The topic of "Young People and AA Meet in Jail" at the EURYPAA Convention in Stockholm, Sweden

OK, let's start.

Welcome to this both both sides of the Boss young people and a meet in jail panel session of Yuri Pay. My name is Celine and I'm an alcoholic from Paris, France. Hi Celine,

this is the a preamble Alcoholics Anonymous as a fellowship of men and women who share the experience, strength and hope with each other that they may that they may solve the common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.

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This is a panel presentation meeting beginning with speakers sharing on the topic, followed by questions and answers or comments.

Participation during final presentations is open to all.

And please help me to welcome our first speaker, Jamie Ann from Melbourne, Australia.

Hi, my name is Jamie and I'm an alcoholic. Hi Jamie. And it's really great to be here and thanks to Jay and the Euro Park Committee to for asking me to share. It's a real privilege. And I have a sobriety date 17th of September 2005. And I have a Home group in Melbourne, which is the deal men's group and

also have a sponsor. And I guess, you know, I suffer from alcoholism and, you know, ever since I was a little kid, you know, I felt pretty uncomfortable in my own skin. And when I picked up a drink, I felt significantly better. You know, I love the effect produced by alcohol. And, you know, my alcoholism progressed and my drinking progressed, you know, through my school Life, University life that affected my relationships and

until in the end, I couldn't drink and I couldn't stay sober. You know, I just didn't know what to do and

check myself into a rehab and you know, started to get some help there. And I finally asked for help and you know, I was introduced to the program of a A and like I said, I've got a Home group and I asked for some help. And since then I've been sober for 4 1/2 years. And when I got there, you know, my sponsor, you know started to suggest to do some service and get involved and get outside of sock. My problem sent it in my mind

and they sent me down to these drop in centre like this contact centre and said help some other people.

And so I started taking up service and I joined some committees and I was about a year and a half into sobriety. It was in 2006 and some guys came into the our meeting from Werribee, which is a little bit down the coast. And they were two older guys and they said, you know, we we're running a prison roster and we want to get some young people involved. You know, we're getting pretty old and we think we're going to rotate off pretty shortly and we want to get some young people into the prisons. So come down. So I thought that was a good OPP.

So I signed up and volunteered to go to this Metropolitan Remand Center. And I got inducted. So I went down, took a morning off work and got inducted. And they, they, they explained, you know, all the stuff that the prisoners could do. And they showed me all the contraband goods and how prisoners could make knives out of pens and stuff like that. And I was absolutely shitting myself. And, and, you know, they gave me like a, a retinal scan

that that's like an eye scan. And that was my identification to get into, into the prison.

So and A and a security pass. So once I was inducted, I had a green pass and I was able to wander anywhere throughout the out the prison. And but what what we had was these guys had set up a couple of meetings, like a, a meetings within the prison. One was in the week and one was a Saturday morning. And what they said is they said, you guys, you know your group, the deal, you can run that group any way you want to. And So

what it pretty much consisted of was I, I, I helped put together a roster

and rostered myself on and some other people. So we would usually, we would always go down in twos. It's always suggested, you know, if you're going into prison to have maybe an older soberman with a bit more experience and a younger guy, you know, in case there's there's any issues. And also so you can just share your experience two or more people. So we ran an AA meeting in the prison and it was an identification meeting. We took the form out of, of what the, the guys were running with and

we shared our experience, strength and hope with the prisoners. And so we would talk for five to 10 minutes and share our stories and what a a had done for us and that we were just like them. And if we had kept on drinking that, you know, we, you know, I, I was never in prison myself, but if I had kept on drinking, I would have ended up probably in an institution. And that the opportunity was available to them, you know, should they, you know, or when, when they get out or should they get out?

And,

and, and then we went around the circle and some of them would, would share and they, they, and some of them wouldn't share. And, and, and the, the feedback from the prisoners was that this was fantastic. It was so much more helpful than any of the other courses or whatever they did. And some of them said, you know, will this help me get through my court case, you know, or, you know, will, will it, will you be able to sign a piece of paper to say that I've done this? And, and we just said, you know, I would say to them, well, they will know, you know,

the fact that you're doing something positive with your life. And if you say, if you say that you're a part of a A and you're doing something, others will be able to see that. And, and I guess it's all public information work, you know, carrying the message to the sick and suffering alcoholic. You know, we're just trying to put, you know, throw out a whole lot of seeds out there in the field and, and plant, plant the message. And, and if one or two grows, and that's fantastic. And, and I think in, I had a couple of years, 2 1/2 years of going into the prisons and I had

one guy who came down to one of the meetings at the men's group came down for a couple of weeks. And, and I haven't seen him since,

but I guess they're, they're slowly, you know, they're, they're, they're getting that message.

