You’re all Alone

You’re all Alone

If you have an addiction, that needs to be fed.
Like an obsession inside of your head.
You’d do anything, to get that next fix.
Like, stealing, or turning tricks.
If you’re never experienced it first hand.
Then how can you tell me, you understand?
Because you read some books, or took some class?
Where they put your name on some useless plague?
So, try with your books and degrees.
To understand a users mind.
I can most definitely, garantee.
You will be completely blind.
To what goes on inside the mind,
of someone who wants to get high.
I know how it is, because I’ve lived this life.
So, here it is, some good advice.
Instead of trying to be so crooked or stoned.
Try to do the right thin when no ones looking
you’re all alone

8/13/11
Written by: 
Derek Lindsay
Maine State Prison

Bleak Prospects for Addicts Facing Release in Maine

Sophie                                                                         July-14-11

 

Im [sic] glad you guys took the time out to ask my opion [sic] on things here in this prison world.  I just got a question on how you guys ended up getting my name?  I did a little research myself to find out about you guys and my buddy was saying he wrote songs for your boyfriend while he was in and thats [sic] wicked cool for him to stand up for us inmates.  Luckly [sic] I’ve had a pretty good bid so far but I’ve seen a lot of my buddys [sic] get treated like shit and thats [sic] not cool with me, mostly at BucksHarbor [sic] because there is a number of good people their [sic] and I have a friend there his name is [name omitted] that was writing in the prison news letter [sic] but for some reason they wouldnt [sic] let him have it and I know he enjoyed it so you guys should get him one of these letters as well.  It’s a cricked facilty [sic] I feel.  Yea were [sic] in prison but people make mistakes in life.  I feel we are all human beings and should be treated with respect.  I also think for people that are getting out to nothing like myself and have a addiction problem, their [sic] should be some kind of houseing [sic] help and at the moment so im [sic] told is none at all.  That really puts the odd’s of all my hard work down a lot and it sucks because I am trying to change.  I keep getting into trouble because of my substance problems and im [sic] good with that life and if I can spread the word some how [sic] im [sic] game.  I cant [sic] write all that well.  Sorry!!  I will talk to a few others as well and see what we cant [sic] do.  I’ve got a good name in this prison system so maybe we can get some more to speak up.  One other quick thing I love the name Sophie it’s got a good ring to it.  Anyways you have a good day and I dont [sic] get money so when free mail comes around I will write.  Thank u for your time.

 

S

Maine Correctional Center

Falling into the Well of Addiction

In A.A., they say that a person will only be clean and sober once they hit rock bottom; once they are sick and tired of being sick and tired.  Well I cannot imagine being any lower than the situation that I am in right now.  I am the rock at the bottom of the darkest well known to man, Prison!

The question you may ask next would naturally be, how did that happen?  Some would say family trouble.  No, that is not it.  No mother or father?  No, I have two loving biological parents.  AHH, must have had a rough upbringing?  My childhood was fantastic.  Some sort of abuse then?  Absolutely not!  Well, I guess that wouldn’t be totally true, because I put a lot of effort into abusing myself and everyone who has ever cared about me—but no, I had a perfectly normal upbringing.

Before I get into all that, let me describe to you how I was a pebble on a 21-year tumble ever so slowly to the bottom of this well shaft, only to hear  my own echo, a shattered image of myself, where I now speak to you.

I was a happy child with two loving parents that brought me to church every Sunday.  I never missed a day of elementary school and always had good grades.  I was involved in a little lad football, pee-wee baseball, and I took karate classes.  I was the perfect blond haired bambino that everyone adored.  My only childhood trauma was the passing of my uncle ***.  I was at ease with the fact that he was in heaven.  My only disconnection that I lacked in family life was the tremendous age gap of my parents and me.  They loved me to death and vice-versa, but by the age of eight my father was in his sixties and mom was well into her forties.  Looking for the bond that I could not find at home, I looked outside the family and found love, attention, and a strong since [sic] that I belonged in the projects of Portland.

