Now let me explain that; I has been living in that area for over 10 years. All the landmarks were gone, the houses were gone. I was a mile past the school before I realized where I was. When I arrived my kids came running to me in tears. The roof of their gymnasium had been torn off. When they saw me and the car they all broke down. We hugged in the parking lot. A hug that said everything we were feeling. For them, the relief that their Mom was o.k. but not entirely.

We had to drive many miles before we could find a gas station that still had gas. The one we found had a line over two miles long. They gouged the price while we were waiting by 2$. The ride home was traumatic. Flash flooding and total destruction. When we arrived I was so very grateful that the home I rented was brick and still standing. The power was out over a week. Everything in the refrigerator had to be tossed. We finally drove two hours to a hotel just so we could shower and watch the news.

After a week I was finally called back to work. Upon arrival in my classroom I found that I was very unprepared for the trauma that I found there. The thing is though it wasn’t the trauma that I was expecting. Which would’ve been similar to my own. No, the trauma was from the way the inmates had been treated during that powerless week.

The C.E.R.T. team had been brought in. Which stands for certified emergency response team. If you look up the definition of C.E.R.T on the internet it would leave you to believe that they are an elite group of officers with specialized training. Training for hostage situations, gang fights, cell extractions and things of a very serious nature.

They’re also supposed to be trained to remain calm and de-escalate volatile situations. They come into the facility dressed like S.W.A.T. and sometimes marching in formation with shields. They can appear very intimidating. For whatever reason they were not visible to me during my extraction, and we’re leaving the facility when I came back to work.

According to the inmates however it was one of the most brutal weeks that they had endured. I allowed my classes to vent and get their feelings off their chests. I heard about a cat that the tornado has thrown into the razor wire and how it took four days for it to die. One inmate in particular was in tears talking about it howling all day and night, and how nobody took it out of its misery.

They talked about having peanut butter sandwiches three times a day for a week. They talked about C.E.R.T. coming in and throwing their boxes and mats on the floor. They talked about brutality and beatings. They talked about their hygiene products being destroyed and that the showers didn’t work for days.

The biggest complaint was how they had no communication with the outside world. Many towns were completely destroyed during the tornado outbreak and the inmates had no idea if their families had survived.

It was hard as a person, a woman, a mother, to listen to so much and not want to just hug some of them. It was hard to remain stoic as if their treatment was somehow part and parcel to being in prison. To remain professional and loyal to the facility and it’s protocol was what was required of me. I did all this but when I got home that night I had to call my sponsor and vent as well.

It was a rough week or two but eventually classes got back to a new normal. The phones came back on and the inmates got the answers they were looking for. The families were finally able to get their answers too. And as usual the news reports said nothing and the statement from the prison was vague and not entirely accurate.

Since this incident I have witnessed multiple C.E.R.T. situations that leads me to believe that the training they’re supposed to receive must be quite diminished. I find them to be straight bullies and aggressively abusive In situations that do not call for it. Mostly cell extractions and contraband hunts is what I have witnessed. They appear to treat everyone with complete neglect of dignity in any shape or form. Mind you, Iam 100% rehabilitation minded so my perspective comes from treating people with respect and dignity regardless of their past.

As a person in recovery, who also needed that dignity and respect to become whole again… Well I really can’t be any other way and be an advocate for people to get another chance at life.

As always, thank you for reading my series. I look forward to part 8 and sharing with you what I learned about the vocabulary of denial. STAY TUNED

It began as an ordinary spring day in Alabama. We go straight from winter to a week-or-three of spring to-relentless heat. If you turn around too fast you will miss spring all together.

I went to work, gave my badge to the officer posted between the switchback doors and walked unescorted to the office I share with the “nappers.” I don’t even call them my co-workers anymore, as working isn’t something they do.

I met up with my inmate clerk and we had the obligatory cup of coffee as we printed out the days worksheets. Then we stepped outside for a cigarette while we waited for an officer to open the gate.

Sometimes the wait was a good 20 minutes, other times the gate was open and unattended. I never thought much about it being open as there were two more manned gates ahead of us. Often times that 20 minute wait was a conversation with the clerk. Usually about how the class members were doing.

