December Supervision Update and More

A couple months ago I posted that my P.O. had stated that I should be off supervision by the holidays (remember?). Later, Freckles posted that her P.O. stated that she was told that nearly no one gets off supervision. Well, it is the holidays... what's my status?

I have been on supervision a total of 17 months of my 3 year sentence. Word was that most people have to do at least 18 months, so there's that. What about the "before the holidays," stuff though? I had to go see my P.O. and I have been pushing him in a cordial kind of way... "any movement?" "anything I can do?"

One thing I did was bring in my Carswell certificate that showed I took a class in financial budgeting. It was a requirement of my supervision that I have a financial course and encouraged that I do it while still incarcerated. I didn't mind doing so. It was informative and Glitter taught it. I went for six weeks and we watched videos, filled out paperwork, took a pre and post test. It was legit. I received a certificate and points on my official paperwork for completing it. It was one of the few educational activities where I was a participant and not the educator. My P.O. made a copy of the certificate last time I was there and we crossed that requirement off my paperwork, or so I thought.

Last week, I talked to my P.O. again due to my needing permission to travel for Thanksgiving, and he informed me that he still wanted me to get in another financial seminar ("I don't care how short or long it is"). I guess pushing these programs while still incarcerated don't count once we are out. Luckily, I had several workshops I'd been to that we could choose from. We selected a workshop I recently attended with the youth I work with where I actually took a selfie with Rev. Jessee Jackson Sr. Telling my P.O. that I had a selfie with Rev. Jackson resulted in his wanting me to text him a copy of the photo. While not nearly as informative as the seminar I attended at Carswell, the one day workshop with Jessee Jackson crossed that "t" and dotted that "i," and there was nothing remaining on my requirements from court for concern. No matter what anything may think of Rev. Jessee Jackson, the workshop was really good and he was inspirational to the youth - also, he was impressive to my P.O. which is all that really matter!!!

So, was that enough? Well, no.

Being qualified to be recommended for early release from supervision and having your P.O. actually seek it are two entirely different things! I had done everything expected of me for the last 17 months - monthly reports, paying more than expected in restitution, maintaining my employment, school, solid family life, no negative police interactions, clean from gambling, active in recovery, etc., but there are several people that must make the decision to ACT before anything can happen and the first level had initially decided to NOT act.

My P.O. informed me that the office was so overwhelmed with "bad" drug dealers that they did not have time to go to court to request my early release. Early release is the lowest priority in such a busy office. With the number of people recently being released from prisons, they are just too burdened to take on the work of early release. He admitted he was going to try to get me released before, but too much work has now piled upon him. I think he could see my disappointment as I just stared at him knowing that he had all the power in that room.

I did not let it entirely go, though. I brought up the fact that travel is a real part of my life - as all our family members live out of state and I am constantly burdening him with travel requests.

Next thing that happened is that my P.O. decided that he would call the prosecutor from my case and see if there would be an opposition to early release. If not, it will be much simpler to go forward. That phone call should have occurred this past week. I am supposed to hear back from my P.O. tomorrow.

My P.O. asked me if the prosecutor was being really tough on me. I said that, honestly, he was tough in the fact that he asked for prison and a year and a day, but that he could have gone with the statutory minimums of 3-5 years. My P.O. laughed and said, "he went for a year and a day?"

I said, "I know, he wanted me to be able to get time off..."
My P.O. said, "exactly." One year and I'd have served exactly 365 days in prison and instead I was able to served about 10 months!

I also said that the prosecutor allowed me to hold on to my passport and go to South Africa between arraignment and sentencing. This fascinated my P.O. "You went to South Africa??"

"Yeah, they said I was a good bet." Meaning I wouldn't run. "I told them that they should use a different choice of words on me."

My P.O. is the one person in the legal system who understands my sense of humor around my gambling addiction. I reminded my P.O. that I am 7 1/2 years clean from gambling. I am also 7 1/2 years since any wrong doing.

I do not know what could happen. Will I be released from supervision before my three years are finished or will I have the opportunity to have a judge consider me for early release? These are outside my control.  I will just keep doing the right thing whether on or off supervision and hope that I continue to maintain a decent relationship with my P.O.

Honesty, Open-Mindedness, and Willingness are three words we learn in recovery --- I think they are applicable in our relationships with our P.O.'s as well!

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.

First Conversation with my P.O.

I am not yet under the supervision of my probation officer, since the RRC is in charge of my supervision. I've never met him either, since I had no supervision prior to my self-surrender, so I decided to give him a call yesterday. I'm curious about what supervision will be like and how much freedom I'll actually have. Obviously, not freedom to do anything bad, but will I still have a curfew? Can I plan to do a special weekend away with my close friends? Etc.

My P.O. seemed like a nice guy when I talked to him on the phone. He knew exactly who I was with just my name - he's talked with Sporty a couple times since I'm living with her. He didn't want to answer any questions until my official out date - July 2nd. He was like, "wow, that's right around the corner, isn't it?" So, we made a time for me to meet him at his office that afternoon and he said he will give me all the details then. It's crazy that people only tell you what to expect when the day arrives... No ability to prepare oneself. Just another unknown in the future.

I tried to see if my 2x weekly check in could get transferred to him for the remaining time of my home confinement... His office is 15 minutes away, the RRC is 1 1/2 hours away. It isn't possible. So, after this morning, I have 3 more times of that ridiculous drive.

I did get him to answer one question in the positive, though. He says I'll be limited to the western side of my state for the first 60 days or so of my supervision, which will allow me to do my special annual weekend retreat with my close GA friends. Eleven of us will be doing the retreat this year and since I had to miss last year's, I'm super pumped for it. I started this retreat, but it has really become part of all of our lives. I do a lot of the organizing, still, and I've already planned some weekend activities! I can't wait to sit around a campfire and eat s'mores!!

Also, even though I'm restricted to the western side of my state, my P.O. gave me permission to attend a Queen (with Adam Lambert) concert next month on the eastern side of the state. I've been a Queen and Adam Lambert fan... the two together just sounds like an amazing concert! Glad my P.O. said yes. He sounds like a pretty reasonable guy!

I don't know what my life will be like once supervision starts (being on paper, as we call it in prison), but I know it should be more relaxed than my home confinement. It's just one more step closer to real freedom. I think it really depends on who your P.O. happens to be. As long as mine has a sense of humor, I think it'll be all right.