you're living in impossible conditions, man, the work would be easy. It'd be real easy. And so when I – I tell ya, I think the most telling thing, if there's ever been a guy in prison that hated it any more than me, I'd like to meet him. I mean, I despised every second that I lived in that place. I didn't think about it much because the good thing about the program, it'll raise you above that and you can operate with some dignity. But I hated that with a purple passion. and when the time came that I was going to be paroled I found myself thinking the night before when I'm packing my little cigar box you know getting ready to leave I need about two more days if I could just stay a couple more days I could get some stuff done and I'm trying to get done and I didn't tell anybody that you can hurry up and believe that I didn' t whisper I wouldn' t have stayed one second But isn't that great when you can get liberated to that point, that even under those conditions, there was stuff to do. Life was exciting. And so when I hit straight, now interrupt me any time if you want to, even in this, when I hits a straight, I was well prepared. Transition is an easy thing if you know what you're doing. if you're solid in the program. I had my arrangements made a year before I got out, and so when I hit the street, I violated parole the first time. They told me the first thing I was to do was report to the parole officer. They paroled me from Michigan to North Carolina to get rid of me, and they told me the first things I was going to do was to get off the bus, go to the patrol office, which was straight across the street and I didn't do it. I stepped into a phone booth, called the contact in AA, an old guy that became a dear friend. I didn't know anybody. It was just a name that I had. We had written to the group a year before I got out and made the contact. So it was easy. It was real easy. I knew what I was going to do before I hit the street. I wasn't standing there trying to scratch my head and figure out what to do. I knew What I Was Going To Do, so it was just A Matter of Executing. And got going. Had a lousy job, but it was a job. It wasn't much better than what I had in prison. I was a barber in there, and I wasn't much of one. I cut a guy's ear off. Well, not the whole ear now. It was just the top of it. I didn't think it was any big deal. He got a little upset about it. But I wasn' t a great barber. But it was a good job. Barber is the richest guy in the joint except the dealers. And so I had that job. I was sweeping the floor in a mill, a cotton mill. on the night shift, 10 at night to 6 in the morning. And that's a lousy job. That's one of the worst jobs I ever had in my life. But I was so grateful, absolutely so grateful that I was almost dangerous sweeping that floor. Man, I just absolutely knocked people out of the way. I'm just sweeping that thing. And I appreciate it. Stayed with it two years. I mean, I had some opportunity. I had Some people try to offer me some jobs. But I knew if I got in the fast lane too quick, that might be a little testy. I don't know. When I'd left prison, I had burned deep into my soul, I'll never go through that again, never go Through it again. And what I meant was that I'll do whatever it takes, including sweeping that floor. Yeah, nasty job. i wouldn't take it because i felt like i needed that solidity that structure you know and and there was no challenge to that that was as close to a no-brainer as you could get and if i got out into some slick quick sales work or something like that it would have been a little risky and i didn't want i didn'T want any risk uh did that for two years and uh the the first the second week i was out uh some guys asked me to go over to local prison with me it's prison just a few miles from my house and i said man they're not gonna let me in a prison i just got out of one then they said oh yeah it'd be okay certainly was a simpler day back then but two weeks after i'm out i'm in uh looking like a trusted servant you know but i mean i'm just a scared dude and i was just there because the guy said it's okay and i walked in two months after i was out i was named outside sponsor of that and and uh tremendous affirmation i guess you'd call it. What a tremendous affirmation to be a trusted servant for real and a leader in something that I would have never imagined anything like that. A number of drivers were licensed back. I was to never drive an automobile again for obvious reasons. Two months after I was out, the parole supervisor said you ought to take a look at that and my license was restored. I had absolutely nothing to do with it. Yeah, amazing. My fervent belief is that when God's got work for us to do, walls come down. And I don't care what they are, they come down, got real active in service and have been that way ever since. You know, I'm not an institutional tunnel vision guy. Now, that's my basic commitment. That's my strongest commitment. But I'm committed to Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole. I don't think corrections is any better than the fabric we're part of, and so I'm concerned about everything in our program. I'm involved in every aspect of service. I'm not a one-dimensional type of fellow, and I think that's important. I was DCM five months after I was out. I was TCM in my region there. And two years after I was out sitting at home one day minding my own business, I got a phone call from the state capitol. And normally when a guy like me gets a call from a capitol, you better duck, you know. That's bad. They don't normally call me to come get me. But that time it was a different call. A fellow on the phone I'd met once, he came to the group that I sponsored in that prison and visited a bit. and uh yeah we didn't visit he just told me who he was we had visited when he came to the unit told me he was and then he said he said call me mr ivester he said we're expanding the rehabilitation program in our prison system and we were wondering if you would consider accepting a position and i guess it's a natural reflex i said do you know who you're talking to And he said, oh, yeah, we've checked you out. Well, obviously they had, but at that time, that would be a little sort of eyebrow-raising today. When that phone call was made, there had never been an ex-con in history hired into anything like that, and I knew they weren't going to start with me, but by golly, they did. and I was employed in 61 as a rehabilitation officer, they called it. That was way back. Richard, you remember these days. It was wagon train days. They were just starting rehabilitation. Yeah, it was just a good idea that somebody had. And rather than having staff to do program work and all that in facilities, it was like missionary work. So what they had, they were putting a little nucleus of guys and people to go out and go to