I talked to Joe the other day and he mentioned something about how there are probably more drugs in the prison than there are in the streets and I was just wondering if anyone else who has a loved one in prison has heard this. Joe was on drugs really bad before he got locked up and was clean for a year until the other day when his buddy came up to him with a joint. He didnt have to smoke it but he did to releive some of the pressure. That is no excuse at all, but we were working really hard to overcome this battle. I lived with a alcoholc/drug addic my whole life and never want to go back down that road. He knows this but how can they just let drugs slip in threw visitation? I heard that they also do surprise drug tests and if it comes back positive they could get more time. How can I get it threw to him that he doesnt need to mess with it anymore?:confused:

You can't get it through to him. He has to decide that for himself and seek help in earnest. If he can't stay clean in there, what's he going to do when he comes back out? No threat of a dirty UA and the consequences can keep an addict from drugs-------not even the threat of death can, unless they hit bottom and want the help. No amount of you cajoling, threatening or anything can give him the incentive-----it has to come from within him.

toi ama, you are such a great source for all of us here at PTO. Thank you for your experience and wisdom and taking the time to help the rest of us understand the thoughts of an addict. It has helped me alot over the last few months. I am glad I have you to go to. I hope my son will help others someday and use this life he has led for the good. Bless you.

Heather... unfortunately the drugs slip in all kinds of ways... visitation, mail, plenty of others. My guy is an addict/alcoholic and has had thousands of more clean days than not in 13+ years of prison, and has had a relatively successful and trouble-free last several years... but he just screwed up a few weeks ago by smoking one joint, got himself what they call a "dirty urine" and got a disciplinary. He's not getting more time, but we are currently restricted from visits and the phone (well, will be if they ever get around to shutting it off) and he's not allowed to go to the prison store, all for 21 days. He also lost all the privileges he had had as a resident and leader within the honor dorm, and has been temporarily bounced back to the SAP (Substance Abuse Program) dorm to undergo their relapse program.

And it irked me to no end to hear that within hours of his moving in there, he had probably been propositioned by dealers a few dozen times already... he saw plenty of old faces from his using days as soon as he moved in.

But, as he has often told me - the drugs are always there, all over the camp and not just there in that particular dorm or any other, and he could get them every day if he wanted... he just chooses not to and, mostly, has. Out of 600+ days he has only slipped three times, and that's a far cry from how things once were. He still needs some work, but things have gotten much better from the past over the last several years.

And yes, they do get tested for drugs, all the time, especially if they have a history of drug use or are incarcerated for a drug-related crime.

And they can get more time, or harsher conditions, for it. An inmate that we are somewhat acquainted with just recently made a huge mistake of trying to smuggle drugs into the prison after visitation; landed himself in the hospital when what he was carrying opened up in his stomach and nearly killed him; and now, recovered, we have heard he has been moved to a maximum-custody facility. Probably got more time too, but I don't know that he did for sure.

Like toi_ama said, the change has got to come from him, he's got to do it, he's got to learn what to do and what not to do and however it goes, there's nothing you can do about it. The old three C's again - you didn't CAUSE it, you can't CURE it, and you can't CONTROL it. He may never mess up - and he may screw up and get a dirty urine and have to face the consequences and thus, hopefully, learn from it. If he wants to use, though, no amount of you telling him things like that or warning him is going to stop it.

Like all incarcerated addicts, I think, they just have to learn for themselves. I see a lot more success stories where my guy is, men who have put their active addiction behind them for good (and some of the worst cases you'd ever have seen), and others that have been fairly successful with their recovery but have slipped from time to time, than I see and hear about the failures there. But they have to want it, want to beat their addiction and have a better life - you can't push them into it. And they have to learn for themselves how to do it.

If there's an SAP or like program in your guy's facility, I would urge him to check it out, and be supportive of that - it's done a lot of people a lot of good - but don't push it too much. He'll get there when he's ready for it, if he becomes ready for that help.

Hang in there and hope we keep seeing you around PTO - we also have the Drug & Alcohol Treatment & Rehabilitation forum here, which is kind of a catch-all for all of us who have either been addicts/alcoholics or our loved ones are - and keep letting us know how things are going with you!

Lys

Thanks a lot for the responses.. I know from experience with my father they they have to want to change. It seems like no matter where I go or what I do drugs are always there. I guess I just expected a little more from Joe. He says that the weed takes some pressure off, but I cant relate to him or my father because I have never had an addiction to a drug. I will ask him if they have any programs that he can join while he is there. Its kinda scary that he is already messing up and he hasnt even been in prison for 6 weeks. Thanks again for the replies!!

I think if I were in prison and had a long sentence I would smoke pot too. Sorry if I offend anyone.

