Even though it's been decades since I lived in cages, a news story today took me back to where I came from.
It was about a riot in a California prison where a 71 year old died from stab wounds. Several others went to the hospital with knife wounds.
I quite likely crossed paths with some of the players during my 30 plus years of addiction. And I thought about the stress of having once lived in that insane landscape.
I reflected that had God not rescued me from myself who knows if I'd have ever changed.
During my years as a guest of the state most of those I met didn't care about change. They'd committed themselves to lives of crime and addiction. Many became enmeshed in gangs and violence and had no plans to do anything different.
Somewhere deep inside I knew I could do better. But it took years before I accepted that my addiction was the problem. For a long time I naively thought the world had it in for me. Or I just had bad luck. No one would give me a break. And so on.
It took years for me to break through my denial. To realize that all the bad things in my life flowed from my addictions.
Once I recognized that I was free.
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