different units and try to start something. Well, I was always good at starting something. It was usually bad news, but I could start something in a heartbeat. And so maybe that's why they wanted me. But anyway, I went to work. And so my job was to go outside and go out all over that system. We had 92 prisons in North Carolina the day I went into work. and uh my job was to get something going in as many of them as i could uh shoot man i had no earthly idea how to travel when i traveled i'd pack up it looked like pack mules man i'd have my car loaded down i could i didn't know when i'd get back i mean i'm just going out and i may never get back but it was a a real hoot i'll tell you one thing that It never will cease to amaze me that from the day I went to work to the day I left, not one single person ever discussed my history. Not a one. Yeah, I thought surely I'm the first guy on the planet to do something like this. I thought certainly somebody would say, boy, do you know what a chance we've taken with you? Do you realize what a weight you've got on your shoulders here? Don't you screw this thing up. Not a soul. I wasn't even sure sometimes whether they knew, but obviously they did. And part of that was the reason that, you know, I had a decision to make. I could have been some glorified hoodlum hero if I wanted to, obviously. Could have made every rag in the country if I'd have wanted to go that route. Could have played up the notoriety of an ex-con now being an official in a prison. But, you know, our traditions were my guide. There was nobody to talk shop with. When you're the only one on the planet, who do you talk to? And so traditions were My Lifesaver. They were the things that helped me get the balance, helped me understand if I'm going to take money to do a job, then I'm a professional. And there's no debate about that. That's just the way it is. I can kid myself if I want to, but that's the bottom line. And so I saw pretty quickly that things settled in that, you know, I was going to have to be the man. I could be a good man, but I had to bethe man. Couldn't work both sides of the street. So I took my place in there and started to do my work in a professional manner. I don't know that I ever – well, I never wanted to become the conventional prototype corrections guy. one of the things I wanted to do was to maintain my creativity and my individuality and for some reason I had it in my mind I never wanted to take on a prison mentality I hadn't when I was in one and you can do it just as easily when you're running one and I never wanting to take own a prison mentality so that I had this confined way of approaching life and so anyway The kind of stuff that I had to think through. Went to work, worked hard. I tell you in all honesty, I'm the kind of guy that I treasured hiring. I'm a good employee. I'm good when I don't get paid. I am totally unemployed and everything I do now is for free and for fun. But God, I wish I could hire somebody like me because I'm, I're a worker. Yeah, I might work here. I'm going to do something. I'm gonna make it happen. And so that's the way I approached my career. My career took off pretty quick. I was so ignorant. First time I ever heard anybody mention a workshop, I didn't know what they were talking about. I thought, what the devil are they gonna build? You know, I'm not gonna ask that obviously dumb question. The first workshop I would do, I didn'T know what we're gonna do. So I knew it'd get dirtier. it might have I started feeling a little remiss because I didn't have my credentials in order so I got an opportunity to go back to college and so I finished up in correctional administration I don't know, it just seemed appropriate to have a resume that matched my track but my resume followed my career, it didn't precede it. I was never hired for any job because I had sterling credentials that they just yearned for It was because of what I did. So I started getting yanked into, not yank, but invited into supervision, sometimes with pressure, moved into supervision. Then into management, started directing programs. And then one day the head of our system asked me to stop by and asked me if I'd take over an institution as warden. and I'll guarantee you of all the fantasies or pipe dreams or whatever that a guy in a joint has that one is one that never comes up and even though I'm in the system I still found it impossible to comprehend as far as I know I remain the only one I've ever known that has served as a warden who served some time, if there may be one. I knew one guy in Georgia that was a county. He ran a county operation. But anyway, I moved into that. In some ways it's a terrible job, but it's an extremely powerful job. It's a very powerful job, and the reason I took it was because perhaps with some influence and some ability to make things happen, and I might be able to do stuff, and that proved to be the case. I became the go-to guy in our system. If you wanted to do something new and bold and get out of the box, get Ivester. And so that became my pattern. I was a guy who opened new facilities and did stuff and had a marvelous time. And I got ready to retire. Oh, I wasn't ready, but I just was going to do it because time was up. If I'd have stayed a warden, I would have retired on schedule. But before I retired, folks came to me and said they'd like for me to set up an alcohol and drug program before I left. Well, I'd never done anything like that. I mean, I've never even been in a program. But they asked me to setup one up, and so I said, well, that makes some sense. I think I'll do it. And so I did. that were able to set up an excellent program in the state of North Carolina that at one time provided continuity, what do you call it, continuing care in every unit in the system. And that was a phenomenal thing, great experience. We called it DART. When we started it up, if I'd have taken the language that was in vogue at the time, it would have been substance abuse program, whatever that means. and the acronym would have been SAP, S-A-P. I said, there ain't no way. I am not going to be the man for SAP. So we named it DART because it's Drug Alcohol Recovery Treatment but it had some energy to it and some life to it and had a positive tilt to it. And so that's what we did. And finally I wound up my career with 39 years in service and went out. And then the day I retired, the next day, I was the area chair for corrections. I'd already been elected before I got retired, and so it was a very short retirement. And so I hit the ground running. And so for the last few years, that's what I've been doing. I'm not the area chairman now, but I'm still heavily involved in that and everything in our structure. I won't go into a whole bunch of it but I had a lot of concerns about AA and corrections that it's a tough deal I was concerned that we so often