For me personally I feel that the system needs more resources for relapse prevention. More resources to help people like me prevent from relapse and losing myself yet again to my addiction. I am not the most intelligent person but I had a stint of 13 years in the outside world that I was sober and built a life and a family, a beautiful family. After 11 years I had a gastric bypass a year later I lost quite a bit of weight in the same time we sold our first home of 8 years and started a cleaning company. There was so much going on and my husband and I’s relationship started to strain. I did not recognize that I was heading toward a relapse first with Alcohol a little here and a little there by the next year we closed the cleaning company sold the newer home again to move back closer to my ex husbands job and I was drinking a fifth of whiskey a day. After settled into the new home maybe two months later I began using meth and then a month later selling it. I separated from my husband and became homeless. I wish I had known what was happening. I didn’t have the tools or the knowledge of what a relapse looks like. Till now I have gone through treatment inpatient intense outpatient and outpatient and continued through courses and classes and meetings. Since being sentenced I’ve notice we are not offered many options on classes that can teach us those tools and the knowledge and we don’t have the support like aa/na on the compound. I work in Psychology as a mentor and most of the women who comes in are try to stay sober on the compound or are struggling with thoughts and cravings. I has one person can only offer and help so much, but I feel like if we had even peer led classes that can provide the information tools and knowledge it would help. This is my goal to plant seeds of relapse prevention and to maybe hold a class so to help lower recidivism rates and bring healing and recovery so when we are released we don’t return.
READ NEWSLETTER ARTICLE HERE: https://prisonprofessorstalent.com/journal-entries/newsletter-7/
