A-West                                               

                                           
       “Anyone who wants to go to church, get up, get dressed, roll out and get the F… down here!” These were the encouraging words I heard over the speaker on my first Sunday morning in A-west, at the Utah state prison. Single file, hands behind your back down the main corridor to the chapel. After going through the metal detector I stepped from one world to another. In one step I left the ugliness behind and walked into a chapel that looked a lot like the ones I had sat in on Sunday’s my whole life.  There were warm handshakes from volunteer brothers and sisters, as the organist played familiar hymns. I made my way forward and found a seat. As the meeting started and moved along  I began to feel uneasy, it didn’t feel right at all. It all just seemed so hollow and sad without my family. That was the only time I went to church at the prison. I couldn’t wait for the meeting to end and get back to my 6X9 foot home.  I decided that day that I wouldn’t walk back into a church alone without my family, it was just too painful. 

     I’m back in my cell and reading again, a letter from Jill I’ve carried with me for 5 months. A letter I keep in my journal to this day……”The biggest thing I deal with right now is trusting you. I wish I had a little trust in you, but I have none. I gave you my all, over and over again, then my heart was ripped out harder each time until now I can’t let you hurt it again. I’m not going to hand it over to you anymore. I feel like I need to salvage what  I can. I am still committed to us and this family if you can show me that I can trust you with my heart.” There was much more to this letter, but the basic message reveals so much about my wife. I had hurt and betrayed her in the worst possible way. She was finally drawing a line, and yet she was still committed to our family, to me, but I had a lot of work to do.

               Four months later I’ve left the prison and now I work in the kitchen of my new home, Northern Utah Community Correction Center or NUCCC. 3 months of good behavior at this halfway house and I’ll be able to put this all behind me. I feel I’m making progress and it seems like Jill sees a glimmer of hope in me as well. She’s decided to let me come home when I get my first 12 hour leave. After a certain amount of time at the halfway house, you earn home visits. These start at 8-12 hours and gradually increase to the whole weekend. It’s a way of easing the inmate back into regular life. I’m counting the days until I can be home, even if it’s only for a few hours. 

            Richard entered my life in those first few weeks at NUCCC. He’d been in prison for 7 years. Tattooed from elbows to neck he looked the part. This was prison ink, a lifetime of stories etched in flesh, beautiful to me, black and white, no color. Meticulously  designed in the back of a cell somewhere. With ink extracted from old, burned newspapers, and injected by a tattoo gun made from a tape recorder, a pen, and a paper clip. He was a recovering alcoholic and when he would give me advice it always felt so pure and real, never sugar coated. Right from the start I felt a spiritual connection to this convict, someone I never would have given a chance on the outside. We still keep in touch. I love this man, he helped save me and I see him as an angel put in my path by a loving God.  After a few days of friendship and getting to know each other he said something I will never forget, “so Rod, have you realized how screwed you are yet?” I didn’t know it yet but he knew me better than I thought. A few days later as we were talking about the 12 steps of A.A he said something else, “I don’t think you’re ready Rod, you might be one of those who never gets it, you may still have to lose even more than you’ve already lost.” “That might not even be enough for you to get it, this stuff may actually kill you.” I remember saying,  what are you talking about Richard?  Look at all I’ve lost!  My dental license is gone, my wife is selling my practice, Ive been excommunicated from my church, I’ve been to prison!  My marriage won’t survive one more wrong turn.  I’m done, this is it, you don’t know what you’re talking about. 

        The day of my first home visit,  Jill and Kaden picked me up and took me home. Kaden was quiet at first but warmed up by the time we were home. The other kids were happy to see me and I remember tears and hugs. Jill was nervous I could tell. I can’t even imagine the conflict going on inside her head at that time, it actually makes me a bit nauseous thinking about it as I write. She just wanted a whole, happy family. She still wanted me to be part of it. Its more painful than I thought it would be, putting it down in words. I hurt her so bad. She wanted to turn and run I’m sure. She says God told her to wait, be patient. She’s too good, I would have told God where to go.  We had a good day, she gave it her all, even though looking back I’m sure her heart wasn’t in it,  how could it be?  

            By the next home visit, a week later, the demons were again winning the war in my head. As soon as she turned her back I jumped in the car and went and bought a 6 pack of beer and drank it all before I got back home. I guess Richard was right, I had farther to fall. The ride back to NUCCC after that 2nd visit was quiet. She obviously couldn’t believe what I’d done. How would I hide it from the people at the halfway house?  Somehow I did, and I committed to bouncing back and not falling again. That lasted about another week. 