operated at the bottom of the pond we operated at the bottom of the food chain and we'd go to the lowest ranking member of the organization and apologize for bothering them and so I really wanted to upgrade our level of communication and so we work toward establishing good working business-like relationships with our system from top to bottom and you can bet if you go to North Carolina if you talk to the director of prisons you can have a nice long conversation with him about a in prisons because we did that we got that dialogue going every warden in our state is affected by by what we try to get done there. We were able to get a completely, in fact at their suggestion after we looked at some problems, at their suggestions we were able to get an entirely new policy developed specific to AA in order to better facilitate the work and I would well I don't know, I might have been bold enough to do it but I'm just thankful that they did it And then the unbelievable thing to me is that they invited me and two or three, I could bring two or three other people, private citizens to go in and help develop the policy. That's unheard of. That's Unheard Of. But right, in fact, I've got a copy of it with me. If anybody wants to look at it, I'll leave it. Who's the rich person? Ron, are you the rich guy? I'll, I, I leave that with If you want to get copies of it, I'll leave it with Ron because he's got a lot of money. He won't spend any. You should have seen where we had lunch yesterday. I won't even describe it. It cost about $1.29 for both of us. But we had a great time. I won' t leave it here because I know you've got all that money. And if you want to take a look, feel free. In my humble opinion, it's the best policy in the entire world in terms of good, open, free access to institutions and a very unintrusive kind of a process that's excellent. So you're welcome to take another look. Now let's talk a little. I've been going hard here. And let's talk a little on just anything that's a concern that you worry about that you'd just like to go ahead. Wait a minute. I forgot about this. You've got to talk in the horn. Thank you. Here's a scenario. We have a prison meeting in my hometown. They get one meeting a week. It is a mandatory meeting for them. It's sponsored by an employee of the Bureau of Prisons who is a good man, a spiritual man, but is not a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. At this meeting, the inmates run it. They call it an AA meeting. They read how it works. They read from daily reflections. They also read Hazleton and NA literature at the beginning of the meeting, and they call it a AA slash NA meeting. I go in there to carry the message of Alcoholic Anonymous because that's all I know about. Do you have any suggestions about that? Yeah. I wish I could say I'm unfamiliar with that, but for some reason the Federal Bureau has almost a nationwide either policy or procedure or something that brings about this kind of merger. And I understand the noble things of staff shortages and saving money. I understand that. But I also understand, and I like the way you put that, they call it an AA group because it isn't. I just went out to another state two times. One was to mediate a range war between the federal institution, Narcotics Anonymous, and Alcoholics Anonymous. And so the three of us, the three of them and me got together. We were mediating, trying to figure out how to fix this thing. And I thought we got somewhere. And we did until the airplane took off. And then it reverted right back. The last time I went out there a real fine lady physician who was on the staff there wrote. She apparently was kind of helping out with the group. She wrote me a letter, a nice letter, and said we wanted you to speak to our AA slash NA group. And I wrote her back and said, I'm coming. I said, but let me tell you how I'm going. And used it as just time to share a little bit. I said when you say AA slashNA, that means you have neither. What you have is a hybrid that's designed to fit the convenience of the institution. and that's very very troubling to me because a very fine well-ordered program is tough enough to pull off and when you what the hell what are you introducing them to my god the world's not like that and and there's more to it than just some program that sort of fits well in the institution and uh then i told her i said here's what my concern i didn't write a book i just wrote a letter, but said what it wanted to say about it. And said, no, you don't have to worry. I'm not going to go into a tirade with the inmates. It's not their fault. And so we'll go in and do the meeting. I'll carry the message, but it'll be the message. It won't be a hybrid thing. That's a very troubling thing. It is a very troubling thing uh i went but under my conditions under my conditions and only because of my loyalty to some people i'll tell you this there's a united there was a united states senator involved in trying to rectify that thing and not only for that but specifically for there but it would obviously generalize that's a troubling thing because what you do is make a program dysfunctional and you wind up just bordering on wasting time with that. I tell you this, let me just, one more thing. I believe that the time to solve those things, and that horse is out of the barn right now and I don't know how to get that dude back, but the best way I've found to solve those problems is to solve them before they happen. personally if I'm going to set up a new program somewhere or work with a group of people set up an new program the only way I'll set it up is to have a meeting with the head of the facility, I don't care who it is the head of the faculty and whoever the key players are so we can make a good business like agreement on how we'll operate and that meeting I'll just tell you real quick like. There are four steps to that procedure that I'm talking about. One is to go into the facility, meet with the leadership. I want the head of the facility to be there because the old saying in prisons is the shadow of the warden covers the whole yard and it's very important that that person be on record as saying yes I support this because otherwise you leave him as a mystery you know where he stands on so four steps one is that meeting and that's pretty much a one-sided conversation where we have them tell us who they are what to have there what we want to walk out of that meeting with is a clear clear knowledge of what that facility is just because you may have gone there doesn't mean you understand but we wantto know how big it is who runs it what the population is like, you know, what the composition of the population is like. We want to know about schedule opportunities. We want to how they operate because that's their business is to operate a prison. So we want to know how they operated. And so that's