7: Surviving Spiritually Beyond Prison
“What Happened When I Got Out”: Dan’s Story
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About six months before I went home it occurred to me that I really was going home. I became very anxious. Everything start- ed bothering me. Inmates were driving me nuts. I found new hatred for the guards. Standing in chow lines made my heart pound. And if I couldn’t get on the phone when I wanted to, I about lost my mind. The funny thing was that I knew all of these attitudes were my problem. I knew nothing had changed with my surroundings; something must have changed in me. I knew I had short timer’s disease. I took some action. I prayed about it—going so far as to pray for the inmates and guards I was getting angry at. I talked about it in my recovery meetings and with fellow believers. These things helped but didn’t seem to take it away. About five minutes after I woke up each day my brain would start with the anxiety and resentment. It was so surprising to me to feel so stressed about going home. I felt more stressed about leaving than I did about coming to prison! For a long time it had been easier for me to focus on daily prison life. I really didn’t want to think about the family, women, and friends that I’d left behind. That was just too painful for me. To me, leaving prison was going to be the end of all my problems. I pictured a warm welcome from family, old friends, past girl- friends. I figured that someone would give me a job. In prison I did lots of working out so my physical health was good. Most
SURVIVING SPIRITUALLY BEYOND PRISON
They call it “re-entry” these days. It sounds a little cold and clinical at first, but when you think about it a bit more, it’s actually a pretty good term. It reminds us that returning to the outside after time in prison is like a spacecraft coming back to earth. You may have heard that the “re-entry” phase is actually the most danger- ous part of the whole process of space flight. Lots of things can go wrong for a spacecraft coming back into the atmosphere. It can come in too fast and burn up. It can miscalculate and crash land. What’s needed is a care- fully thought-out plan—a safe glide path back home for a safe landing. It’s no different for an inmate re-entering the outside world. After being locked up for a while, we’re no longer adjusted to the outside atmo- sphere. We can foolishly take things too quickly or too impulsively and simply crash and burn. What we need is a carefully thought-out (and prayed-over) plan to create a safe glide path for ourselves in our first six months after release. That’s what we need, but that’s not what we always do. Take a listen to what happened to Dan when he got out.
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