JULY 2018❣️❣️❣️. Is this nightmare over ??

So I went to look at my Facebook Messages today……they dated back to 2015. There were messages from 43 people who are no longer alive.  43 overdoses.  Dead Addicts. There were 51 messages from family members who were trying to get their addicts in treatment somewhere.  WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?” This tragedy continues on a daily basis and I’m trying very hard to put the past two years together so I can finally pick up where I left off and figure out what direction God wants me to go in.

I did a Skype with my friend BRANDY who is still in prison. Being on the other side of the Skype was strange. I am so far removed from being in that prison hell hole. What happened to me in there? How in the world did I get through such a travesty? And now here I sit with a HUGE 2000 piece jigsaw puzzle that was put together so carefully only to be totally destroyed by the FEDS, the Dept of Health, VBH, the DEA ……..as well as a number of people who I THOUGHT were my support and had my back no matter what.

Is this system SERIOUS? I just spent 10.5 months in a place where my every want or need or move was in the hands of SEXUALLY PERVERTED PREDATORS and ignorant, illiterate, uneducated CAPTAINS, LIEUTENANTS, GUARDS, and don’t let me forget WARDENS who treated inmates like WE were the sexual perverts. Do you think there was no PAIN OR SUFFERING ??? I was packed out and put in a filthy, nasty, dirty maximum security jail for five days because I held the Captains pubic hair in my locker while he was raping female inmates. I was put in shackles around my ankles and my wrists. I was told that if I couldn’t hold my bladder for the two hour drive I would be given a “shot.” The saddest thing of ALL is that the inmates are accustomed to being treated like pure degenerates when in reality, inmates have a far higher IQ and/or successful life than ALL of the Alderson Staff COMBINED. I’m truly embarrassed for them. And the saga continues ….Regional comes to inspect the compound and just a FEW DAYS BEFORE they come; the Alderson Staff pulls the inmates together and literally outright TELLS us that “while Region is here on the compound, things are to be done differently and that we can go back to the old way of doing things once they leave”. WHO GETS AWAY WITH THAT? The Bureau of Prisons gets away with it. When ASI/MES would get inspected by an entity, we were a nervous wreck. We worried that we wouldn’t pass the inspection. We tried to make sure that we did everything ethically and dotted our I’s and crossed our T’s. And we did….every time. Every inspection………until October 8, 2015 when the FBI made a decision to take us down. Yes, that’s what the Feds did and that’s what they ALWAYS DO. Because they don’t lose……ever.

And I’m going to say this once and only once……the Feds SHOULD have LOST this one. Because ASI/MES was built on love …Love for the Addict and for their family members. Because the staff was committed to helping addicts overcome & fight this disease that was and is killing them, their children and their families. So many lives have been lost and/or destroyed as a result of this tragedy. Just as so many Addicts were SAVED and found RECOVERY as a result of ASI/MES and their staff.

So now, I have a desire to do it again. My heart aches for the families of Tommy and Clinton and Danielle and Pudge and Pina and Big Lou and Stush and Delaware and so so many more. All gone but not forgotten 😇

So as I sit here alone, home from Prison after losing everythingand realizing that I am sitting here with the same feelings of guilt, shame and low self esteem that I had years and years ago when I first got high at age 15 and also when I started my recovery in Gateway on December 13,1983. Those feelings can paralyze me if I allow them to. How do I overcome them? How do I not let them paralyze me ? Where do I turn? I know God has not brought me this far to drop me on my head. This will not be a new chapter, it’ll be a brand new BOOK !!!!

Unfortunately, I miss my mother & my father more than ever. What I missed out on was having parents & grandparents. My mother lost her desire to be my mom after she lost my dad. I needed her more than ever. It sometimes takes years of therapy to come to terms with grief and loss. I thank God that I have four beautiful children and a husband who can understand me and who loves me unconditionally.

Thank God. I am blessed. I’m ready …… let’s go Change Some Lives!