one-sided. We make no decisions at that meeting. We may talk a little something about fine-tuning some stuff just to understand how it works. But otherwise there's no real program development. Their job is to operate that prison. And then when we leave, we've got a clear knowledge of what we can work with. We go to our tent, and we meaning the AA folk who are going to work with it, and then we take that information and figure out how we can do a program that fits their environment. See what I'm talking about? So that it fits into that place and it's not an intrusive thing that they've got to adjust to. We try to fit into that the best we can. And when we get that program plan done, we submit it to the warden. And the wardan either signs it or if there's anything that ought to be modified, they'll send it back and we see if we can modify it. Rarely comes back for modification because we've already operated with some knowns in there. So far so good. That's good business. The third thing, that is the third thing. The second thing is doing the program. Third thing is sending it back in. The fourth thing is implementing the program. The value of that is that you preclude those kinds of problems. We deal with things like what this group is for, who we're going to target, how we're gonna get people, you know, and so you gotta head it off in advance. To go in and say, hey guys, this is out of whack, is hard to do. Jeez, that's hard to do. And so it doesn't help immediately what you're talking about. But the thing of preventing it before it happens is the way to do it. Prison administrators really appreciate this approach because they're not used to us doing business-like stuff. They're used to our coming in with some kind of thing they don't understand and saying we're just going to be wonderful every Tuesday night, you know. It's about what they know. And they really appreciate a business-life approach like this. But when that thing is signed, it's not binding. It's not like a contract, but it's like a letter of agreement. And if something gets out of whack, we know where to go back. We know where To go back and fix it. So you're not starting over and pointing fingers about who did what to who. So that's kind of a ranging kind of deal, but it' s not a simple problem, the one you bring. It's a vexing problem, and I just have to lay down in front of the tank sometimes to tell you the truth. Yeah, you had something up there. I'll meet you halfway. Yeah, that's about the way we do it, ain't it? Hi, family. My name is Freddie. I'm an alcoholic, and appreciate you sharing with us. I've had the pleasure of hearing your story before, and as it matures and grows, it blesses me all the more. So I'm corrections chair here and enjoy that position. I, too, run into people that are, quote, cross-addicted, and I'm not talking about religion here. I'm talking about people that do it. And my story is one that includes both alcohol and drugs, and as Alcoholics Anonymous matures, you find quite a few people get there. I do differentiate the difference between NA and AA. As we carry in our meeting, Nancy offers both. I mean, and when I get people in there and they want to try and differentiate the two, our four founders talked about taking a little bit of sedatives and things like that. So we've got to deal with the issue of getting them sober. And, you know, I believe in building something up before I tear it down. So I like your solution. You're going there. But, I mean it happens to me. Last night I had about 75 guys out at MCC. And, some of them want to talk about just the drug aspect of it. And I ask them, you know, if you take a drink, what happens? You know, and it always ends up to the drug of choice whether it's whatever. It doesn't really matter. But the opportunity to go in there and show them the way out, you know, is the important thing for me. I think that's the most important part is to say, hey, we're here to help. Yeah, it is. And the thing that I have to fine-tune a little is it's hard to show somebody how the program works by demonstrating how it doesn't work. Yeah, I really think that it's so important to have tradition squeaky clean in institutions because we're, by and large, introducing people to the program of recovery. And by demonstrating how it doesn't work, we give a confusing kind of a dialogue. We can do a lot of stuff as long as we call it what it is. Meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous are conducted by members of Alcoholic Anonymous, not good friends, not non-alcoholics and not drug addicts or whatever that we have. Now, we lose it sometimes because we'll say a situation like this, that we've got to cut a little slack because we've got such a herd of people and all that. As long as we do what we say we're going to be doing with integrity, we'll be OK. If you have an open meeting, that's fine. That means anybody can come. It doesn't mean they're going run the meeting. But what often happens is that generosity gets out of hand. The first thing, you've got somebody that's not an AA member in a leadership position, and it's just a tower of babble when that happens. So I think it's a tough issue. A lot of people say, well, it's the only game in town. It's all they've got. Well, it'S all they'll ever have if we just keep nudging it along and pulling them under our tent. I'll tell you just one thing for whatever it's worth. When I was still in in, I think, 58, Narcotics Anonymous had just come into being And back then there was no range war. I mean, there's nothing new about this, by the way. This stuff is written about in the early days of AA, dealt with in the early days. NA came in. We had back then it was all horse junkies and prescription medication based on what we had. But what would happen is that the horse junkie would zone out when the drunks are talking and vice versa. So when NA came out, some of us got to talking about it. We started an N.A. group in the institution, not as members, but as leaders in A.A., we helped start a meeting of a group of narcotics anomalies. That group still meets to this day. Now, to me, that's what's helping. That's helping is not compromising and saying, just come on in and say you're alcoholic. That's not a real good approach, I don't think. Yeah, you've got to come up here. if you will I have recently been nominated as chairman of corrections in Mobile which I'm very excited over and warden of the facility am I speaking to it now ok alright but anyway thank you I was recently a nominated disposition I'm excited over it but the thing about it is is they want to do background checks on everybody else, and I was not involved in that, which I told them. You know, I had a pardon, which every pardon in 1973. I got out in 1970 from behind the wall, and I'm excited about being in this, but is that interfering with a level of tradition