We finally made it to the dorm and settled into class. The first class came and went without incident. I stepped out on the yard for a smoke break. I never had an escort there. The yard was mostly grass, with two sidewalks. To the left was a concrete pad that had freeweights and benches as well as a pull-up bar. At the end of the main sidewalk was a locked gate. 20 feet from that another locked gate that went to the cafeteria or the shift-office.

The 235 man dorm had one officer. He was rarely in the officer’s cubicle next to my classroom. He was either manning one of three gates, wandering around in the bunk area, or out of view completely. This had been common place behavior for the last three years.

By this time I had taught almost everyone in that dorm and knew who the typical trouble makers were, I knew the places to avoid, which was sitting anywhere in plain sight of the bunks or the bathroom. The bathroom area was the only place in the building that had concrete blocks around it. The entire building was originally a large sheet metal-walled factory for inmate labor. It had been made into a treatment dorm after the crimebill act had been put in place. The act put all the inmates in treatment together.

While on my smoke break I always stood in the exact same place. I didn’t know if anyone had an eye on me, but if they did, they could always find me in the same place, doing the same thing. With all the hard times that my boss had attempted to give me, it was important to me that I was extremely predictable.

It was also important to be predictable around inmates. That way if anyone should say I was doing something I shouldn’t, I had many eyes on me that knew exactly my routine. I should really say ” when someone said something” It was never an “if.”

When I finished my smoke break my clerk said to me

“Doesn’t the sky look weird?”

I looked around and in fact it did look odd. Very greenish. Very cloudy. The clouds were high and moving fairly quick, yet it wasn’t windy.

I said “it’s kind of green isn’t it?”

We went inside and went to the classroom where I teach crimebill. It’s a much larger class of 30 + men. I never liked that room as it’s in the front corner, out of sight from the officers cube. It had windows facing into the TV area, but I never felt comfortable in there. I had been teaching this class for about two months, so I knew all the inmates and my clerk was always there, but still…not my favorite.

About half-way into the class the wind had picked up outside. The sheet metal walls would rattle and the ceiling would lift up and down slightly like there was an updraft. The room had two caged windows in it. One facing the yard, the other facing the canteen.

I looked out the front window and saw the officer lock the yard gate then turned and ran inside waving wildly at everyone to go in.

I looked towards the TV area and the wind was blowing the double doors so hard that inmates were getting pushed in and out. The officer ran into the staff bathroom. Which was the only room with a lock. It then suddenly became loud as hail began pelting the metal walls and roof.

I shouted, “everyone get out! GO to the center of the building!” No sooner had I gotten the words out of my mouth, the metal roof pulled back from the corner like a sardine can, and I could see the sky. I jumped under my desk and found my clerk already there. We stared at each other as the walls rattled and shook.

It was crazy loud. Not the train sound that everyone says. Explosions is what I heard. Then it was gone as fast as it came.

We crawled out from the desk and made our way to my regular classroom. The TV area had around 50 large wooden church pews that had been tossed into a pile blocking the doors to the yard. The power was out and pieces of the ceiling were hanging down and swinging.

I sat down at my desk in shock and my clerk took up a stance like superman facing the door, daring anyone to try to come in.

After about 30 minutes another clerk came to the door and said that there was an eighteen wheeler truck on top of the canteen.

There was no way out. I was stuck there until officers came to extract me. Every possible worse case scenario ran through my mind. After an hour went by power from a generator came on. At the very least it was better than sitting in the dark. An inmate approached the door and handed my clerk two coffees and a prison burrito. We split the burrito and he said “Don’t worry Ms. C. there is not a single person in here that is going to hurt you. We ALL know that you are one of the few people in here that care about us.”

Four hours went by before the C.E.R.T. team came and walked me out to the parking lot. The head warden and a few Captains were standing there.

They truly looked disappointed to see me alive and well. One of the Captains said to me, “all non-essential workers will be called when you can come back.” No mention of we’re glad youre ok or even a ARE YOU OK? One of the officers walked me to my car. Almost all the windows had been blown out.

Stay tuned for pt. 7 Thanks for reading.

