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LeCordon Blue

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ANNE

My last post looked at the reasons that kids born into poor or blue collar families are highly have a hard time negotiating the college admissions process.  Low expectations, parents who know nothing about the admissions system, day care instead of preschool, and a lack of exposure to enriching opportunities like music lessons or travel.

Everyone’s situation is different, but I have to write at least one more post about what happens when kids from poor families do aspire to attend college.  It should be easy.  If they start at a community college for their first two years, then finish at a public university.  Pell Grants should cover their cost of attendance.  Students can take up to six years to complete their degree, which allows them time to work, which covers their rent and other living expenses.  Even private colleges can be a good deal for lower income kids, if they have good grades, because private colleges offer much more financial aid than public institutions.  They should have to borrow minimal, if any, in student loans.

But what can happen is that low income kids get all excited about for-profit colleges that are national chains and advertise heavily on TV, the radio, and the web.  These are places like LeCordon Bleu School of Culinary Arts, where Vince wanted to go when he was 16 and had dropped out of high school.  He stopped in to get information and they pounced, completing all the paperwork for him to take out student loans to cover the $40,000 tuition.

That’s $40,000 per year, for a two-year program.  That’s how for-profit schools make their shareholders very, very happy.  LeCordon Bleu has a graduation rate that’s better than Bemidji State University, but at 48% that still means 52% of students drop out under the worst possible circumstances: no degree, which means no prospects for a decent job, and on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars of student loans.  That’s U.S. Government money–aka tax dollars–going to subsidize for-profit colleges.  It makes me sick.  Back then I knew very little about the whole college aid picture but I understood that $40,000 was a ridiculous amount to pay to get a degree as a pastry chef.  I refused to sign the forms for Vince and he was furious, but maybe some day he’ll thank me.

Recently Vince asked me to send him information about culinary schools.  He was interested in earning a degree in the work he’s been doing for 20 years.  I checked out our local community and technical college and their tuition for a full-time student was a little over $3,000 per year.

But unsophisticated students can get into trouble even at community colleges.

Fast forward.  Vince has completed four months of treatment at Hazelden and a year living in a Hazelden-sanctioned halfway house in West Palm Beach, Florida.  He has settled in Rochester, Minnesota and is working at Spencer Gifts.  He decides to pursue a degree at Rochester Community and Technical College.

I was working at the job I mentioned in my last post–the college enrollment consulting firm–and offered to help Vince figure out the financial aid picture.  He seemed to think this was intrusive and unnecessary.

To make a long story short, he took out over $30,000 in student loans and dropped out a few credits shy of earning his associate degree.  What was going on in that financial aid office?  Wasn’t anyone tracking that no student needed that much in federal loans to attend a college that cost $3,000 a year?  Wasn’t there an underwriter to flag that this was a high-risk borrower?

He subsequently defaulted on those loans.  The penalties and interest have piled up astronomically.  Unlike other debt that can be discharged in bankruptcy, student loans are inescapable.   As Vince would say, “Ugh.”

It probably feels overwhelming to him; not what he needs as he is about to be released to make a fresh start.

Boring but Important

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ANNE

This blog touches on a lot of issues related to imprisonment, like addiction, drug laws, mental illness, and intergenerational poverty.  One thing I’ve been meaning to address is class, and historically, a four-year college degree has been the way for Americans to propel themselves from the “working class” to the middle class and beyond.

We talk a lot about race in this country, but we like to think we’re a classless society because we don’t have a monarchy.  We also like to believe that in America, anyone can overcome poverty to become a millionaire if they just work hard enough.  It’s exactly because of this myth, I think, that our class divide is so hard to overcome, because we don’t acknowledge that it exists or that the deck is stacked against many people.

—

I learned a lot about college financial aid and admissions by working at a consulting firm that specialized in enrollment management for private colleges.  What we did was this: our clients would send us the data on their freshman applicants, we would analyze it, then tell them which applicants to accept and how much money to offer them to come.  These financial “awards” were really mostly just discounts to entice desirable students to come to a particular college.