about the background checks? There has to be some kind of check. Security is paramount in an institution, But there are ways to do it. There are ways to do it. But it has to be done. That's number one. In the feds, the last time I filled that one out, I thought I was doing my IRS for them. I mean, God knows that. It was like, anyway, it was a little much. When we did this policy in North Carolina, they reduced the application from three pages to one. We also succeeded in getting the Social Security number left off. But, you know, the notion was that that's a very intrusive thing. We had one of our members who got a Medicare charge for surgery he didn't have owing to a Social Security Number. And so we succeeded in doing that. The only time we use Social Security now is if there's a problem with identification. Otherwise, our folks believe that the driver's license gives enough of the background information. And so it's how to do it. You've got to do It, but it's a matter of how you can do It with the least intrusive kind of deal. So it's one of those things. But anyway, something's got to be done. That's just how you do it. Who else? Yeah. I'm a bottom alcoholic, and I appreciate what you said about integrity. I had an incident. I go to a state institution, a maximum state institution. And a short time ago, they brought in contractors for drug and alcohol rehabilitation. And we had approximately about 40 guys, 50 guys, maybe up to 75 in our group. But all of a sudden it blossomed after this contractor come in. It blossomed up to about 150 men at every meeting. And what was happening was the contractor was telling the inmates that if they didn't attend AA meetings, there was going to be disciplinary action. And that presented a little bit of a problem. This is where I come up to your integrity thing. The only thing I could figure to do was to write letters. I wrote to the warden, I wrote the classification, and I wrote it to the chaplain, one letter. and I got the nicest letter back from them, and it was stopped immediately. And it was merely because I quoted the traditions, and those people are not bound by our traditions. And my thought behind it was if I explained to the warden, it will trickle downhill. It will get down where it needs to be, and it did. And I was grateful for that, and I'm grateful for people like you coming and sharing with us. Thank you very much. Thank you, Bud. Thank you very much. That was a great way to go at that. And, you know, a lot of times we try to correct it at the flashpoint, you know with staffing contact and the inmate. And usually there's a policy that's driven from somewhere else, and so that was a good way to correct that. That was the great way about that in a good sensible way, and you got a good, sensible result. Yeah. I have a lot concern about mandatory. I've almost come to believe that mandatory is a guarantee of failure because what it produces is compliance. It produces compliance, and compliance does not usually have a happy ending. So anyway, congratulations. Good job. I believe you had something, Andrew. Thanks, Tom. Thanks for coming out here today. I'm an alcoholic. My name is Andrew Wilson. I am involved, have the good fortune to be involved in corrections work in Hardy County where there's a state institution. And I got just a couple of things to say about singleness of purpose because we struggle with this. You know, I get a lot of guys that come into my meeting every Monday night and they identify themselves as Joe recovering from all things negative. You know it was worse before it's better now. You known that's a slow go. But the one thing that I found that I can do when I go in there is say guys I'm an alcoholic. And not to contradict anything that's been said in this room already but i am bound by the traditions personally that's a choice i get to make i personally am bound to the traditions and i can go in there and sit down with them and say you guys can have any kind of meeting you want you know we're not reading out of any material anymore we're just reading a material now that wasn't always true um but but what's happened there is i'm able to go in there and be okay because i'm a member of alcoholics anonymous and i'mable to sit down with those guys and say as long as you guys want to have an aa meeting i can come back you know and i can come sit in a meeting that's anything but i can only function as a memberofalcoholicsanonymous and that frees me up a lot you know they get to make their own decisions about who they want to be and what they wantto be and the beauty of that is that what I've seen is that a lot of those guys over the course of the last year or so have decided they want to be members of Alcoholics Anonymous. And now, to come to my problem, as a result of that, a group with average attendance between 50 and 65, I've now got men approaching me who say, okay, I have heard enough. I want to work the steps. I need a sponsor. And I'm only one guy you know and we're working with gso to get outside correspondence but that's not going to happen fast enough and um and and these men are ready to move and um and we need any suggestions we can get on how to move forward with that thanks the uh filling that need is a is a big thing and understanding the need is pretty important too that your sponsorship is an extremely important personal relationship, and it's got conditions under which it ought to be established. And sort of computer dating is not it. You know, that's not it." Like, I'll just tell you what I do. I sponsor a prison now. And guys are always asking me about sponsorship. And I say, no, no. no, I won't do it because I can't do something for one guy that I can potentially do for every guy. And so I don't do that. I sponsor the group. And so what I do is tell them to watch. If you see somebody that comes here that really strikes you, get to know them. Get to know him. Work it out. See if you want to do that." Otherwise, what we do is provide contact. In fact, just did one for this community. One of our guys was coming to Jacksonville. And what we did was set him up. I wish I could tell you that it had a happy ending to the story, but I don't know where the guy is, but I know where The Contact is. He's here just today. But that, to me, a lot of guys call it sponsorship, and that's what they're looking for. And so The Contact, a lifetime, what we'll do is tell them, if you find somebody that you want to develop sponsorship with in the group, fine, but you're going to have to find it, and it won't be me. and then otherwise help them make the contact back in their community, just like I had when I left. And so that's why to try to make that a realistic kind of a deal. When your group is growing like that, it's a matter of trying to make sure your program still fits what you're doing. And like the one that I sponsor