The first two years were more than I could have hoped for. I was given free rein to develop the classes as I saw fit. We studied the biopsychosocial model, denial and grief, criminal thinking, and emotional intelligence, and we read from a fantastic book called *Houses of Healing*. I learned the vocabulary the inmates used that kept them stuck. We broke barriers regularly and had genuine progress. My boss was super supportive and made me feel like a real asset to the state. We went to ASADS conferences that were very informative.

The only thing lacking was in my co-workers: a general indifference to rehabilitation. They were clearly interested only in a paycheck and their institutional nap time. I wondered what it would be like to have other counselors around who wanted to talk about what was working and what wasn't. I longed for that kind of interaction, but it did not exist.

Then the other shoe fell — you know the one, when everything seems to be moving forward and then something stops you dead in your tracks. I came into work and my boss was cleaning out his desk. He was leaving to work in the non-profit world, and the person replacing him was not an ambitious person like myself, but the full-time napper who insisted on keeping the lights off in the office from noon to four.

In the first week of the new world order, I came home to a voicemail on my machine that was incredulous. The voice said: "I drove by your home today and saw you bent over in short-shorts in your garden. You shouldn't do things like that where people could take a picture of you. I wonder what all the guys would think of that picture. You should be glad I didn't take one."

The voice was none other than my new boss.

I sat in stunned silence. I cried briefly over the betrayal. Then I agonized over how disgusting it was, and how unbelievably stupid he had to be. Then I recorded it onto my cell phone to save the evidence.

The next day I made an appointment to meet with the warden. I continued to work my job admirably but quietly until the day of our meeting came. I played the voicemail for the warden and he was visibly upset. He told me he would handle it directly, and to go back to work.

My new boss was gone for the next three days. I was never called back to the office or consulted about the outcome. My other co-workers said nothing either. When Monday arrived and he came back to work, not a word was said. Within a week, though, I noticed a stark change among the inmates in my class and among officers of different ranks across the compound. I did not know that my life was about to become a daily hell for the next several years — because my new boss had told everyone I was a racist, rather than admit that he had sexually harassed me and mentioned blackmailing me with photos.

---

There had been a few times in the past when an inmate overstepped boundaries and had to be reported to the Sergeant or Captain on duty. The inmates all knew I would not stand for it, so it rarely happened. When it did, paperwork was formally drawn up and the individual was removed from the program.

Now, though, the Captains' and Sergeants' responses were very different. They questioned me instead. What were you wearing? Where were you standing? Is there a witness? Did you report it to the officer? What were you talking about before this happened? I complied with their questions, but I couldn't help feeling that gaslighting was taking place.

As the days went on, I would find myself called to the warden's office and questioned about things I had supposedly said in class — things that were untrue or drastically taken out of context. For so long I had felt I was doing the next right thing, always. Now I felt like the target in a witch hunt.

Stay tuned for more of this series, and as always, thanks for reading. Click on my profile for past essays.

From the start, I decided to leave the past behind and focus on moving forward. The inmates’ crimes didn’t matter; what did was whether they were addicts and how we could help. I taught them the 12-step program differently than before. It wasn’t about dictating this is the only way. I believed recovery was a personal journey and each person had to find their own path, discover what worked for them, and what would sustain their sobriety.

With twenty inmates, I cracked open a 12-step book. We read it line by line, debating and discussing each sentence’s meaning. Armed with a dictionary, we deciphered outdated language that most of them struggled with since 70-80% lacked a high school education. Understanding the words and sentences became a key to unlocking their recovery.

Empowering Inmates Through Choice

What stood out about this approach was the freedom it granted the inmates—something they rarely experienced. I recall one of them asking, We get to decide? We get to choose? I responded, Yes, of course. This method wasn’t just enlightening for them; it also taught me a lot. It allowed me a glimpse into their minds, revealing their thoughts, values, and denials.

Each week, we delved into two or three steps, dissecting their meanings thoroughly. We wouldn’t move on until everyone in the room felt sure they understood and could relate the step to their own lives. That personal application was a major breakthrough.

The ability to laugh, debate, and truly comprehend each other brought us closer together and marked a significant step forward.

Exploring Morality and Identity

When we weren’t revisiting the steps, we dove into life skills and how the biopsychosocial model applied to each person. Right off the bat, I asked them, Do you believe children can be born evil? This question always sparked heated debates. The group comprised Christians, Muslims, Jews, non-denominationals, and atheists, creating a vibrant tapestry of opinions.

