Federal Supervision Overload

I've been in contact with my parole officer a lot lately... too much for comfort if I do say so myself. When I received permission to go to the GA conference in Lexington, part of that permission required me to leave messages with my PO every step of the way. Each trip I make has its own set of rules. For this trip, I called him when we set off on the road, when we arrived in Lexington, and when we finished the conference and started heading back. Each time resulted in a short message on his voicemail with an update of my trip.

Just prior to going, I had to call him and tell him that I'd been stopped by a police officer for speeding on campus. My honesty got me out of a ticket that time. The fact that the officer immediately knew that I was on federal supervision was a little unnerving but comes with the territory, I suppose.

Then, as I was filling out my monthly online report early this week, I realized that I'd talked with someone at the conference that had been incarcerated before - I mentioned her here on the blog as the person who had spent time at Lexington. Well, out of the requirements of supervision, in one of my messages to my PO over the weekend, I'd mentioned it to him as well. What that meant, is that I had to answer that question in the positive on my monthly report, which was the first time I'd done so. I wanted to talk to my PO and make sure that was the case. I don't even remember the woman's name and know nothing of the details of her crime. This time, my PO called me back and Yes, I do have to report it. So, in filling out my monthly report, I put the small amount of details of having an interaction with another felon. My PO told me that it will not adversely affect me in any way, it is just protocol to report it. It was interesting in answering the questions, as I hadn't realized that many people probably have to say, "yes," all the time due to family members and other close relations having past felonies.

Then, my PO calls me and tells me that I have an 80 question survey that I need to fill out. Since I am just past 6 months, it's my guess that I need to fill this out every 6 months, because it is the same survey I filled out right at the beginning. I had to make my way over to my PO's office and it took me about 7 minutes to complete. It's one of those surveys that wants to make sure we are really sorry for our criminal acts to ensure we do not still have criminal thoughts, that we are not blaming the world for our punishments, that we are thinking clearly, etc. Every so often, there is a question thrown in that you should answer in the opposite of all the other questions, just to be sure you ARE paying attention to the actual questions on the survey. I write surveys, I know what to do on this. I answered honestly, nonetheless! Truth be told, without recovery, I would not have the clear mind to really understand things the way I understand them today. I always blamed myself, of course, but I thought of myself as broken, instead of really understanding underlying addiction and irrational thinking and actions. In recovery, I have the ability to have rational thoughts and choices over my actions, in addiction, I honestly could not be trusted to make any rational decisions or choices.

Given all the above, I don't want to have to make the call I need to make later today... every interaction - big or small - with police must be reported. T.S. parked my car this morning and it received a parking ticket. Sounds too small to report, right? But even an infraction with my car shows up in his office. So, once again, I have to contact my PO. Here I am wanting favors and to get off supervision, and in a short period of time I get stopped for speeding (it was 37 in a 25) and now a parking ticket. They are small infractions, but I for one want none. When on supervision the idea is to keep ourselves out of trouble. I got a little frustrated this morning - not so much with T.S., but with my inability to "control" - which is far outside of working my GA recovery program. I just need to go with the flow, I guess. What will happen, will happen.

I guess I better stop writing and give my PO a call... good thing it'll probably be his voicemail...

Never Get Too Comfortable

I've mentioned before that I've been concerned about the fact that I have not heard back from my PO lately and I need to be making my restitution payments and have some questions. My messages went unanswered, and he doesn't like repeat calls or emails, so it's a sit and wait game. However, I didn't want to violate my supervision either. I knew that this month I must make a payment, but since my case was transferred from one state to this state, I wasn't sure the protocol on where to make payments and last I talked to my PO, neither did he. What a lot of people don't realize, is that restitution is paid to the court clerk where you are sentenced, usually, not to the victims or some other entity. Additionally, all the restitution payments I made while incarcerated are still not showing up on my paperwork as being applied to my overall restitution debt.

This morning, I decided to head over to my PO's office. I guess I can just go there any week day, although I never have been there since my first day of official supervision. I went to drop off two forms. One form was a listing of all the gambler's anonymous meetings I've been to since July 2nd. It actually wasn't all of them, but most of them. It's a technicality that I have to have the form filled out and I attend at least a meeting every week. They have to have proof that I'm serious about my recovery. I am. Included was the G.A. conference I attended a couple weeks ago. He was pleased I went to it. He really doesn't understand how serious about recovery I am.

The second form was my first ever "travel authorization" form. It was for permission to travel to where my family and friends are for the Yom Kippur holiday weekend. It usually takes two weeks to receive approval, but luckily my PO was in, took me into his office for about 45 minutes, and approved me for my first trip out of state on the spot. In October, I will officially be able to take a road trip for a weekend. I'm truly looking forward to it! The fact that I need to go through that process, though, is that reminder - I am still in supervision - possibly for another 2 3/4 years - and my life is not mine to live freely. I have restrictions.

Interestingly, my PO asked me if I've had any "police interaction" recently and I honestly answered, "no." However, Sporty was driving my car last night and was pulled over. She was driving in a turn only lane and went forward, the cop just gave her a warning - this was just last night. Turns out that since it was my vehicle, my name popped up at my PO's office this morning. All was fine, but I guess he would have been forced to check in with me anyway today. I didn't realize that even my vehicle without my being in it made me susceptible to PO questions. It's okay, though, cause I really needed to talk to my PO!

Well, it's really good that I went in, because my PO still didn't have the answers about my restitution payments. That's okay, though, I'm just going to start making the payments to the original court - by check. I hate not being able to make the payment electronically. I like a better paper trail! I've also made the decision to make an initial payment out of the school grant I received. It's technically not income, but my PO never got a response from the court and I don't want to make a wrong move. I'll do whatever it takes to be truly free. I'll be paying on my restitution for a long time, but I want to be off supervision. I just don't want to ever get too comfortable with my life and somehow forget that I need to be doing something or that I have rules to follow and must report in and must pay my restitution on time.

It's actually quite easy to get caught up on normality and almost forget that I can't just jump in my car and drive somewhere or that I can never travel to Canada again or that I have no passport or that I can't just take an Amtrak or buy a plane ticket. My life is monitored. And, it appeared, my car is monitored. I'm at home, comfortably sitting on my couch, writing this blog post, but my life is still under surveillance to a point. I suppose in some ways it will always be - at least until I can actually finish supervision and finish paying off my restitution. Somehow, I will find a day when I am totally free again. Perhaps it won't matter one day. I don't know. I just can't forget that right now, I better keep taking the initiative and check in with my PO from time to time.