An "addicted" prisoner

 I shall never forget the first time I heard the consequences of drugs told by a convicted prisoner. It was a couple of years ago when I was working in a prison and I had to interview a prisoner to attend his basic demands. His story was perhaps so common, nothing unusual in a place where people get sent for committing crimes but the fact that I was in the interview room and the person facing me was about to be sent to serve his sentence made me think about the reality of addiction and crime.

He was middle age and he had been hooked for the biggest part of his life, he had a broken family and not even his mother wanted to know about him, I know that because I was asked to contact her and she told me that she had lost any hope to see his son clean ever again. His wife did not want to know and he could only blame his addiction for his fate. He asked me if I could provide any solution but my answer was no. I did try to explain to him about the rehab programs in prison but for someone like him who had been in and out of prison for the last 20 odd years my advice was useless as he explained that he had tried so many times unsuccessfully.

His personal state, look and appearance did impress me a bit at the beginning, he was out of control in a very depressive mood with tears constantly flowing from his eyes, he could not stop regretting his actions and the idea of going back inside, through the same hell without redemption really scared him more while he shouted for help. He told he had promised himself and his family so many times to change but so far he has always failed because he could not find any support.

He was a common offender, the sort of person who commits a crime just to get a fix and carry on without thinking too much about tomorrow. When he could not score he used to drink and turn very violent. In a way he was trapped, he could not live without being high and when he was down he would do anything to be up again. In the middle everything was possible and getting the money to survive and get his dose by any means necessary was his only concern.

Life had treated him badly, he had gone through hell and he could not see the way out. At some point he told me that that should be last time inside that he really had the intention of changing and start afresh but also mentioned that the time ahead was going to be very difficult because of the loneliness of prison life and the lack of affection. With those two handicaps I thought that any attempt to rehabilitate would be very difficult because he was aiming exactly at the same departing point: The obsession to feel much better trying to control a world that had left him behind and did not want to know anything about him.