When we analyzed the data—no matter whether it was Occidental College in L.A. or Loyola University in Chicago or St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota—there was one thing that students with the highest grades and test scores had in common.  Race?  No. High school attended?  No.  These things were factors but really it all boiled down to parental income.

Colleges often offered discounts to the richest families.  They call these awards things like “Presidential Scholarships” in hopes of flattering parents and beating their competitors.

Why do kids from high-income families do so well?  It’s not rocket science.  They have grown up in safe, lead-free homes with toys and books.  They went to preschool and well-resourced elementary schools.  Their parents attended every parent-teacher conference and made sure they did their homework.  They went to summer camps in the Adirondacks where they were on a lacrosse team, were immersed in French, or learned to play the marimba.  Colleges love these well-rounded students.

Wealthy families can also afford SAT/ACT prep classes.  They can afford to fly/drive to campus visits to the remote, pastoral towns where the most exclusive colleges are located.  They can hire tutors and college admission coaches.  These coaches do a brisk business in helping kids write the perfect application essay and advising parents on which colleges will give the biggest discounts.

But sometimes I think the biggest factor in driving kids toward academic success is that wealthy parents have expectations of them.

—

I don’t recall anyone having expectations of me, or talking to me about college when I was 17.  They may have, but I was so busy partying that I may not remember.  Our neighborhood was blue collar—every mom was a housewife and every husband was a car mechanic, a roofer, or worked in a can factory.  The only reason I even knew what a college was, was because there was a Catholic college nearby and my aunt had married a professor—the one “white collar” guy on the block.

Yet I knew I didn’t want to work in a can factory or be a housewife, and that college was my ticket out.  I applied to one college—Bemidji State University.  Bemidji State is in an extremely poor part of northern Minnesota near the White Earth Indian reservation.  It has a 90% acceptance rate and a 17% graduation rate (compared with around 7% and 99% for Harvard).  All I knew was that it sounded as far away from home as anything I could imagine.

By the time I got my acceptance letter, I was pregnant with Vince.  I wrote “deceased” on the envelope and threw it back in the mail.

—

I sometimes wonder what trajectory my life would have taken if I’d had some guidance about college, but on the whole I’ve made the best of it and have had a great life.

A Visit, at Last

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ANNE

I went to visit Vince on Sunday, for the first time in over eight months.

Given my last experience with visiting, my subsequent six-month ban, the fact that my last four letters to him were destroyed, and that he’ll soon be released, I thought I could skip this visit.   But he really wanted me to come.  I’m his only visitor, so he hasn’t seen anyone from the outside for a long time.

Friends made suggestions for what I should wear to prevent a repeat of the unfortunate “low-cut blouse” episode.  A nun’s habit, suit of armor, a sleeping bag, a burqa … the list went on and on and it was all very ha, ha, ha but I was really very anxious.  It’s indescribable unless you’ve experienced it firsthand—the feeling of being at the mercy of a stranger in uniform—the powerlessness, uncertainty, and fear.  And I’m not even in prison.

Problem was, I don’t own a T-shirt or a button-up shirt or a turtle neck.  I don’t like clothing that constricts around the neck.  I was inspired to put on one of my uncle’s dress shirts—the uncle who died in December whose shirts I took for Vince.  I could have fit two of me inside it.  The sleeves fell down six inches below my fingers and the shirt tails fell to my knees, but it I could button it up to my neck.  Maybe it would bring me good luck.

The hour-and-a-half-long drive to Willow River went smoothly and I arrived a few minutes before visiting hours.  The gate was closed so I pressed the intercom button.  A voice told me to leave the grounds and wait on the highway until visiting hours started.  I looked at my cell phone and said, “You mean, in four minutes?”  “Yes,” he answered.

A year ago I would have made a sarcastic remark but I wasn’t going to take any chances.  I said, “Okay” and backed down the drive.  I killed the engine and reflexively reached for my cell phone, then realized I had not left the grounds so I started the car up again, drove out to the highway, and sat there on the side of the road with my emergency lights on as cars and trucks zoomed by me.