The discussions remained lively yet focused. Is it a biological issue? A social one? Personality or genetic? Were they born this way, inheriting traits from parents, or shaped by their environment? Was it cultural influences, ethnicity, or personal fears?

As a white instructor leading a predominantly black class, I constantly dismantled barriers. They learned to look past appearances and truly listen, deciding for themselves who I was beyond the surface.

It was just as important for them to learn who I was, as it was to learn who they were. I was always surprised and elated to find how eager the inmates were just to be heard.

Rarely during my internship did I have to deal with disrespect from inmates that were in the treatment dorm. The inmate clerk that was assigned to my class did an excellent job behind the scenes.

Correcting bad behavior, or inappropriate dialogue from the inmates was something he addressed when I was not around. I was grateful for his assistance and that I could just do my job and teach.

At the end of my internship I had already graduated with two associates degrees and was taking classes at another college to complete a bachelor’s in behavioral science.

On my last day the staff and inmates held a “come back” party instead of a going away one. I felt pretty secure that the prison would offer me a full-time position.

Stay tuned for future essays. P.S. I got the job…

After the meeting, I sat in the parking lot with my sponsor, reflecting on the day. 

She joked about how I went to prison in the morning, jail in the evening, and would sleep in my own bed that night. Isn't recovery amazing?

She laughed.

That night, I had much to ponder who I wanted to be, what kind of counselor I was becoming, and whether this would turn into a full-time job.

I realized I'm probably an unorthodox counselor. My vocabulary is rough, my attitude blunt. I've always been a tomboy at heart.

My main focus was teaching them what addiction truly is, how to navigate it, and find recovery.

The next morning, I learned I'd be shadowing other counselors for a few days.

I also had a lunch date with a woman who'd been a counselor at that very prison. She wanted to discuss how to manage working as a woman in a men's prison.

My first class that day revealed inattentive men, a different group from yesterday. The counselor wasn't using any workbook; he was telling stories similar to those you'd hear in a 12-step meeting.

The men seemed bored and disinterested.

In the next class with another female counselor, the same scenario unfolded. She read from the basic text of a 12-step group but offered no elaboration, just reading aloud.

It was tedious and uninspiring. This dry teaching style was definitely not how I wanted to teach.

Lunch with a Blunt Perspective

That afternoon I met with the woman who wanted to talk to me.

Right off the bat, she was very straightforward and blunt with her opinion of inmates.

She said things like, they're all scums of the earth, they're all out to take advantage of you, use you, lie to you, don't trust any of them for any reason whatsoever.

She told me what to watch for in their faces when they were touching themselves while I was teaching class.

She said they're called gunners or 38s.

They're disgusting and will take every opportunity to disrespect you.

I wondered to myself about this woman, was she being this brutal to scare me or was this really who she was? 

How can you be a counselor and be an advocate for people when this is your opinion of them?

I thought about the fact I would be working with men whose crimes were the same as ones that had been perpetrated against me.

How was I going to feel about it and still do my job?

She said don't trust anyone, not even the people that you work with, and take notes, keep documentation on everything, and don't leave it laying around.

I walked away from this meeting, my head spinning, trying to discern whether this woman was just bitter or if this was really the way things are.

Disillusionment with Alabama Rehabilitation

For the rest of the week, I shadowed counselors, read manuals and handbooks, watched DVDs and videos that we had on file, and quickly became very disillusioned with rehabilitation in the state of Alabama. 

I realized that the state had never really put any money into this program, and that it was mostly just recovering addicts without a whole lot of actual counseling experience working in these prisons.

As I was the same, a recovering addict, I had been to college, and what they had taught me and what I was seeing in the flesh were two different things.

Everything that I had read about rehabilitation from the 1970s forward seemed to be a very systematic approach, but here it was still very much 12-step oriented with no actual handbook of evidence-based scientific practice.

I went home that week with more questions than answers, but determined to get to the bottom of it and learn what would actually work in this environment.

I knew what I didn't want to be, a bunch of bitter people who don't care about the outcome of their efforts.

