insights from jails & halfways

[some slightly humorous things we have learned]

Here are some things we have learned in and around halfway houses, jails and institutions throughout the years:

That there is a certain kind of person who loves to tell you what the definition of insanity is. And…for some reason, they think that knowing this definition makes them better than you.

That, because of these people, literally every single person on the planet now knows what the definition of insanity is.

That a dead body looks nothing like an alive person. Something immediately leaves; call it a soul, call it whatever you want, but it leaves, and it leaves fast.

That the commonly phrased idea that “addicts are statistically more intelligent than non-addicts” is complete bullsh*t. The majority of us are idiots.

That intelligence is going to f*ck you when it comes to recovering from substance addictions. Statistically, higher-IQ individuals have a lower success rate than their lower IQ counterparts.

That people who have taken IQ tests, know, and often quote their IQ score are some of the worst people on the planet, again…statistically.

That if you meet a guy in a halfway house with a Russian wife who married him for a green card, and whose stepfather (apparently involved in some sort of Russian crime syndicate) put a commercial property in Nigeria in this guy’s name, so that all this guy needs to do is fly to Nigeria and grease the right wheels to sell the property to come into a windfall of cash — don’t…like…count on this guy to come through.

That people tend to lie because they are either afraid of losing something, or have inherently low amounts of self-esteem.

That it turns out you can buy laboratory-quality pure nicotine in liquid form. Therefore you can turn your vape juice into like, supercharged 50% nicotine shit. If, you know, you are into that sort of thing.

That most people who have drug addictions and decide to get sober have a baseline of like zero life skills.

That if you want to, you can get the New York Times delivered to you while in jail through the post office. That this serves two purposes, both giving you desperately needed pages to read, and also making your C.O. your daily paper boy, something which they will royally resent you for.

That amongst the prison-going population, cats are generally preferred to dogs, because not a single cat has ever worked for the police department.

That earplugs are largely just complete bullshit, and will somehow get you to concentrate more on the guy snoring next to you than you would be without them.

That couples who get sober together don’t stay together. Or, at least certainly don’t stay sober together.

That there is nothing sexual about having to give a girl mouth to mouth and perform chest compressions. And that this is something you would rather not do one hundred percent of the time.

That there is such thing as a compounding pharmacy, where pills are made to order with specific combinations of substances that the doctor ordered. If a Vicodin only comes in 5/325 hydro to aceto, but the Doc wants it at 8/425; all he has to do is send an order form down to the neighborhood compounding pharmacy. And that means these places have just like a box full of pure hydrocodone power.

That these boxes full of hydrocodone powder have, historically, played lead roles in many addicts’ dreams and/or nightmares.

That the bottom bunk is always preferable to the top bunk. And that you can guarantee yourself a bottom bunk spot if you report sleepwalking, or past injuries from bunk falls. Also, that this is a lie worth telling. Farts travel upwards, not down.

That some AA old timers do things like write the word DISEASE on a whiteboard, before erasing it, then rewriting it as DIS-EASE, and then will stare at you expecting you to lose your f*cking mind.

That, when you don’t lose your f*cking mind over adding a hyphen to a seven-letter word, they will usually write you off as not getting with the program, while you sit there and wonder how splitting words asunder is a program.

That carrying a picture of Her in your pocket does not at all help how much you miss Her.

That any seasoned addict knows he should triple his real usage in any intake screening process, so the Doc isn’t so stingy with the comfort meds.

That if you report triple your usage amount, or various other substances to steer the engagement of multiple comfort-med-protocols, your urine better be ready to cash the check that your mouth wrote.

That the best way to get something through a strip search is usually to hold it in a softly closed hand. That, or the ol’ prison wallet.

That a dishwashing machine is the only thing that knows how to wash dishes in a halfway house; and that a dish that still has a film of dish soap on it can, in fact, give you diarrhea.

That ceramic scalpel blades melted into bic pens seem to be the weapon of choice in super-max-lockups, as they pass metal detection, and because a small saran-wrapped pack full of them can be easily passed mouth to mouth during a kiss, even when there is a gigantic metal triangle between you and your visitor.

That post-acute withdrawal can be almost as bad as acute withdrawal because it lasts for around three to six weeks. Three to six weeks of really needing to build up steam just to get yourself out of a sitting position.

That if you build up too much steam, your weak stomach might end up leaving you in a shitting position, and pooping yourself is a serious possibility.

That if you can’t physically walk into a rehabilitation center, there may be an angel working there who will carry you from the car and put you into bed. That this may happen to be one of the kindest, and gentlest things that anybody will ever do for you.

That while in a super-maximum security lock-up, twenty-three-hour lock-ins inside of a single-person cell are normal.

That these solo lock-ins turn out to have unintended, but wonderful effects, as the words of a book spring to life like never before, once all your other sensory inputs are deprived.

That staying in an in-patient treatment center for a year will not necessarily lead to an increased likelihood of success, if your head isn’t in it.

That the average PPO policy pays out $4,600 a day for a detox level of care. That this number can get as high as $13,000 a day if you happen to end up in a hospital detox wing.

That there are people with five days sober that are happier, and all around better people than some of those with decades sober.

That telling a NY State Correctional Intake Officer that you feel you have nothing left to live for is not recommended, as it will initiate a suicide watch protocol — which means you get put into the pod with the crazies: the screamers, the shit smear-ers, the muted, silent dreamers, hair-pullers, and apparently also the dope fiends.

That no matter how excruciating it is, it is possible to withdraw from a litany of drugs in jail without any medicinal support whatsoever.

That while on a suicide watch protocol, you have your Silent Observer, a usually slightly overweight Correctional Officer, who sits one foot outside of your door, staring inside. They come and relieve each other in shifts, but they are there twenty-four hours a day, and they love to watch you suffer. They love to watch you scream, and they don’t care if you smash your forehead against the mucous-stained cinder blocks every five seconds.

That forehead smashing is effective because the momentary transfer of pain onto your noggin takes your attention away from the fact that your body is crying, sobbing even, for The Substance.

That attempting to dream your life into being different than the hell you are living in does you no good.

That adding nicotine withdrawal on top of opiate, stimulant, and benzodiazepine withdrawal is the thing that truly pushes you over the edge.

That singing Disney songs inside of your solo cell does not make you many new jailhouse friends.

That some people say if you have sex or get into a relationship in the first year of sobriety, you are screwed.

That other people say the opposite; that trying to f*ck every feminine thing that moved in meetings was the only thing that kept them going to them, and saved their lives.

That manic episodes are exhilarating to have, but scary as all hell to witness in others.

That some people like to say that “sobriety is like a jealous bitch”, because the second you stop giving it time, and instead focus on something else, it is going to leave.

That there are people out there with serious mental health problems, on or off their drug of choice.

That urinalysis cups can only read the first liquid that is dropped in them, and the results remain static, but their temperature gauges remain fluid. Meaning if you can just get a little water in there for twenty seconds prior to putting whatever vile substances your urine contains into it, you’ll test clean, and the temperature panel will read correctly.

That you would think people stop doing cocaine in their younger ages, but it turns out that quite a lot of people over fifty are still racking out lines.

That those on crystal meth will need to put themselves to sleep with some sort of high powered sedative every 72 hours, otherwise they will lose their minds. That sleep is the only thing that separates the moderately functional tweaker from your arm-thrashing, street-dancing, out-of-their-mind one.

That saying your addiction is trying to kill you may seem to be a bit of an overstatement, but it pretty much is — as it defies thousands of years of genetic practicality surrounding the cessation of consuming a poison once one has realized that it was poisonous.