right now, as of the 18th we will have three different groups going on in that facility. three different groups. Each one of them will be a little different. One of them is the regular sort of older, medium-customer guys. We started getting some Hispanic guys and saw them sitting there looking dazed in the meetings, didn't know what we were talking about. They knew it was good, whatever it was. And I asked them one night, I said, would you guys like to meet by yourselves? They said, yeah, yeah. They understood that. And so now that group's jumping, just jumping up. And then we've got another one starting on the 18th. Well, let me tell you one quick little story about this thing of grouping, about addressing the thing. And it sort of underlies some of this stuff. I've been worried for a good while about a word that you don't hear a lot in AA. In fact, I've never heard a meeting about it that I didn't conduct. It's a word called effectiveness. and NAA we get caught up in sort of ritualistic behavior we do stuff just because that's what we do it works or not, we just do it because that's why we do it the way we did when I got here that's how we do well I believe that a program has to fit the environment it's going to serve it can't be something I made up before I knew where I was going this meeting, we're starting on the 18th The group was starting on the 18th. I'll just give you a real quick little deal of what I'm talking about. We met with the, even though we were already operating in that facility, we met withthe management staff for that operation and had them to tell us exactly what that population was going to be doing. We came out of there with the realization it was going to be guys 18 to 23 years old. It sounded like the best we could compute they're going to be there about six months, that we'll have contact for about six weeks. Now, that sounds fine. That sounds like a lot of time. If you break that down, that means 24 meetings. And if you've got 24 meetings and you take half of them as speaker meetings, you've Got 12 meetings. So when you come to content where you're going to be trying to develop the kind of stuff you're talking about there, you're looking at a short time frame, eh? You look at 12 meetings, just simply putting it out. Well, when you look at that, that starts to design your program. You start designing a program to fit that reality. And what we've done in that group, we're going to finalize it Monday night when I get back. We're going finalize the program. But what we basically settled on, we were going to have two objectives for that group. One, we are going to help them do a real first step. When they get through with that program, they are going know whether they are sheep or a goat. and uh so so we're going to help them get a real first step the best we possibly can they're going think it's a one-note samba because we're gonna be talking about first step about surrender because i'll let you know a little secret if you don't get that done you can thump up the rest you can thumb the rest of it up it won't happen so we'RE GOING TO DO THAT THE OTHER THING WE'RE GOINNA DO IS HELP THEM TO HAVE A WORKING KNOWLEDGE OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS to understand what this is, just assuming that going to a meeting has some magical thing that's just going to shower down on you. Not so. So when you talk about things like sponsorship, for example, home groups, how you join, how your program works, we want the guys to have a working knowledge of what they become a part of. And we feel like if we can get those two objectives met, we've got a good start with those people. If we'd have gone in there and tried to do big book studies and long-term stuff and do fifth steps, we wouldn't have been kidding anybody but ourselves. So if you're thinking about effectiveness, it's not how good is it going to look, but what can we realistically get done with this group that will have value? And that really tempers and influences the way I think in terms of carrying a message. It's got to fit what you're dealing with. and it takes in those kinds of issues like you were talking about there how do you match this population and it take just a little bit of thinking but I think it's awfully valuable time to save an awful lot of trouble somebody else yeah my name is Lee Kelly and I'm an alcoholic I've been involved in corrections for some time But we're not there alone. I mean, we're not there alone. The institutions I mean the institution has a presence there and I'm talking about dealing city, county, and state. In Florida here in the state now just recently I've noticed that they've given almost all this power and decision to the chaplain. The chaplain decides whether we're there or not. The chaplin in ways decides what we're going to do there. He decides whether literature enters or not. uh and and i've just just just personal observation and in our counties some of our counties i can't take a literature in henry county jail today does not want it because it's god-based literature so we have to act differently just the institution and something you haven't mentioned here is the government's presence today in the prisons now here in the state and and now they're spending hundreds of million dollars on alcohol and drug rehabilitation and recovery, the state is. Not AA recovery, but state recovery. And whether we like it or not, when I go into that jail, that takes precedence over AA. There are some institutions and we know that. We've even had to leave our county institution here last year because we were put in the position we could no longer call ourselves an AA meeting. And we just literally had to withdraw from it. But then the state, when the state accredition came around, then we were invited back because they had to have our presence there for state accreditation so i have found and when i'm the point i'm getting to i've been around for a while and learned kind of i just have to roll with these punches because they don't let me make the rules but then when i go to the a that i love that it sets me down well these are our guidelines and almost in arrogance will not will uphold these well when you are pushed and bent by uh By literally any institution you go in, it's different. And I've just kind of had to roll with the punch. And if you're going to stay, I can do that, but for a new man it's frustrating. Even the procedures today because of 9-11 to get into the facility today. You talked about not putting your Social Security down. We're goingto be fingerprinted now. You don't want to put your Social security down? That's fine. You're not coming in. You'll be fingerprintted today. And that's just a new regulation in our county. You don't like it, that's fine. So I don't know. We get a new man and it will take us sometimes three to four months just to get him