If I was truly the best counselor in the state, as my boss had claimed, I had to figure out how to make it a fact.

Yes, sir, I replied.

Why are you here? he asked with evident skepticism.

Um, I’ve been clean for a year now and I wanted to thank my counselor, I explained.

His eyes widened with surprise. Really? That’s a story I want to hear, he said, inviting me into his office. He settled behind his desk, feet up casually, and asked, So what happened to you over the last year?

I recounted my journey: moving from one halfway house to another, enduring homelessness, surviving a brutal beating and being left for dead beneath a bridge, finding refuge in homeless shelters, crashing on sponsors’ couches, and attending countless 12-Step meetings. When I finished, he looked at me intently.

Young lady, your sobriety has been sorely tested, he acknowledged.

Yes, sir, I agreed.

After a pause, he offered with a smile, How would you like a job?

Yes, sir, I said without hesitation. And that was the moment everything changed.

For seven years, I worked as a counselor’s assistant and learned to be an advocate for addicts and alcoholics. I worked with kids aged 11 through 18—some were just experimenting, while others had the severe addictions of adults.I was grateful for this job, especially since my own children were taken from me during my battle with addiction.

When the opportunity to work with kids came up, I wasn’t sure it was right for me. But then my supervisor said, Maybe God has given you these children until you’re ready to take care of your own. That thought struck me deeply. Missing my children every day, this work was both healing and rewarding for me as I helped guide other people’s kids. 

After seven years, I felt that being a counselor’s assistant wasn’t enough. I needed more. So, at 45, I decided to return to college full time. 

As a single mom with weekends dedicated to my children and working night shifts full time, I went back to school during the day—it was an exhausting yet exhilarating journey.

In my final year of college, I enrolled in a criminal justice class that offered an internship. While many opportunities included security positions or roles as 9-1-1 operators and in police departments, I wanted to make a real difference. I chose to work in prisons and specifically wanted to help men.

Having always connected better with men than women and drawing from my addiction experience and personal recovery, it seemed like the perfect fit. So, I interned at a men’s prison in Alabama.

I became the state’s first female drug treatment counselor intern, working for three months without pay. The director ended up being the best boss I’d ever had. He said I could read between the lines of b.s. better than anybody and gave me complete freedom to design my curriculum.

Some days, I taught classes with 30 inmates; other times, there were 50. From early morning until late afternoon, only pausing for lunch, I spent time in that classroom getting to know these men on a therapeutic level.

My first day walking into the prison felt like a scene from a gritty movie. The heavy doors clanged back and forth, echoing down the hallways, while guards bustled about, barking orders. Inmates in stark white uniforms lined up like obedient soldiers. To my surprise, the grounds were cleaner than I imagined.

I shared a cramped office with three others. In the mornings, inmate clerks would shuffle in, brewing coffee and organizing paperwork for our classes. We’d spend some moments chatting with them, exchanging stories from what had happened in the dorm the night before, prepping for the day ahead.

One vivid memory stands out: my boss led me to a sprawling drug treatment area housing over 200 inmates. On the way, a glint from a razor blade caught my eye on the ground. Unease crept in as I glanced at him, wide-eyed. He shrugged it off, saying, This isn’t rehab; this is prison. Pointing to gouges in the concrete, he explained they were from inmates sharpening toothbrushes and pencils into makeshift weapons. It was both shocking and eye-opening. 

About 50 men sat in church-like pews, eyes glued to a television. At the center of the room stood a large brick-and-glass cube where the officer presided. To the left were classrooms with windows peering inward, while concrete barriers on the right led to showers and toilets. In the back, 200 bunk beds stretched into the distance.

The men were either seated or standing at attention when I was introduced.Their glares pierced through my uneasy exterior, but I’d been toughened by life’s storms. After introductions, he guided me to my classroom, showing me the desk and saying, This is where you’re going to teach.

He added he would send a clerk and 20 inmates for my first session before turning to leave.

Are you leaving me alone? I asked.

He replied, Yeah, you got this. You’re one of the best counselors in the state. If you need anything, the officer in the cube will help, and if there’s any trouble with the inmates, tell your clerk to fetch him. 

“Okay, sir. Thank you.” I said.

And so it begins…