Ya my man said the exact same thing! It makes me really worried because that is what he is in for. He said the guy in the cell next to him sells rigs for commisary! I personally know how hard it is to quit. My guy and I are both recovering addicts.I am just more lucky than him. I quit before I ended up in prison or dead. He is still sober too. I didn't quit until a few months after he got locked up. It is the hardest thing he and I have ever had to deal with. But it wasn't just weed for us. It was crank, crystal, pretty much anything powder. And we both shot up. It was terrible. I am so glad we both quit. I thank God everyday that we are both still alive. It still makes me worry a lot that drugs are there though. Good luck to you and your man!

Lys and toi-ama, you said it all!
Kim-yea, I guess I can understand what you are saying. However, it is scarey as HELL when your loved one is addicted to drugs. Not only do you have the normal "prison" things to worry about, you have maybe even more to worry about when they come home. That is my biggest fear, Robert coming home and slipping up.
So, Joesbaby, I hear ya. Just a few weeks ago a girl got arrested at Robert's prison for trying to sneak heroin in. That made me crazy mad when I heard about it. It's everywhere you go, and it is scary.

My cousin has life with out parole and he says that he smokes cause it keeps his mind of stuff. Well, i dont agree with that. Eventually your going to have to face reality.

He has to want to stop, no one can do that for him, and no matter what you say, he is the one that has to come to this decision. :(

Good luck

Originally posted by JoesBaby20
there are probably more drugs in the prison than there are in the streets and I was just wondering if anyone else who has a loved one in prison has heard this.
Every time I visit my friend he talks about this! He said they can get anything in prison. As soon as it's brought in it's distributed so it's more difficult to find & track down where & from whom it came.
Recently I spoke with the sergeant in the visitor processing room and he said there are even "professional visitors" who bring in drugs! My friend is also trying to stay away from drugs because that's what got him into this situation. It IS a big deal to get caught with them, so I hope you're friend has a lot of will-power.
:eek:

One of the biggest sources of contraband within the facility is the employees themselves. On more than one unit, we escorted employees to the front gate into the waiting arms of the local sheriff's department. Certain departments seemed universally more prone to the issue. At one unit, we even had a CO that was busted operating a crack house during his off-duty hours...we always suspected that CO of being dirty, but could never prove anything. Once busted, we had offenders who confirmed our suspicions.

From a security standpoint, there is nothing worse than a dirty officer

Thanks everybody for responding~! Joe and I had a long talk about this at one of our visits and he clearly understood where I was coming from and he wants to change his ways. It is taking a lot out of him but he knows that it will pay off in the end. He was offered some drugs the other day and turned them down. I could hear the excitement in his voice and he could see the smile on my face over the phone.. I pray that this "Drug War" will find closure someday~!

Drugs are a big deal now and ruin a lot of families and lives. My son is in prison for Manufacturing drugs. He has served 4 yrs on a 10 yr. sentence. He left five kids at home and his wife has her hands full with all she has to do. I do all I can to help her out . My son went to Parole in feb of this year and he is to get out in Feb 05. His youngest son will be 6 by then and the oldest one will be almost 16. I hope he can do what is right this time and leave the drugs alone.
He tells me if he wanted drugs they are there. I know when he was in before he did drugs and some dealer was going to kill him if he did not pay up. We had to wire money to him to pay him so they would leave my son alone. It is dangerous to do drugs there you have no way to get away from it .

Dannysmom

My husband does not have a drug problem nor does he have any drug charges.
He has gotten tested usually 1X a year.
The facility he is in now tho, he says there are drugs he has never even heard of.
They dont always come in on visits, as a few others have mentioned.
A guard at this facility was escorted out for bringing it in.
And its not always guards, there are other outside personnel as well.
I realize nothing that one can say cannot stop someone from using, but what I tell my husband is to try and remember he has a wife to come home to and June, 2004 isnt that far off.
If you get a dirty urine where he is, you go to the HOLE, pick up extra charges, loose contact visits and loose your clear conduct if you have it.
So I just tell him to always think of our life together when he wants to go do something stupid. His addiction isnt to drugs, its gambling. Which is still an addiction.
Good luck to you.

Well unfortunatley drugs are every where including prison, and its even more expensive in there than it is on the outside walls. shame on it all

Smoking pot or using anything else doesn't take the pressure off. The pressure is always there. The "pressure" is the unrelieved monkey on the back, and it's never going to let go unless the person wants recovery badly enough to change their thinking. Living life on life's terms is always stressful, but recovery teaches us addicted ones how to deal with it without having to use a substance to hide from it.

Thank you for brining up how easy it is for the prison employees themselves to bring in the drugs! The c/o's at the prison my son is at are distributing the drugs and when I contacted the Office of the Inspector General and the Warden, they blew me off and told me my "accusations" were "generic". They wanted dates and times, documentation. Well, my son and the other inmates in the hole aren't about to give up those details when they are threatened everyday. Even the Governor didn't care to hear.............

You have it right, they dont appear to care unless you give them specifics and the loved ones that are in prison, cant afford to do that.
About all you can do is pray and offer guidance and a listening ear and hope they will stay off the drugs.
If there wasnt a market for them, they wouldnt be there.
But the market there is just like it is on the streets, it is everywhere.
There is just no way around it.
I do get tired of hearing about how visitors bring it in, I take offense to that. Even tho I am sure probably some does come in that way, NOT all of it does.
And I as a visitor have NEVER nor would I EVER bring anything in.

