Meal Planning

With my parents in town for a couple days, they inquired on what restaurants I wanted to eat at, often indicating that I should enjoy some good meals out while I can. I settled on a Greek diner, a deli, a campus eatery, and a movie theatre to watch a movie that serves dinner food. My parents kept asking, "are you sure?" While we all enjoyed our meals.

I realize that I am soon going to have very limited meal options. Steak will not be available, nor will good seafood. But I don't just want to eat that kind if food just to eat it. Why should we eat expensive, when I'm not really all that hungry these days anyway? Plus, everywhere we went, had really good food.

I've decided not to stuff my mouth with food that I'm just eating because I happen to be going to prison. A special event, of course. But not for Thursday night dinner. Going to prison is not an excuse for me to splurge financially or gourmet.

Just Don't Look Weak

My stepdads grand advice for me for going to prison is not to cry - at least not during my first week. In fact, he would like me to keep my head down and not look at anyone at all. Of course I'm sure bumping into folks is out of the question too, so I might have to look straight ahead of me sometimes.

This isn't just my stepdads advice, the advice of not showing weakness is fairly constant. I've even blogged about having to be strong. But truth is, we also can't be people we are not. I still believe we can't trust easily and we do need to be strong, but prison is bound to be an emotional experience. Keeping it kept entirely inside makes me think too much about the emotional hiding I did as an addict. Perhaps not everyone is safe to see our pain, but in our letters, emails, phone calls, the chaplain, in our recovery groups, our counselor, someone. We need to trust someone. Keeping a fake strong persona and in reality hurting is a person I never want to become again.

So when people give me the advice, I know they mean well and they want the best for me. They are worried about me. I don't need to explain everything I just wrote in this blog. I simply need to say, "thank you," as I will consider their suggestion.

At least in my case, it is weaker for me to be hiding my pain, than to share it. It takes a lot of strength to be able to do that.

Birthdays

If birthdays are supposed to be one of the best days of the year for each of us, then somehow, I missed the memo. Not that every birthday I've had was bad. I had kid parties roller skating, sleep overs, other fun I'm sure. I remember my sweet 16 was pretty grand (before I moved out). But, since my birthday falls in mid winter and I grew up in the Midwest, I also had more than one of my childhood parties snowed out, there even was a blizzard once. My birthday was close enough to the holidays that I would sometimes get the gift with the card saying "this is for Chanukah and your birthday." By the time I was a young adult, I decided that if I wanted a good birthday, I had to make it happen for myself.

For many years, I had success. Then on my 25th bday, my friends "kid napped" me and tried to confuse me on where we were going and we ended up at a large casino, a state away. They knew what I liked to do. They handed me an envelope of money that they and many of my law school buddies had donated into, and told me to have fun. I proceeded to lose the several hundred dollars in that envelope so fast, that I quickly walked to the restroom to regroup. I found an ATM far off where no one could see me withdrawing money, pulled out more than they had given me ($ I could not afford to lose) and started playing again. Friends found me, saw my pile of money and I told them I'd won. The only thing I actually won was paying the highest ATM fees for all the withdrawals I would do.

Birthdays at casinos became a ritual. In my mind, at least I wasn't alone. I sure didn't care what the weather was outside. I tried a birthday outside a casino when I was turning 27. I was totally in love for the first time in my life. They broke up with me ON my birthday. Then tried staying best friends with me for years. That was a mess.

I traveled to Las Vegas for my 30th birthday. I had a bunch of friends with me. I was being pushed around in a wheel chair due to a recent knee surgery. But actually, I remember practically nothing about turning 30, 31, 32, 33, or 34,... They were nights of gambling. In reality no different than any other night of the year except I could tell strangers around a table that it was my birthday or I'd be offered a free beverage and I'd get a Virgin Mary (never wanting to become a drinker).