         I’m on my bed in the room I share with another parolee watching tv. One of the other residents comes in and pulls out a baggie with 7 or 8 OxyContin pills in it. Immediately I tell him to get lost, but before he shuts the door my mouth is watering and I change my mind. ‘Give me those pills, I’ll pay you later.’ I stayed pretty numb for the next 2 days, no thought of my family, my wife, where I’d been, what I’m risking. It’s my one last hoorah, again, for the hundredth time. They test us randomly all the time, what if that happens? What if someone rats me out? None of these things matter, when an addict sets his mind on using, rational thinking goes out the window. All the reasons to quit somehow fade away and all the reasons to use, seem so clear and unrelenting.  Within a couple of days people are talking and what do you know, I get popped for a drug test. It’s April 15th 2003, tax day,  positive  for opiates and off to the holding cell in secure hall for another strip search. 

              It’s a concrete room with a steel door and no windows. A small slot opens in the door when they bring you a meal. A  camera in the corner right above the toilet, no privacy at all. The lights never go out. Sleep is impossible.  I was in there for a little over 24 hours waiting for my ride back to cache county. Judge Wilmore would not be happy. NUCCC was suppose to be my last chance to get right and go home. I’d been convicted on multiple 3rd degree felonies and two 2nd degrees. I’m facing 1-15 at the point of the mountain and I’m pretty sure that’s what’s coming. The thought of returning to A-west all over again is unbearable. It’s as close to hell as I can imagine. I’ve finally burned my last bridge, I’m all alone. Later that day I hear someone walking by in the hall.  As he passes my cell he says something that carries me through a few more hours. “Doc, your wife called and she said to tell you she loves you.” I must be hearing things! She can’t love me. The beauty of this woman. She told me later it wasn’t true,  she didn’t love me at the time, but she new I needed to hear it. 
           Back in cache county jail, sipping coffee and chewing any tobacco I could get my hands on. I was a nervous mess just waiting for my day in front of the judge. Weeks go by without any word, I’m reaching out to God with everything I have, but I feel like I’m losing it. I tried to write my feelings down in a makeshift journal at the time,  just to get some stuff out of me………. ‘I can’t seem to organize my thoughts, the only time I feel any peace is when I’m sleeping or on the verge of sleep. I feel like I am at the end- no options. All I want is for the war in my head to stop. When people see me they don’t see what is really there.’  ‘I feel nothing but despair. I don’t understand why I did what I did at NUCCC. Things were going well and now they all want to send me back to the prison. I would like to have someone look inside my head and heart and tell me what’s going on. Some would say the adversary has a great hold on me now. I don’t know if it’s that or facing my life as it is unfolding before me. I love my family, but right now Im so wrapped up in myself that it’s hard to feel anything. I’m afraid that if I get in touch with how bad I have hurt them I will explode with sorrow and shame.”

 At about this same time,  Jill  relayed some  news that knocked me down even more. I recorded it in my journal that night……’my wife is pregnant, I’m afraid I may never know that baby.’ 

           That first visit home from the halfway house a month earlier was a potential new beginning, but now it felt like the final chapter of my old life. Little did we know that as bad as life was about to get, an angel was being sent as one last ally from above. Andi Isabel was coming, ready or not.  As hard as it was for me to face the possibility of life without my new baby and the rest of my family, I can’t imagine the range of emotions for Jill at that time.   People talking about her and judging her choices from a distance, including people she thought were  friends, people who would bail out because everything was too heavy. We both turned to prayer like never before. Individually trying to survive, but ultimately with the same purpose. To Somehow provide a healthy home for this new baby and our 4 other children. Separately  or together, we didn’t know, but neither one of us could do it alone, we both needed and pleaded for divine help.      

            “Rock bottom” is a state of mind and spirit that gets talked about a lot in rehabs and recovery meetings all the time. It’s different for everyone and sometimes when you think you’re there, the bottom falls out again. This was my rock bottom. I felt no hope. Nothing to look forward to. No escape from my thoughts. No where to run, figuratively or literally. Nothing to numb it out. All I could do was lay on my jail cell bunk and marinate in my self inflicted misery. It’s been over 13 years but I’m still able to touch that pain when I need to. What I know now is that it’s right where I had to get, to even have a chance. I was hopeless. I finally understood what Richard was talking about when he said,”do you know how screwed you are?” I really only had one option, well two I guess, use the razor blade I had hidden in my shoe and end it, or turn to God for good. Totally commit to HIS will and let go of mine. It felt impossible.