After four minutes I drove back in and the gate was open.  This facility is much smaller than St. Cloud or Moose Lake.  There were no bars, metal doors, metal detectors, or guards behind plexiglass.  My hand was shaking as I filled out the visitor-request form, but within 10 minutes I was waved into the visiting room and there he was.  When I hugged him I could feel how much weight he had lost.  “People would pay to come here!” I said, laughing.  “I know, mom, I’ve never been in such great shape in my life,” he said.

“And by the way, I just got a demerit because you arrived early.”

What a splash of cold water!  Vince got a demerit because I arrived four minutes early.  It would be one thing if I had known this was a no-no, but I had checked the visiting rules online the day before and they said nothing about it.  “Don’t worry about it, mom.  That’s just how how it is.  There’s no way of knowing what the rules are until you break one.  They’re looking for a reaction, and I won’t give it to them.  Just don’t show up early when you come to pick me up on my last day.”

“If I were staying in longer, you could do a video visit,” Vince told me.  “They’re promoting it heavily—one hour for only $99.95!”  We burst out laughing at the absurdity of it, but he explained that a hundred bucks was cheap for the many families who had to drive from Chicago and pay for hotel rooms.

Our two hours together flew by.  I drove home and felt completely drained.  Two hundred miles, two hours with my son, two weeks til he comes home.

Whole Lotta Saggin’ Goin’ On

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VINCE

My blue plastic chair, when in its proper place with me sitting properly in it, faces the bathroom.  Luckily for me, there is a shower curtain that usually is pulled over the eight foot entrance.  Usually.  Well, say 50% of the time.  So, anytime I look up from reading, writing, or reflecting, I have little choice but to see inside the bathroom.  And every time there’s a lot going on in there as you can imagine there would be with three urinals, three toilets, and eight showers.  I see a lot more skin than I ever want to see again.

I say that to say this: I’m glad that at no point in my life was I morbidly obese.  It’s no secret that our country is fat.  Well, there are a lot of fat criminals, too.  Unfortunately, at a place like this, people tend to lose a lot of fat, but not a lot of skin.  It’s … unsettling.  It makes me cringe.

And now a short list of things I want to eat my first day out: An avocado, sushi, a Dairy Queen Blizzard ® with both Reeses ® cups and Butterfinger ®, and although I don’t believe it’s technically edible, a large cup of quality coffee.

—

50 days to go.  Have I ever mentioned my fear of needles?  I must have.  Well, my name was called to go to health services and when I walked down the corridor and rounded into the room, I froze.  On the table in front of the bad man wearing blue latex gloves was a pile of syringes.  I couldn’t speak and I knew he could see my color draining away so he said, “It’s just Mantoux, to screen for tuberculosis.”  This was about the best news there could have been.  I can handle a needle going almost anywhere as long as it isn’t a vein.

Only twice in my life has a needle entered directly into my bloodstream.  Once in Hazelden in 2001, and once when I went to the hospital when I thought I was dying.  It turned out I had Salmonella, which they found out through my feces.  I was actually angry that my blood work came back clean.  It took four nurses to do the blood draw: one to remind me to keep breathing, two to talk to me while the fourth stole my blood.  I don’t think I heard much of what they were saying.

I’m also afraid of surgery.  I can’t listen to people talk about it.  I can’t watch it on TV, or look at pictures of it.  I don’t think I will ever have surgery, however necessary, because it combines my two least favorite things.

[ANNE: I too hate having blood drawn, and I have fainted a couple times, once hitting my jaw on the side of a table while I was going down.  Vince fainted once, just listening to someone talking about surgery.  I don’t know if it’s a physical or psychological thing (could Vince have learned or inherited this aversion from me?).  I’ve learned to ask for three things: 1) a “butterfly” needle, which is thinner than the standard one; 2) that I lie down while they do the draw; and 3) that they talk to me to distract me.  Health care folks are always happy to do these things; they don’t want me falling onto the floor any more than I do.]

