VINCE

The amount of time some people are sentenced to for drug problems is absurd.  I’ve never spelled that word and I feel as though I’ve done so incorrectly.  But…my neighbor here, with a wife and two kids.  Got caught with a little bit of coke—one gram—think one packet of sugar.  And because of a drug charge 13 years before, he’s gone for 64 months.  Another, convicted of making meth a dozen years ago, caught with a thimble full 6 months ago.  88 months.

Used to be the court system forced people into treatment.  They realized treatment didn’t work, but for the wrong reason.  Treatment worked for me, one time, for 4 years and 11 months, because I wanted it.  I was done, at least for a bit.  But people these days go straight to prison.  Some people really do realize the gravity of their mistakes when they’re arrested. They tell the judge, prosecutors and their lawyers that they want to go to treatment and they are shot down.  Sad.

Laws are now written in such a way that, me personally, I never sold any drugs to anybody wearing a wire, nor did I sell any drugs to a cop or informant. But I was still charged with 1^st Degree Sales. No drugs were on my person, or in my car. I never admitted to having or using any drugs. If I had gone to trial and been convicted, I would have received 98 months because they found an empty box that had contained a scale and more than 10 sugar-packet-sized baggies of meth in the hotel room.

I may come off as being bitter, because I am. Mostly because my actions are responsible for Sarah being locked up. But I am happy that my drug use is over for now. I say that because I have not yet been sober for this entire day. And sobriety is one day at a time for now.

Do I want to stay sober after boot camp? Yes. Will I? No fucking clue. Sometimes the beast is stronger than I am. My problem is not one I can just hand over to Jesus or God and then ignore it. Mine is a work in progress. A learning experience, if you will. Tempt me with a minnow and I may bite. Try to help me and I may run. I’m just starting to figure myself out. And I can be a real mother fucker. And I’m going to write it all down for your pleasure.

[ANNE: Vince tells me he got a notice that he had received a letter from me and it was destroyed. My heart pounds with impotent anger. What had I said? He explains that it had probably been something physical about it that could have conceivably been used to smuggle drugs. Had I sent him a card that had layers glued together? Or something with stickers? Stickers. That was it. I had a running joke with a friend in England about grey vs. red squirrels, and she had sent me a packet of lovely red squirrel stickers as a joke. I had plastered them all over a letter to Vince, and they had shredded it and sent him a notice. Why not photocopy it and give him the copy? Why even tell him he was missing something? That was just plain cruel.]