cleared, just in our counting, let alone in the state. And on top of the state, we have a couple institutions that are run by Wackenhut Private. We not only have to get state clearance, but we'll have to turn around and get a Wackenthut clearance. And most men who are just coming into the system won't endure the frustration of just getting involved. So the point I was getting to, it's nice to say I have to withhold the traditions, and I'll do that as best I can. But if I don't roll with the rules that are put in front of me, I'm just not going to be there. Thank you, Lee. You hit some deep issues there for sure. And you better mind that we didn't start with Social Security. What we started with was a system-level negotiation. System level is important because that's where the policy base was set up. Policy base doesn't dictate operation at a given unit. It dictates conditions of operation somewhat, gives you broad parameters. But you have to give the local operator latitude to operate what he's responsible for. So there is that kind of a problem. But the Social Security was eliminated with as much initiative from the system as it was from us, and so it wasn't just a matter of throwing us a bone on that. As we started to negotiate good business-like relationships and we started to get a climate where we were really trying to put together a responsible program statewide. We started to get real agreement about the kinds of conditions we wanted to generally exist. So it was one level at a time. We went from the director and his staff to the regional, I don't know if you have such thing, you probably do, to the original directors the ones that oversee groups of prisons and then to every warden in the state before we ever did anything you know we put those things out you know so that you know, we're not into the policy implementation business but we helped because we were there to chime in wherever they needed us and so it was a level at a time. It's not one thing that you can do fail swoop and single this out and do it. We were negotiating a program between In Alcoholics Anonymous, we've got some thousands of members, and we've got excellent citizens in that, and we've very capable people in it. So what we're trying to do is get a group of capable citizens to negotiate with our public facilities. See what I mean? So that we set at the management level, we set one time kind of condition, then we drop down to the operational level. so it's that climate where you're doing the overall thing we set the policies we helped them set it but the AA member who works works from the bottom up yeah I understand that I do both I operated at the top level but also at the same time I do the groundwork too somebody has to do that high level stuff maybe your CPC people or whoever but somebody's got to do dat I mean, if you're going to try to work with a system, that's a whole different can of worms. But it's a very vital can of germs. When you get down to those, like that plan making I was talking about, the program development, one of the items on that thing is identifying contacts on each side of the fence. We want a primary contact on the inside and a backup and a primary contact on the outside in a backup so that we can have appropriate communication. You know, if somebody can't have a meeting, they've got to call up and don't let somebody drive 50 miles for nothing. And if we can't make it, don't Let the guys be disappointed looking for somebody that ain't coming. And so we don't tell them who to select. They don't Tell us. But we get two people that are going to work together. The agreement, when the head of the facility agrees to conditions, agrees broadly to what that program is that we put in, I don't care who winds up coordinating it. That's his call. But it's in the conditions that we've set out in that program that we have mutually agreed to. And so whoever's doing it is doing it under that set of conditions. So you've got to think a little more globally than just the local situation if you start talking about those kinds of changes. But for one, to go in and try to negotiate that at one unit, they can't do it because they've got be in conformity with the existing state policies and stuff. So it's not easy. But I'll tell you one thing that may not make sense to you, I won't explain it, but working with the system is three times as easy as working with us. That's a fact now because, I mean, it's hell's bells. We're like trying to herd cats, you know. Jesus, we're everywhere. And you can't fire anybody. My God, they're working for nothing anyway. How are you going to fire them? Well, you can, but it's a little hard. Yes, yes. It is deep water, but it's swimmable. My name is Tom, and I'm an alcoholic. I want to make a comment on the AA slash NA. I had a guy who corresponds with me in corrections, and he was in one of their meetings, and I said, well, you have to back out of it. That's the first thing you've got to do because there's no such thing as AA slash MA. And you can write to New York, and they send you a pamphlet on how to start an AA meeting. And they had eight members in that NA slash AA meeting. And they started an AA meeting, and now they got about 18 or 20 in the AA meeting and Narcotics Anonymous started Narcotic. But they did it through our own literature. You can get that through New York, and they can get that, but you have to stand your way. I was thinking like when Tom was mentioning a guy in the back that sits. and there's a lot of AA members that they know. They're in an AA meeting and they know there's something wrong with AA slash anything and they're embarrassed, they're afraid to stand up because they don't know how to do that yet and I think that's what outside contractors teach them the most that we can't be everything to everybody and that's our own literature tells us that. So sometimes going away and letting them not have nothing is better than having them watered down anything. So we've learned that. I mean, they can violate our traditions, but we never can violate our traditions. You can do it as an individual, but that's the individual. AA, we have to stand firm sometimes. Some places, we pull beatings out. And they regrouped. They wanted to know somebody. The court might be a sergeant, and we go to the top. We've been smart enough to learn that. And then they said, well, what happened? AA don't come here no more. Well, something was wrong. And then they sit down at a bargaining table or whatever it is. But we have beautiful pamphlets, and it can be for anybody. A non-AA member could almost look like a brand new person. You could send in a pamphlet on how to start an AA group, and guess what? That guy could be somewhere across the United States and never get to meet any one of us. And it's so easy, and they just follow the directions. They can start an AAA group. But