Prison News Round Up Part II: The Good News

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ANNE

In the same weekend as all the depressing news stories I listed two days ago, there were these two uplifting ones.

The Week published an excerpt of this article in Runners World.  Yes, Runners World—about a program at the Oregon State Penitentiary that allows outsiders (even women) to go inside and run with prisoners.  They even race half marathons.  For some inmates, the outside runners are the only visitors they see.  I am not a runner, but I’ve always been an exerciser—I go nuts if I skip my daily walk and I’ve been pretty faithful to weight training for 25 years.  I swear by exercise as the best medicine for everything from depression to anxiety to all sorts of physical ills.  So way to go, Oregon!

Second good news article: The good old New York Times can be depended on to run something about America prisons almost daily.  Usually it’s extremely depressing, but this past weekend there was this one about dogs in prisons that will make you dog lovers out there weep.  It made me weep, when I got to this line: “One older inmate cried when he met his puppy. ‘I haven’t touched a dog in 40 years.’”  It made me wonder how heart-wrenching it must be when these guys have to turn their dogs over after they’ve been trained to detect bombs, which is what the program does.

Vince and I wrote about the dog-training program at Moose Lake, where he was before boot camp.  Only about six prisoners out of a thousand get to participate, so it sounds good but it’s not exactly at scale.  As I’ve mentioned, I do foster care for kittens through the Humane Society.  Every day from about April through August, I get dozens of emails a day from them looking for fosters for cats and kittens.  Below are just two photos from the 13 emails I received today.  For some reason the world doesn’t seem to be flooded with stray puppies or dogs so much, except those taken in from domestic violence situations, which require months of special care.  Could it work to have prisoners foster kittens?  Is that a cray-cray or a win-win idea?

478cfb96-ca59-41c4-88e8-4f7206e744d1Kittens

—

I got some good news—my visitor request was approved!  That means that after I get home from Berlin I can visit Vince.  By that time, it will have been eight months since I’ve seen Vince.  The ban was for six months, but due to me being denied a visit, and to two chunks of international travel, it’s stretched out to eight.  And yet on every visitor application and in the information for families that the Department of Corrections publishes online, they tout the importance of family connections.  Ha.

Prison News Round Up

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ANNE

I am leaving for Berlin in two days, so I’m going to review a pile of prison-related articles that I’ve accumulated—over a period of one weekend—that’s how often prison is in the news.  I’ll give you the downers first, then the positive ones.

Ohio is having trouble obtaining drugs used to execute people, so the Ohio DOC has obtained an import license from the Drug Enforcement Administration to buy sodium thiopental and pentobarbital from overseas.  Wow.  Where overseas, I wonder?  They “decline” to name the countries.  I’m thinking China, North Korea, Iran, or Yemen, since these are our fellow members of the death penalty club.  In case that doesn’t work, Ohio legislators passed an “execution secrecy law” (I am not making this up) in hopes it would get small-scale drug manufacturers called compounding pharmacies to sell them the drugs.  These are unregulated companies that have been in the news for sickening people with contaminated pharmaceuticals.  But hey, if you’re trying to kill someone, who cares what the quality of the drug is?

In Wisconsin, there is a prison guard shortage that has prompted two correctional facilities to call in guards from other institutions and pay overtime.  So let me get this straight—we pack our prisons full of nonviolent drug offenders, which costs us taxpayers an arm and a leg, then we have to pay overtime to get guard coverage, which costs us more.  Great system!

Which leads me to this editorial in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, “Finding solutions for overcrowded prisons.”   I like the opening line: “Either Americans are the most evil-people on Earth or there’s something terribly wrong with their criminal-justice system.”  They mention something that’s news to me: “It’s a stretch to suggest that the bloated prison population is due mainly to the sentencing of nonviolent drug offenders.  It’s not.  Most of the increase comes from locking up greater numbers of thieves and violent criminals and keeping them behind bars longer.  Even if all nonviolent drug offenders were set free today, the prison population of 2.2 million would drop to only 1.7 million … Still, on the margin, granting early release to nonviolent offenders and shortening sentences to better match crimes seems a sensible step….”