I remember my first teen age friend.  His name was Chris and he was homeless while on the run from the Maine Youth Center.  I really looked up to him.  He ruled his own life and listened not to his parents nor authority, but only to his feelings!  I felt that I was his equal when I’d drink and smoke with him.  His father later turned him in to the youth center where Chris committed suicide.  My fondest memories of him were his laughs when I got in to petty trouble or choked on smoke.  What I could not have possibly realized at that age was that I was a pebble beginning to form into a rock of a long fall to where I sit now.

My desent [sic] into the well was a blurry twenty plus year addiction spree.  I replaced all of my morals installed in to me as a good child by my parents with drugs and alcohol.  All of the affection given to me by my family was transformed in to the monster of addiction that I had become.

At ten years of age I had to be removed from my home by the police for fighting with my mom and dad. I was put into a jail cell for the night.  Now you would think at age ten a jail cell would be a rude awakening and a reason to quit my rebellion without a purpose, but no in that cell I was introduced to the thugs that I now call family.  I was fighting a war that I had no reason to be in, a war against my family and all authority for putting me in that cell.  Jail only solidified my stance of war against all that have cared for me.

At twelve the pebble was rolling at an incredible speed.  I assaulted my mom, dad, and older sister.  I was sentenced to the Maine youth Center until my eighteenth birthday.  I was in and out of that door until that very day.  I took L.S.D and got into cocaine use by the age of fort teen [sic].  By the age of sixteen, cocaine and any narcotic pill I could find would be ingested in to my system.  It was the only escape to the reality of addiction that I have come to love.

The Maine Youth Center did nothing but let me know that the state had become yet another target in my war against the world.  I was discharged at eighteen worse than I went in.

When I was nineteen, I found the downtown side of drugs, (opiates, benzos, etc.) which helped me deal with the pain of my seventy-year-old dad’s death and a year later my best friend Jimmy entered heaven.  My every move was a calculated step to place me to an early death.  I vowed to Jimmy through my prayers that I would be joining him very soon.  If I did have a spark of life in me, it was surely gone now.  I became a heroin addict at age twenty.  I would consume as much heroin as I could to escape the reality of life.  I used my addiction as a shield.  Instead of dealing with myself I ran.  It was all I knew.  The love of family was only a distant memory.

I was arrested for robbing a pizza man, which led me to a halfway house in Bangor, where I stayed eighteen months clean.  I was in love with my childhood sweetheart, but even my love for *** could not help me escape from the prison of addiction.  Heroin was my warden.  After ten years, my relationship with *** ended.  I felt close to death in body and in spirit.  I had crumbled!  In the back of my mind, I had a distant voice of my youthful childhood asking me to return.  At this point, it was only an echo that I could barely understand.  I thought the only freedom from this sickness was to overdose, and I did just that on 6-28-02.

To me my imprisonment was a reality to myself.  My addiction was an escape from my imprisonment to a deeper cell.  Only I could not see the difference.  I was blind to all reason.

At the age of twenty nine in a haze of fift teen [sic] or more 2mg. klonipin and a daily dose of 170mg. of methadone I walked into a sports store on Dec. 01, 2002 with the intent to shoplift and was chased a block and a half down the street with the end result of homicide.  I hit the bottom of my well.

Now I am sentenced to a term of 35 years with all but 25 years to serve in prison, for the crime of felony murder and robbery.  I wake up everyday [sic] wondering if my sentence is a blessing or a curse.  I did not mean to take a life on that morning of December.  I lost my life the second I started falling into the depths of the well.  I cannot bring back a life and knowing that I will be in torment for the remaining of mine.  I can only hope to reach others through my story and stop the fall before it’s too late.

I’ve been locked into addiction since I was eight years old.  I’ve been a prisoner all of my life and now I am actually a prisoner, I feel free in a sense.  Life is better now than I ever thought it could be.  There are no gray areas in a free fall into a well.  I can only hope that I am able to stop one pebble from falling before its [sic] to late.

–Johnny