Journal Entry: Dennis Zeedyk-01/28/2025

Journal Entry

I see more drugs in prison than I ever saw outside. It seems like the drug of choice is something called Deuce. People who smoke it basically get stuck in a freeze-frame for a period of time. When you see people like that, they are “stuck.” Yesterday while emailing my wife, a guy sauntered up to me and asked me if I wanted “rock.” I replied, “what?” He then said, “bop?” I asked him if he was trying to sell me drugs and he said yes. I told him I did not do drugs, smoke or drink and didn’t want anything. You would have thought the guy (me) walking around during the day with books and constantly sitting somewhere either reading or writing would be a dead giveway that I didn’t want any drugs.

The currency in prison is either a book (25) or flat (20) of stamps. They have a value of about $8. If you want to buy something from another prison like a combination lock, you pay with stamps.

I am looking into a program called DDRDAP – Dual Disability Resident Drug & Alcohol Program. It is only offered here at FMC Lexington. I told my wife and she replied back, “You know that you have an addiction problem. You were drinking a lot the month or two before prison.” After thinking about it a bit, I realized she was right. It is a real punch in the guts when you hear something like that from your wife and is a driving force for me to get into the program.

I am still reading books & studying Spanish. I am now into some books that are a little harder for me to read like “The Red Badge of Courage” and “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair. The problem with the latter is that it matches my life a bit because it involves an immigrant family stuck in job just getting by (which is like being stuck in prison) and thus makes it a bit hard to read. I am going to push harder the rest of the week to finish these two books. I am also reading a book called “The Life of Christ” which is a summary of the New Testament. You can only read this in small parts so that you have time to digest it. Lastly, I am reading the book of Revelations in the Bible. You have to read that slow to understand it.

I am still in my 6-man room and all but one of my roommates are relatively good guys. All of them are here on a sex offender charge and 4 of the 5 are diabetics (these two things are not correlated – just the way it happened). We mostly take time to read and talk a little bit in the evenings. It is better being in a 6-man room with them than outside in the dorm style bunks (called The Bus Stop) because it is loud out there, that is where the drugs are & theft is an issue. Inside our room, we look out for each other to prevent theft.