The crazy part is, I’m grateful for prison. It may sound insane or cliché, but coming here saved my life.
There I was, sitting in a prison cell, staring at a dingy gray cement wall, trying to wrap my head around the fact that I was going to miss over a decade with everyone I love. All the lies I had told myself during my addiction came crashing down. There was no way to rationalize or minimize this moment—no more pretending that I was “only hurting myself” or that I “wasn’t a real drug addict,” despite the fact that at my worst, I stole from the people I loved most to feed my addiction.
At first, my sobriety was forced by circumstance, but with that came clarity. This was my rock bottom, and there was no denying it. It’s funny how you take so many things for granted when you’re free—like choosing what to wear, deciding what to eat, or going to the store, the beach, or the mall on a whim. For the past eight years, I’ve worn nothing but prison blues, white, and gray. I’ve eaten whatever was served at meal times, unless I could afford something like rice bowls or oatmeal.
The crazy part is, I’m grateful for prison. It may sound insane or cliché, but coming here saved my life. Without it, I likely would have never stopped using—I would have overdosed, or at best, I’d still be lost in my addiction. My sober date is June 6, 2016, and since then, I’ve accomplished more positive things from inside these prison walls than I ever did when I was “free” because I was a slave to my addiction. My worst days now are better than my best days then.
I’ve earned college degrees in business, history, and psychology. I’ve completed over 1,000 hours of self-help groups, and I’ve facilitated AA and NA groups as chairman. I’ve set goals, like saving money, and actually followed through (lol). I’m trained as an alcohol and drug counselor, registered with CAADE, and I work as a peer support specialist here at San Quentin, acting as a liaison between medical/mental health staff and patients, helping improve my community.
The most exciting part is that I’ll be getting out of prison in four years. If I can achieve all these things while sober and inside prison, I can’t wait to see what I can do when I’m free.
“Don’t Dream”
A poem by Alex
There once was a kid whose name I won’t mention,
Growing up fast, paying nobody attention.
Everybody made fun of this boy,
He never went outside, never had toys.
Didn’t have a lot of friends, but he did have a pen,
He wrote a little bit, then he wrote a bit again.
He would write every day, no matter what people say,
Other kids play, but he doesn’t, but anyway.
His favorite color was gray, and if you ask why,
He wouldn’t know how to explain, but he would try.
Put black ink on enough white pages,
You might think that it sounds outrageous,
But the truth is, the colors made a mixture,
And he used this to paint another picture.
Word after word, I became a whole binder,
He put the first page in a frame, a reminder.
Before I go, I gotta mess with your head:
Do you want to know what the first page said?
“Don’t dream, a dream is something that you wanna do,
Do what you want, the whole way through.”