This information is new to me, and I wonder why I haven’t read it elsewhere.  Everywhere else, the narrative is that, if we just release all the nonviolent drug offenders, our prison population will be drastically reduced.  But if there are more violent criminals in America than elsewhere, maybe we are the most evil people on earth.

Still, 2.2 million total prisoners minus 1.7 million nonviolent drug offenders is 500 thousand people—not insignificant.  And when you figure it costs (on average) $31,000 a year to keep someone in prison, that’s over $1.5 billion a year.

On the same day, there was this feature article about Damon Thibodeaux, an 18-year-old who was wrongly convicted of rape and murder who spent 16 years on death row before being exonerated and freed, in large part due to the efforts of Minneapolis attorney Steve Kaplan.  Thibodeaux had been raped and beaten on a regular basis by his step “father” since the age of five and so he was easily bullied and manipulated into confessing to the crime.  It’s a heart-rending story, but it has a happy ending.  As I’ve written before, an important element of recovery from anything is feeling that you belong.  And Kaplan has gone the distance to help Thibodeaux adjust to life after prison by including him in family and other social gatherings.

And there was this little factoid in The Week: that every day, on average, a dozen people die behind bars.  The leading cause?  Suicide, in local jails; cancer elsewhere.

Below are some prison-related images.  The bully one made me shudder, because it’s how I felt when I was kicked out of Moose Lake for wearing “revealing clothing.”  It wasn’t about my clothing; it was a power trip.  Related to that is an interview with Richard Zimbardo, who led the Stanford Prison Experiment in which students were assigned to be prisoners or guards.  The “guards” quickly became sadistic.  “I lost my sense of compassion, I totally lost that,” said Zimbardo.

Next time, the good news.

DesktopBully

Pistoled Off

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VINCE

A curious thing happened last night while we were all sleeping. There was a large boom. That is all we have been able to come up with. An incredible, loud boom that woke up everybody in all three barracks.

From where I lay, I could not see a clock. And even if there was one in my view my glasses were stored for the night. I could tell right away that everybody else seemed spooked. None of the usual elements associated with a noise you can feel were present. No soft tapping of rain on the roof. No creaking of window frames from wind. No random bright flashes of light. And no fading echo of thunder.

We do know that somewhere nearby is some sort of military facility. On occasion I’ve seen those gigantic helicopters with the twin propellers flying by low, enough to get our attention. So that is possibly the source of last night’s disturbance. Nobody here knows what a sonic boom sounds like so here we sit confused. That’s the whole story, I hope somebody out there can tell me with certainty what happened out there.

—

I have another favorite author. Bill Bryson has a way of reeling in my attention from page one. This week I picked up “In a Sunburned Country.” Cool. The first and only nonfiction book I had ever read prior to “A Short History of Nearly Everything” (my first Bryson experience) was six or seven years ago. Anthony Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential.”

I should say that I’ve read many books I suppose in school that would be nonfiction thus negating my last paragraph.

Anyhow. “In a Sunburned Country” is amazing for the first 77 pages I’ve been able to squeeze in since last evening with my busy schedule. It makes me want to travel, especially to Australia. I mean, who wouldn’t want to go there? If you’ve never read Bill Bryson, give him a shot.

—

51 days to go. 131 already down.

Last night the four blue-hat squads had a marching test for a chance to perform in a parade on National Night Out on August 4th. Well, the same people that didn’t want to help us out with pushups also didn’t care about marching. We didn’t do very well. Four months in and the same guys still have significant difficulty with left and right turns. They also happen to be the only guys in our squad that are here on pistol-related charges and/or don’t have drug problems. They have one more thing in common but it would be rude to mention it.

Squad Squabble

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VINCE

We start Flag Detail tomorrow. We had a two hour training session yesterday on how to raise, lower, fold, carry, and store both the Minnesota State Flag and the American Flag. I will be involved in the process roughly every three days as we rotate. I’m a little nervous about it. Not because of punishment for doing something wrong, but because I have respect for the flags and I want to look good doing the job.

