I just received a letter from a 50 year old man, who is in prison. I sponsored this man for a couple of years and he was waiting all that time for sentencing. The worst part of the time he is doing is that he used to be a security guard in that same prison.
The one thing I know he’s doing, while there is attending the weekly AA meetings and trying to the best of his ability to practice this program. I could say it makes me grateful that it’s not me. You know the line: there but for the grace of God. But that always makes me think that it’s arrogance on my part to say that. I’ll just be grateful and hope he fares well until his release in the Fall.
The reason I’m writing this is because of what he tells me that happened to him and another man in there with him. The other man is in the same perilous situation as my friend. He was a cop, who put some of the men in there. He was sent to prison for DWI and vehicular assault while he was drunk.
Why I’m wriiting this is that my friend twelfth stepped the cop. Isn’t that something. Just reading that in the letter made me feel better all over. I don’t know whether it took or not, but that’s not what’s important. The fact that my friend did that in the worst of all situations you can think of is heartening.
I don’t really know if either man will stay sober, when they get out, but I know what’s going on just for this day. And this is the important day. Like my old sponsorf said to me after a “failed” twelfth step call. “I knew the man was you and I knew if you could win the argument with you, you could stay sober.” Hopefully that goes for my friend.
Just thinking about sobriety and the possiblilities.