What else can I say about the prisons?

It's I guess it's a it's a great opportunity to to be of service and carry the message

to to the sick and suffering alcoholic. And you know, it talks about this, you know, the the 7th or the tradition. You know that when anyone anywhere reaches out for help that you know, I need to be there. And you know, I was coming back from the world convention. I was on a flight and there was a lady there and she was in Al Anon and, you know, her son had been locked up in a prison

and he was like 21 or 22 and he had an armed hold up and, you know, he was in there. And I just, I felt really, you know, sorry for her and, and, but I knew, I, I guess, you know, I knew that, you know, at least AA is there and that's available for, for, for people like us. So, you know, a lot of these people, they, they, they're, I guess, you know, like the, it's both side of the bars is that, you know, it's, it's a light and it's opportunity and it gives these people some hope if there's people coming in from outside

to carry the message. So,

so I think I'll leave it there. It is a it is a panel. So, you know, happy to answer questions after, after this. So thanks a lot for letting me share. Thank you.

Our second speaker is

Hi, my name is William. I'm now calling.

Yeah, I'm,

I'm going to be five years sober tomorrow and I've been doing prison service for not very long, actually since February.

I suppose my first encounter with prison service was someone just announced at a meeting we need chairs to go into to prisons. And, and you know, I try and do service if services kind of offered. And so I put my hand up and I went into Wandsworth Prison in South London

with another member of the Fellowship and this guy that I'd gone in with.

I mean, I, I never went, went to prison myself in my drinking, although I did do things that might have got me there had I been caught. But so I went in with this guy and I was very, I was very scared.

In fact, the guy I went in with had done the 1st 14 years of his recovery in prison and he had murdered his partner in a blackout. And it just seemed like there was some very serious stuff going on.

But what I discovered was when we went in, we actually went to the the vulnerable prisoners wing where they put sex offenders and people who are at risk from other inmates.

And I shared my relatively high bottom story. And what I got back was just an enormous amount of identification, you know, and people talked about how they felt.

And I suppose what what it showed to me really was that it's a real clear case of there but for the grace of God go I

that all of the existential stuff was exactly the same. It just so happened that our circumstances had been different.

I took on the my commitment, which is the prison liaison officer for West End Intergroup

and I took that on, but largely because I had the time I was doing, I'm doing, I'm back as a student now. So I mean I was free during the day and there's meetings during the day and Wormwood Scrubs prison isn't quite near my house. So I go in twice a month. We only have 4 meetings a month in there

and West End takes one or two of them.

It's interesting because a lot of the guys that are in there are very young and a lot of them have can't remember the the offence that got them into prison. They did it in in blackout. Also, the A A is their first.

The prison is their first encounter with a, A

My Home group, the Young Person's group in London

tends to have a lot of university graduates and people from like fairly comfortable backgrounds. And I believe, although there's nothing to back this up in the literature as me having a theory, I believe that the reason for that is because if you are alcoholic in that in those circumstances, then it really sticks out. Whereas if you come from a very chaotic place, it tends to stay hidden for rather longer.

So a lot of these people come in and they have,

you know, they have no idea of any of the kind of vocabulary of alcoholism. They won't know what a blackout is. They won't really know what the point of meetings are.

It took me a long time to get to get a security clearance. I needed to go into prison. The prison authorities seem to take the attitude that, you know, no one's going anywhere, so there's really no hope. And it took about four or five months for me to get my card.