However … If somebody, even by accident, lets any part of either flag touch the ground, and staff finds out about it before we front-and-center about it, our sister squad and ours will owe 2,000 blue-hat pushups. That’s 2,000 sets of 40 divided up between 34 guys that need to be documented and completed over the next however many days are left when the potential event occurs. So needless to say, we’re going to be careful.

If it does touch the ground and we admit to it we split up 200 sets. EZ

—

It’s been a long day. I’ve run 4.2 miles, lifted weights for an hour, sat through three hours of treatment, cleaned the treatment building (my job), eaten three terrible meals, read the last 100 pages of my Bill Bryson book (awesome!), written four pages for you guys, written four pages on cross-addiction for treatment, and … well, that’s good enough right? My wrist is sore, so I say good day.

—

Less than 24 hours after writing the post about the Flag, somebody in my squad dropped it. The whole thing. Right on the ground. I was not in that five-man formation so I’m not feeling the “heat”, but I will be responsible for some pushups. The officer in charge of the detail isn’t here today so I can’t tell you much more.

—

As a squad we owe 200 sets of boot camp four-count pushups. That’s 40 each set. That’s 8,000 divided by 17 of us. That’s for one squad member dropping the flag, then being honest about it. Yesterday we knocked out 37 sets as a squad. We should be done in a couple days.

What surprised me is that a few of us quite vocally stated that they didn’t want to help at all. Their argument was based on the fictional idea that we wouldn’t help them if they had dropped Old Glory themselves. I feel a lot of anger toward them for that. We are over four months in and should be working as a squad, but some continue to have negative attitudes and no desire to change.

All that said, I know that I can only control my thoughts, feelings, and actions. And I am not staff. I just wish staff would do something about these people instead of pushing them through the program and back out on the streets. I’ve worked so hard to be where I am now, and it just doesn’t seem fair. And it isn’t, is it?

Rip Van Winkle

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VINCE

India squad (that’s my squad) got to watch a graduation ceremony today.  It was pretty cool.  Every month, two squads graduate, and two squads that are two months away from the door get to watch.  So, now we know what to expect.

It’s a huge deal, being released from prison.  It’s literally the only day most prisoners look forward to.  The big difference for us is that we aren’t leaving through locked doors and razor-wire fences.  Going home for us means the beginning of a new challenge: Phase II.

“Mastery items”: that’s a synonym with hobbies.  You’re right Mom, agate hunting is a good diversion.  So will be running, weight lifting, cooking, and meetings.  All things I enjoy doing.  We’ve spent some time going over our mastery items in treatment and they will be on our daily/weekly schedule that I have to submit before I leave, and every week thereafter.  They don’t want us getting bored out there.

Another batch of new guys arrived less than an hour ago.  They are fun to watch.  They’re so scared, many of them shaking so hard they have trouble buttoning up their shirts.  Four months ago, I was the same.  We started out as squad number 12 of 12.  Today, we are 4 of 12.  And we (most of us) got our blue hats yesterday!  We are now a senior squad.

We can now teach what we have learned.  This is a very dangerous position to be in for some of us as we are held to the highest standards.  Mistakes are punished no longer with pushups, but with interventions (gigs) or L.E.s (Learning Experiences).  Most people that get kicked out of boot camp are blue hats.  I don’t think I will have any trouble.  I’ve been a good boy so far.  I’ve done all I can to show that I’m paying attention here.  I will most likely be the leader of our squad during graduation march.  Some of our squad still can’t call right on their right foot.  Officers will be paying more attention to them now.

[ANNE: A friend sent me a story from the New York Times Magazine: “You Just Got Out of Prison, Now What?”  It follows a couple of ex-cons who volunteer to pick up men being released, then spend a day trying to ease them into a world very different from the one they left when they were incarcerated.