At 35, my birthday fell just weeks after that "Big Win," and the obsession of numbers and winning in my head was never ending. My partner told me that we were going on a road trip and I got super excited- believing we would be staying at the new casino hotel about an hour north of our home. As we drove, that was not where we went. I started to get angry. Then I started to get bitter and frustrated. Why couldn't we go to the casino, I thought? Q knew I loved to gamble, why would Q take me anywhere else? Turns out that Q had actually been thinking fun, and put us up in a small town we had referred to numerous times. It had only one motel, one bar, etc. I didn't appreciate it. That night when we walked around, I fed my addiction by finding pull tabs at the bar (and won unfortunately) making me believe that Q should have just taken me to the casino. It was just months later that Q and I were history, as was my gambling, as was that life.

Once in recovery, birthdays became special. I spent them with people I cared about, but they did not have to be big or flashy. I also started a tradition of giving small gifts on my birthday. Sure, it is fun to receive gifts, but I love giving gifts. It's a thank you for spending my day with me. 

My last two birthdays have been a bit tough. 2012 occurred just two days after yet another right knee ACL tear. I was laid up on my couch and on crutches. Friends came anyway! 2013 occurred as I was taking my comprehensive exams for my PhD. We do these by ourselves, 5 days straight, writing essays. I was able to step away for both lunch and dinner with different friends. Not long and no bday cake, but it didn't matter. It did not have to be special.

In 2014, my birthday will be in prison. If I have prison friends, they may make me a cake (somehow they do it with commissary supplies and the micro) or maybe not. It doesn't really matter. My birthday does not need to be special, flashy, or anything any more. I do not need to be surrounded by others to know that I'm loved or I matter. I do not need to cry because people failed to call me on my bday. I don't need cakes or gifts. I just need a moment to close my eyes and be grateful that I have been given this second chance. My birthday will forever be about giving back, not about taking.

Parents

I haven't mentioned my folks much in this blog. It's not intentional. Truth is that my relationship was strained with my parents most of my life. They are divorced, married to different spouses (but still share the same anniversary date - long story) and live about 1,500 miles away from one another (which I'm not sure is far enough). My father is actually very I'll at the moment, just two days prior to my sentencing, he had a stroke as he was in the hospital recovering from bladder cancer treatment. He knew what was happening to me before his stroke and was supporting me, but now he is not able to put his thoughts into words well and he doesn't enjoy talking on the phone anymore. His doctors told my stepmother that news of my imprisonment could cause another stroke because he still needs surgery to clear his arteries. I hate lying to him.

My mother and I are very similar in possibly the wrong ways and incredibly different in most ways. Where she appreciates beauty, I appreciate intelligence. Where she appreciates makeup, I appreciate natural. Where she appreciates a lot of alcohol, I refused it to avoid becoming her. I didn't know gambling could take me to the same places. Family secrets most likely started much higher than my mom, but the skill of a public and silent private life I saw in my mom. We never talked of childhood abuse. My home wasn't safe to talk openly about bad things happening. They were kept inside like we did something wrong. Appearance and reputation was everything. My mother mastered passive aggressiveness and sometimes just aggressiveness. I mastered passiveness. My sister mastered just aggressiveness. My sisters acted out. I acted in. My mom understood my sister, she did not understand me. My dad left our family when I was about 13. I left our family when I was about 16. No one ever tried to bring me home.

When I was 35 and my world fell apart, my private gambling world having been public ally exposed and being accused of the crime I am about to go in for, I went home. For the first time in my life, my mom and my step father were there for me at the time when I needed them the most. It no longer mattered what had happened over those past 35 years - you can't change the past - but one day at a time, my mom and I built an amazing relationship.

We started to see ways we were similar. Similar likes and dislikes. Similar facial expressions. Similar ways of handling issues. I lived in her home for six months, but even after my life started to come together, we talked nearly every day. We still do. This week, she and my step dad (who is pretty amazing) are coming for a night to see me. Over the 19 years I lived away from them in the past, I rarely had a visit from them.