Originally posted by toi_ama
Smoking pot or using anything else doesn't take the pressure off. The pressure is always there. The "pressure" is the unrelieved monkey on the back, and it's never going to let go unless the person wants recovery badly enough to change their thinking. Living life on life's terms is always stressful, but recovery teaches us addicted ones how to deal with it without having to use a substance to hide from it.

Thank you for the way you said that. It is what I am learning and my husband needs to learn.

my friend got 2 1/2 to 20 for cooking meth and about 6 weeks ago he told me about how he had gotten some heroin. i was pretty ticked cuz i have lost 2 friends that have od'ed from the stuff. this last july was the 1st anniversary of one of them and unfortunately i was there and another friend of mine and i had taken him to the hospital across the street, but they said we were a half hour too late cuz he was doa. i made a promise to myself that night that i'd never do the stuff again, but it's hard. i really hope that my friend can get over his addiction cuz i'd rather have him alive then dead, like other people i knew. getting over it can be difficult, but i know how hard it will be for him cuz i've gone through it too and support never hurts anyway. cravings tell ya one thing, but ya gotta listen to your heart & be levelheaded to really beat it.

:pissed: I was so mad the first time my husband told me that there are more drugs in the prison that he is in then he had ever seen on the outside. My hubby is in for manufacturing meth and left me and three kids behind to serve 10 years. He told me that an old cell mate of his told him that his counselor had even offered to get him drugs from a friend on the outside and bring them to him!! I wanted so bad to call that prison and scream at them all for the lack of decent employees. These men are inside for whatever reason and most of them are trying to better themselves. I know that eventually they are going to have to face the facts when they get out and a friend says to them hey man wanna smoke a bowl. Well the time that they are serving is making them stronger day by day to be able to look at that person down the road and say no thanks man aint my thing anymore. If we have guards and councelors and the like offering the drugs to them then when they get home they arent really any better than when they left now are they. I am lucky that my husband had harsh reality hit him when he realized that if he didnt straighten out his life that he was going to lose me and the kids. I will not lie I was into the drugs right along with him but i have been clean for over a year now and I know that I dont need them or him to make it. And he now realizes that also. It sounds very mean to say but I told him that I would not wait for him if he got even one dirty UA and he is tested monthly. So far so good...:D

Hey...I wuz SOOO angry when my guy told me about the drugs "inside" cuz he wuz in for a drug charge and also he is a heroin addict...I wasn't sure exactly what kind of drugs he wuz referring to when he wrote cuz he did not spell it out as mail is read...later found out that it wuz pot...I wuz not too pleased with him...at all...but...I do kinda understand the temptation and the stress of prison as I have done some time myself...I never saw any drugs,though,when I wuz in...guess it's about "who" you know on the inside and who you were on the outside as to how accessible the drugs are to each inmate!!!

Something else to think about, if you pick up a dirty UA in prison. Your PO is going to have some very strict restrictions on you when you get out. If you were doing drugs in prison where the logistics of it are a lot tougher, what is going to keep you from doing it outside?

Speed- that is very true for sure. Just another condition that has to be met. They can really sock it to you. And also so many places now do drug testing for employment. Or at the very least random drug testing. I am so lucky my husband doesnt have a drug habit, but he does have a habit in prison that is very bad. It is gambling. And you know that is a NO, NO in a very big way. He says he gets bored as he is only out on the yard 2hrs a day, five days a week and right now he is in the Hole, pending transfer. We are so hoping before the holidays. These Non Contact visits are hard.
Remember Hope is a good thing, because it springs life eternal.

My Honey was was high on crystal meth and/or crack when he committed what he did (there were 3 separate occasions). He was also a major alcoholic. So when he told me that drugs were easily available in prison, I was ready to just give up on our relationship because I knew that he was vulnerable and sooner or later he would start using again.

However, he told me that he was SICK and TIRED of being in prison, dealing with the major soap operas that went on inside. He went to AA meetings and church services. He hung out with other guys where were just like him, trying to do their "time" with as less stress as possible, work hard, stay clean and get the hell back to living once they'd be paroled. I believe him when he told me that, and I can see the changes in him now that he's been clean and sober for over 5 years. As a former drug addict and somewhat new recovering alcoholic (that one was harder for me to give up) I can DEFINITELY see the changes in him.

Great work! Keep working at it, it can be done if you want it bad enough.
Remember Hope is a good thing, it springs life eternal.

tHERE IS SOMETHING WORSE THAN A DIRTY OFFICER. tHAT IS A DIRTY OFFICER THAT GETS CAUGHT AND DOES'T GET CHARGED, BUT ANY OFFENDER GETTING CAUGHT WITH THE CONTRABAND IS PUNISHED FOR HAVING WHAT THE OFFICER BROUGHT IN.

AMEN!

Remember Hope is a good thing, it springs life eternal.