32. How I Landed Myself in Drug Treatment Court
My life took a sharp turn in 2019 when I was arrested in a neighboring town. It all started with a minor car accident. I clipped another car while trying to park across the street from a bar. I was so hammered from eating Xanax and drinking beers all day that I didn't even realize I had hit a car. I just parked, locked up my car, and walked over to the bar to continue throwing back beers. Ironically, the police station was directly across the street from the bar. Only a short while later, when I happened to glance outside, I was confronted with a disconcerting sight. I saw police lights flashing and several officers surrounding my car. Inexplicably, I audaciously approached them to inquire why they were surrounding my vehicle. They proceeded to tell me about the accident, but I stubbornly disputed that I had hit anything, especially not a parked car. As it turns out, there was a car repair shop across the street with security cameras pointing directly at the parking lot. These cameras captured the entire fiasco, and I was caught red-handed. Oh… did I mention that I had over 500 Xanax bars (pills) stashed away inside my car? I was arrested and charged with a slew of felonies and misdemeanors.
As a result of my drug and alcohol use from earlier in the day, I can't recall much about being booked, arraigned, and sent to jail. I do remember waking up in a cold jail cell wearing an orange jumpsuit with the word "inmate" written on the leg of it. Waking up in jail without any idea of why or how I got there is a terrible feeling, to say the least. I spent the next week as a prisoner in the county jail, with my only lifeline being the sporadic phone call I was afforded (most days). I’ll never forget trying to call my family with that phone call. It would ring and ring and ring until it would click and cut the phone call off. I remember thinking, “Wow, are they going to let me rot in here? I’ve really done it now.” I honestly thought they were leaving me to fend for myself. Neither my family nor I knew that calls to or from inmates required a specific preloaded phone card. Three days into my confinement, the intercom in my cell crackled to life, announcing that I had a visitor. Rubbing my hands together with a slight smirk, I was sure it was a family member coming to bail me out, but to my surprise, it was someone whom I had gone to high school with. I was puzzled as I observed him seated there, armed with nothing more than a notepad. He was a few years ahead of me in school and we hadn’t kept in contact after graduating. While I was recklessly partying, using drugs, and wasting my life away he had gone to college, graduated, and became a lawyer.
In the visitor's room, he calmly explained that he had been retained as my lawyer and that my family hadn't been ignoring my calls; they just didn't know that they needed to purchase a required phone card and put money onto it, but they were working on it. He peppered me with questions about what had led to my arrest while diligently taking notes. Then, he introduced me to something called drug treatment court (DTC), a program I had never heard of before. He informed me that it was an alternative to incarceration, designed for people with a history of drug addiction and criminal charges. He told me that I was a good candidate for the program based on my history of alcohol and drug abuse and my recent legal woes. He explained that if I was eventually approved and admitted into the program and successfully completed it, my charges could be reduced, or even dismissed. I was completely fixated on the words "reduced charges" and "dismissed charges" as he explained the potential for a brighter future through the avenue of drug treatment court. Little did I realize at that moment that this intervention would ultimately spark a profound transformation in my life.
Be sure to tune back in next week as I thoroughly take you through the drug treatment court program which I was blessed to be a participant in!
And remember, if you’re struggling, or know someone who is struggling, please don’t lose hope. If that had happened to me, I wouldn’t be able to help spread awareness today.
