FCI Lexington

This weekend, I attended a GA conference in Lexington, Kentucky. It was a fantastic conference. It was not the biggest gambler's anonymous conference I've been to, but it did not need to be. It had people who worked a serious recovery program and the workshops were wonderful. I met people from at least six states and many people with more than 20 years of recovery. I love hearing their stories and learning from those who have successfully continued their recovery for so long. It's an important part of my recovery to meet new people and getting to different conferences is always a learning experience.

Before leaving Lexington this morning, I reached for my phone and mapped out the directions to FCI Lexington. FCI Lexington is primarily a men's medical facility - much like Carswell is for women. It also has an adjacent minimum security women's satellite camp. Lola started her imprisonment at the Lexington satellite camp and Mama is there now (she was transferred there before the holidays). I'm so glad Mama is there - her parents and her children now can visit her every weekend! That's the way it should be. People should not be placed thousands of miles away from home. Had I not had a medical issue, I may have been placed at that camp.

I just felt like it was important to drive to the space, think about Mama, and to say the serenity prayer. Turned out that I was only 12 minutes away from the prison...

Seeing the sign say "federal medical center" felt a little too much like Carswell, but I knew that this place is nothing like Carswell. There are five medical centers for men and only one for women, so their experiences are different - they don't house all classifications of security together. They may have men at the same facilities that have different security levels, but they will house them in different kinds of units. They have separate medical facilities for cancer treatments (Butner) and mental health (Devens). The administrative units house all levels, but no place is like Carswell, Carswell is like an experiment on how much stress you can cause women who do not belong in a secured prison filled with fairly violent individuals. Truth be told, most the people I met were fairly decent women. There were just some scary ones thrown in that made the whole experience not so good. 

I actually met a woman at the conference this weekend who did about 15 months at Lexington for a crime related to her gambling. She said that it was like living at a really bad college dorm. I said that was nothing like my experience in prison. That's the thing... every prison is so different - just like Freckles at the HWH. Her experience is so different than my own. Plus, this woman I met was at a camp - what I was sentenced to - but I went to the FMC... as I've said before - avoid an FMC if you can!!!

Mama is doing well at Lexington, I believe. That's good. Not I got to see where she is. It makes me feel better knowing this. Unfortunately, a car pulled up behind Sporty and I as we were taking this picture and another and we continued for a second down the road until we realized we were about to get to the point of no return and I'd actually be headed TO THE PRISON. Let me tell you, that's the LAST place I plan to go!!! So I stopped so the car could pass me and I could back up. Well, as the car passed by me, the person driving looked over at us with the meanest eyes and the man was dressed as a C.O. and looked so mad and I KNEW that look and it brought me right back to my life at Carswell and I wanted to be anywhere than on the property of a federal prison!!!! We slowly backed the car up and stopped back at the main sign. I took Sporty's hand and said...

"God, grant me the serenity (Sporty joined in...)

to accept the things I cannot change

the courage to change the things I can

and the courage to know the difference..."

That serenity prayer was for Mama, it was for all the prisoners who are housed there. It was for all the people who will be there in the future and it was for me.

We drove away and started our drive back to home.