They pick up a guy named Dale Hammock.  He had been pulled over for not wearing a seat belt and the cops found a bag of meth in his car.  Since it was his third offense, he was sent away for 21 years.

Twenty-one years.

It’s got to be overwhelming to walk out the gates.  The volunteers take him to Target to buy jeans.  Have you noticed how many choices there are for jeans?  In 1994 it was Levis, Lees, or Sears jeans.  Now there are dozens of brands and styles—boot cut, skinny, extra long, straight leg, relaxed, low rise, and on and on.  I haven’t been in prison but I feel overwhelmed by all the choices.  The same is true in chain restaurants, which now make you sift through five menus with hundreds of options, and in the grocery store.  A couple times I have walked out of a store without buying anything because I was too paralyzed by the choices to make a decision.

Then of course there is technology.  The volunteer showed Hammock something on his smart phone and Hammock asked, ‘‘Everything now, you just touch it, and it shows you things?’’  God help him.]

Addiction: Disease or Habit?

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ANNE

I chanced upon this article, Addiction is Not a Disease, by Laura Miller in Salon.  It describes how addiction used to be considered a moral failing, then was reconsidered as a disease with the rise of 12 step programs, and now neuroscientists are thinking it’s more of an extreme habit.

Miller bases her article on the book Biology of Desire by Marc Lewis, a neuroscientist who is a former addict himself.  He posits that addicts have a “particular ‘emotional wound’ the substance helped them handle, but once they started using it, the habit itself eventually became self-perpetuating and in most cases ultimately served to deepen the wound.”

The disease model has been supported by the fact that addicts’ brains are different.

“The changes wrought by addiction are not, however, permanent, and while they are dangerous, they’re not abnormal. Through a combination of a difficult emotional history, bad luck and the ordinary operations of the brain itself, an addict is someone whose brain has been transformed ….

“More and more experiences and activities get looped into the addiction experience and trigger cravings and expectations like the bells that made Pavlov’s dogs salivate, from the walk home past a favorite bar to the rituals of shooting up. The world becomes a host of signs all pointing you in the same direction and activating powerful unconscious urges to follow them. At a certain point, the addictive behavior becomes compulsive, seemingly as irresistibly automatic as a reflex. You may not even want the drug anymore, but you’ve forgotten how to do anything else besides seek it out and take it.”

The good news is that habits can be unlearned.  AA and NA and other 12 step groups do work for a lot of people.  Others may need cognitive behavioral therapy, or meditation, or something else, or all of these things.  It’s kind of like how I fought long-term depression by trying everything, until something broke through.

I’m all for understanding the causes of things, in case that knowledge points to new solutions.  I’m also big on measuring success to discover what works.  This article in Scientific American basically concludes “we don’t know” whether AA works because (in my lay language) it’s too loosey goosey to study with the gold standard of the randomized clinical trial.  It works for some people and not for others, and there are probably as many reasons for both outcomes as there are members.

—

On a long drive a few evenings after reading the article about how addiction is not a disease, I caught this one-hour podcast about the history of Alcoholics Anonymous.  I knew most of the story already, how two chronic inebriates, Dr. Bob and Bill W., found each other and developed the AA program based on something called the Oxford Group, which had gotten started in England and which was overtly religious.

The story is poignant.  Both Bill and Bob were headed for early graves.  Instead, they met each other.  Talking about their problem with someone who also had it worked some magic that no amount of nagging by their wives or warnings from doctors could.  Bill’s wife Lois and another recovering alcoholic’s wife, Anne, founded Alanon, to help them recover from their own insanity caused by living with alcoholics.

—

There are lots of “gurus” out there who will tell you that you have to go to AA or Alanon every week for the rest of your life, or that you have to give up every mood-altering substance—from heroin to caffeine to sugar—or that “real” meditation is only done in the early morning, for a minimum of 45 minutes, sitting in the lotus position.

I say, be open to trying a variety of solutions, and equally willing to stop using things that aren’t working.  Why would you want to limit your options when you’re up against something that could make your life miserable, kill you, or land you in prison?