you've got to hold firm. So that was the first advice I gave them is get out of that group and then see what you've got to do. If it's a chaplain, whoever you've got to get in contact with to start an AA group. And it's not hard. And it took some time. It took about four or five months. But it'll take a long way for it to go back to AA slash now because you know what? Narcotics Anonymous has primary purpose too. And they have traditions. And they don't like when they're being violated, just like Cocaine Anonymous. It has traditions. And they Don't Like When They're Being Violated. And Alcoholics Anonymous, if you ever want to see them get angry in AA, tell them somebody's violating our traditions. So that's when they unite. That's when we unite the best, when we're being attacked. And we're usually being attacked because we're uneducated ourselves. So it's all there. And I'm glad we've been able to just imagine this, alcoholics being able to go in places and argue for our rights. Isn't that beautiful? I mean, we came a long way, a long ways. And I thank you for the work, sir. Yeah, thank you, Tom. He's a hard-line old trooper, isn't he? When all else fails, go to the book. Anybody else? Real quick. Tom, why don't you touch on what we've seen. You know, I was privileged to be in your program in North Carolina, and the complaint that was coming back to you was that they weren't getting rehabilitated, and that's why there were repeat offenders. and the program that you set up for that might be of interest to some of these people. You went in to Alcoholics Anonymous and hired some of us that weren't hireable for anything else and put us to work in the prison system. That's a tall order. That's kind of hard to address that. He was talking about a program that we set up in there. What we basically did was tried to get, in very simple terms, What we really did was we looked around the country to find out where I was working. We settled on 28-day models, and we, in effect, picked them up and set them in with a Huey helicopter, and that's what we did. We tried to set up 28-Day programs, and we put a real emphasis on getting recovered people involved in the thing and had it put into the law that preference be given to recovered people in all positions. I know that's illegal. Somebody is going to sue us someday, but I'm retired now. I'll sue away. But it worked out great, yeah. I won't be able to go into much of that, but, yeah? Do we have time? Wait a minute. Hi, I'm Sandy Boudreaux, corrections chair for District 10. Let me get you over here. Oh, okay. Hi, Sandy Bouldreaux. I'm the corrections chair for District Ten Alcoholics. I'm really interested in bridging the gap in the corrections area. I'm going to go and attend the workshops in Sandusky in September, and I've gotten some people asking about it, and there's some information in our literature about it. But I'd like to beef up that program in District 10, and so I'd be interested in any comments on that. Thank you. it's um i'd i would encourage i'd heavily encourage because bridge gap works works very well you know in all honesty we're we're shifting it a bit and uh because what we found that in our state you know a lot of people will sign lists to do stuff but that don't mean they're going to do it and so we were running into about an 80 percent failure rate in terms of contacts being made as promised. And I'd rather not promise anything than to have eight out of ten not get it. And so we're shifting over, and we've started to operate little 50-mile circles around a group of institutions, and our watchword is decentralized and personalized. So what we're trying to do now is foster real person-to-person contact within that circle. We'll have exceptions like the one coming to Jacksonville where we have to do something. But we're pursuing it a different way, but there's some great experience. Northern California has an outstanding Bridge the Gap program. Minnesota, where it started, there's som good stuff going on with that. And if you've got the right ingredients and enough reliable people, it can be a great deal. It can be great deal, yeah. Let's see, right here, and then we'll finish with you. Okay. hi i'm an alcoholic member of the sojourn group my name is maury i'm going to change gears on you a little bit here uh i've been carrying the message inside in two countries for many many years and it's been the best part of my program and i really like the way that the delmer expressed it and i can certainly relate to that but to change years a littlebit rather than carrying the message outside i'd like to know how you feel about people being sentenced to alcoholics Anonymous. Every meeting I go to, the Seventh Tradition basket is filled with forms that need a signature. As a condition of parole or probation, hundreds, probably thousands of people in any area are being sentenced to Alcoholics Anonymous, they have no idea, they have concept at all what Alcoholics Andonymous is, all they know is the judge told them They have to get initials or names on this list. A place where I come from, 1,200 miles up north, the fifth largest metropolitan area in North America, they have set up a different, but I'm not really sure how effective, and I like your wording of effective. They have a special committee set up where they put on meetings in the parole probation offices. Nobody goes to a meeting outside of there to get their form filled. They get that done there, and there's nobody in that meeting except a couple of AA people and other probation parolers. How do you feel about that? We're going to have to cut off, but I'll tell you just in a couple words. Because that's a soluble problem. It's a huge problem, but it's soluble. We did that in our local area. We get no paper. What we got them to do was to have the client negotiate what he was going to do, submit it to the supervisor, and then he supervises, which takes away that sort of mandatory thing. That's a big problem. That's not a huge issue. That's just a huge question for a whole bunch of reasons. But it is workable. Anyway, we can talk about that. I know they're going to hurt me if we go over any longer. But I gave somebody a little outline. I'll think of who it was, but I gave somebody a Little Outline on how we did that thing, but we've eliminated the problem and it can be done. And it needs done because just like I said before, I honestly have come to believe that mandatory, not across the board, but you can almost count on failure because it just sets up something in alcoholics that doesn't do well. You'll get compliance very effectively, but long term results big time trouble so anyway I wish we had more time that's a heavy issue in itself I'll find that thing and I'll found you if I can do it I'll hook you together well folks thank you very much y'all are a great bunch appreciate it thank you