—Stephanie A.
Opportunities for service work are pretty plentiful here and I was fortunate enough to have a sponsor who believed in our A.A. Responsibility Declaration and got me involved in service work from the beginning of my sobriety.
My career was in the field of corrections, and I retired when I was about three years sober. One area of service work I was sure I didn’t want to get involved in was working with inmates. I worked directly with inmates in the classification field for nearly 35 years and I figured I’d “done my time” where convicted felons were concerned. I still believed in habilitation and rehabilitation, I just wasn’t sure the majority of inmates did!
At about 5 years sober, after listening to the Corrections’ chairman again beg for help carrying the message into prisons, I decided to stick my toe in the water and attend the training session required of volunteers wishing to enter state prisons. Having some experience with state bureaucracies in general and DOC bureaucracy in particular, I walked into the main Alabama women’s prison to carry the message for the first time without a whole lot of enthusiasm and maybe some pretty jaded expectations.
Three of us entered the prison that evening. It took a while to get “processed” and go through a cursory shakedown. Our women’s prison is an ancient structure with old everything. It is a loud, echoing, concrete relic from the Stone Age. Hugh fans, and swamp coolers circulate the summer air up and down the halls and offer the only relief from the brutal Alabama heat. It’s muggy and damp. Everything looks second hand and like it’s barely holding on after years of use. Not an environment conducive to recovery, I thought. Or, maybe just the right environment.
A few women attended that first night. We started reading the Big Book. Some had experience in recovery programs; some didn’t. So, we thought we should start at the beginning.
The inmates are not allowed to keep the Big Books we use, so they only have access to them when we come once a week and if they can access the one or two in the prison library. We aren’t allowed to communicate with the women outside the meeting, so they won’t have a traditional sponsor-sponsee experience. And, since it’s the only 12-step meeting available, we welcome addicts too—keeping the focus on AA but encouraging everyone to share their experience, strength, and hope. It’s bare bones AA.
What it isn’t is a depressing, whiny, entitled group of women. It’s voluntary for one thing. No one’s forced to come. There’s no coffee, air conditioning, comfortable chairs, food or any other lure to draw them in—just a bunch of women who want to stay sober. I’ll go out on a limb and say no one was more surprised than I was at the depth of honesty in this group.
What also surprises me is the acceptance I have of the red tape of prison procedures. They have rules about what we can wear and bring, and sometimes that changes depending on who is checking us in, but I have it clear in my mind what I need to do each and every time in order to pass muster at the front gate: slacks, modest shirt, complete set of underwear, shoes with backs, no jewelry, and don’t come in dressed in all white. No big deal.
I hear the giant grill gates slam, but that’s okay, too. As I’m walking down the wide hallways, I wonder if Angela or Tanya will make it tonight and I want to hear if they’ve had a good week. Some of them won’t show up. Some will move on to another facility; some will be released. There are a few of them who will be there for a long, long time and some will never get out. But for today, we’re just folks who want to stay sober, and be happy, joyous and free no matter where we find ourselves.
I know that AA needs to be in prisons, and I need to be here, too. As with every experience I have had in service work in AA, when I step out, the message of recovery and hope is carried back to me tenfold in the eyes of those of us who want more.