I'm not saying it's perfect. My mom still drinks. Her priorities can still be quite questionable. She sometimes throws those hostile words at me that I used to believe. But now I see that it is her illness. I know she us hurting. I won't enable her, but I can love her. I gain her respect by not being passive nor aggressive. I speak my truth and give her time to reflect.

Neither of my parents may ever say they are sorry for the reality of my youth. I don't need them to anymore. I feel sorry for them, because now I know what it's like to carry around the guilt of having done something wrong. They are my parents. They are aging. I choose to keep them in my life. I'm glad my world falling apart gave me the chance to establish healthier boundaries.

If I can be an example of staying clean, I can survive the prison scene

The title is actually a take on a great Macklemore song called, "Starting Over," where he raps about his relapse from 3 1/2 years of sobriety. In it he says, "if I can be an example of staying sober, I can be an example of starting over."

My version doesn't work perfectly, because the second clause shouldn't be about my survival, but something I can be an example of by doing my time in prison. I just couldn't make it work perfectly. I can write about it here, though.

Any addiction recovery is hard, it's really hard. Relapse happens often and/or like Macklemore says in his song, they try to stay clean/sober on their own without a program. Inevitably, life does not get better and the old urges become too much too handle. Our brains play tricks on us and choice to say "no" becomes less and less possible. Access to our vice, or to a new vice (switching addictions) occurs, and we have to start at day 1 once again. I've heard these stories so many times. Breaks my heart, but I'm so glad they come back to their programs, ready to do something different, something more, this time.

I have been fortunate each day since May, 2008. Each day I have promised myself that I'm not going to gamble today and each day I have kept that promise. My GA program is a part of my life and I never intend to try to do it on my own, no matter how many years clean I have. I never want to be that person again.

So, what can I be an example of in prison? I can be an example of someone who understands addiction. Understands the urges. Understands the reality that it leads to three realities - prison, insanity, and/or death. Understands crime to feed addiction. Understands withdrawal. Understands when people feel alone because others do not understand or support them. Understands losing everything. 

I also understand and am an example of the hope of recovery. Rebuilding our lives. Second or third or fifth chances. Rebuilding relationships. Finding healthy relationships. Putting recovery first. Not giving up. Refusing to accept dead ends, and just see them as speed bumps. 

If I can be an example of staying clean, I can survive the prison scene! I just have to be myself. Find ways I connect with others and keep to my beliefs.

iPhone No Phone

I love my phone. I loved my basic cell phone. I loved my android phone. Now I love my iPhone. I use it for everything it was meant to be used for - calls, music, calendar, applications, data, email, Internet, even writing this blog (ergo the quick finger spelling mistakes). I haven't worn a watch in years because my phone is my watch, alarm clock, and cooking timer. I even use Siri as my assistant. Parting with my phone will be difficult. I will have to learn to once again fall asleep without technology being the last thing I am reading from.

I did research on my options on what I should do while incarcerated. I did not want to break my contract and have to pay $250. I did not want to lose my phone number I've had for years. But, I cannot afford to maintain my phone at its level while I  incarcerated.

I service through Verizon, so I cannot account for any other services out there. Verizon has some options I am considering. They allow users to suspend service for 90 days at a time up to 2x during a year. They can be back to back. So my first 6 months, my line will be suspended, which is good because it is doubtful I will be sent to a half way house during that time. 

Before I leave for prison, I will transfer my service to someone's old Verizon phone that they don't use any more. One that is not a smart phone. Therefore, when my service is turned back on, I could have it turned on to the lowest level service available and have it paid out of the funds I am saving for the remaining months on my imprisonment. Once I am allowed to utilize the phone again, I will transfer back to my iPhone and I'm able to reconnect again. My Verizon contract will be extended for the 6 months I suspended my plan, but I am not planning on leaving them anyway.

My financial coach, Survivor, has all my Verizon information in order to ensure she can do the second suspension while I'm inside. These are the kinds of things we have to prepare for. Make a list of every bill you pay and figure out whether you need to make special arrangements, like with your cell phone.