So now I go in and every, every meeting I take in someone from the from, from the outside. And they are all incredibly pleased to see us. I see the fact that a A is in prisons at all as a testament to the, you know, the fact that what we're doing is not a waste of time, that we're part of an unusually functional organization. You know, there aren't Scientologists in prison, for instance, not that Scientologists would. But what I mean is that, you know,

they invite us in because our ship works, you know, excuse me. And

they're always, yeah, the prisoners are always very pleased to see us. And, and often they, they, you get the sense that they're realising, you know, what's been going on, that when they drink, they're powerless over alcohol. That often they go into blackout. Do they behave in an unmanageable way once they once they drink. And then there's a, there's a couple of things that I think makes a extremely relevant for

prisoners. One of them is that I know that when I came in, I needed to be re socialized, You know, I was like a battery chicken or something that had been taken out of the, the factory. And I, I needed, I needed a group where I could recover, you know, not just recover where I could get my marbles back, but where I could recover socially, you know, where I can learn how to be with people and learn how to listen to people and have people listen to me and what? So I talk and don't say anything. And then you talk and I don't say anything. You know, I had to keep it

really simple like that,

and AA provides a really safe environment to do that stuff where we've agreed the rules beforehand. You know that we will be less judgmental, more tolerant maybe than people outside. You know, we'll love you until you learn to love yourself. We'll put up with you even when you're being a shit

and, and that's what prisoners need I think when they come out, because often they say everyone I know drinks, you know, the first thing I do I'm gonna do when I come out is go to the off licence. No one wants to see one of them said to me, no one wants to know when you're in prison. But as soon as you get out, they want to take you to the pub and give you cocaine, you know, And there's people that they only get as far as the off license and then they get rearrested. They get 40 lbs when they get out

and obviously 40 lbs

is enough to get you fairly drunk if you haven't drunk for two years. You know, some of them don't have a problem. They have this this level of denial they have to get over because some of them don't have a problem not drinking in prison. There is hooch available, but they brew it in the toilet systems. So it's not a great, it's not not got a great, you know, taste. I don't think so Some of them don't have a problem steering clear of that. But there's this worry that they'll go out

and I think I hope that what we can do in London and we're still working on this is

develop a way of meeting people from prison, do it as a 12 step call, 3 minutes. So the other thing that I think makes a a particularly pertinent for prisoners is that it's a design for living that works in, in hard going and there's no harsher environment than than a prison.

And I think that particularly, you know, at the alcoholic personality, that defiance, that basically sociopathic defiance, I, you know, at odds with authority is going to land you in serious trouble in in a prison environment. So I think a program that teaches you to accept, you know, to accept the things you can't change. You are in prison, you know, that encourages you to practice patience, not get into a fight,

you know, that will increase your sentence and a program that that encourages you to live one day at a time. I mean, how are you going to do a six year stretch apart from one day at a time without getting so crazy and angry and mad? I just think we have an awful lot to offer prisoners. So I suppose my message would be that even if you come from not the wrong side of the tracks, you know, and if someone says do you want to go into a prison?

You say yes because I can guarantee you that they'll they'll want to, they'll be pleased to see you and they'll get something from what you have to say in one word. Scrubs, it's a men's prison. So they're also particularly pleased to see women for obvious reasons. So, yeah, thank you very much for listening. Thanks.

Thank you very much. So the the meeting is now open for questions and answers or comments. We ask that you limit your shares to three minutes. Questions are welcome from the floor, but please come to the front if you are going to share and speak in the mic. Who would like to begin?

Jay. Hi, Jay,

thanks for the question. The question is, is there any bridge function after we come out of a A to get back into society so that they don't drink? Yeah, in in Melbourne in Australia. What, what we do is we offer to pick them, pick them up after they get out of the prison

and make sure that they're going to an AA meeting at their welcome. I don't, I don't know if at that particular institution has a bridge program. I'm sure they have something in place. But the offer that we, we give them in a is that we'll pick them up to take them to a meeting. And what I, I do is I provide my contact number to the prisoners. I wouldn't, didn't want to pass on like other details of other members in my Home group because of anonymity or whatever. But I guess I, I try to leave it so that

when they get out that they'll call and ask for help and then that they'll come along to an, a, a meeting. So, yeah, so the offer is there to to meet them after after they get out.

Yeah, we're we're not doing as well as we could on that. In London. Some prisons have a wrapped wing, which is I don't know what that stands for ARRAPTI assume don't know, but they will They do offer a kind of counselling when people come out. But we we can we can meet people from the prison gates as a 12 step call. And we've also got a list with.

Without numbers on it because we can't give out the where to find in prison because it's got phone numbers on it. And the prison authorities say that, you know, they could be used for, you know, blackmail or something. And yeah, so we, we, yeah, we could we have an informal arrangement with the

the guy that runs it in prison where we can pass on a number as they only said, all they can do is a 12 step cool. But yeah, I think it's something that we need to work harder at. In London,

I'm sitting alcoholic. I've worked in a with Paris, a members in in the jail area. And in France we have

most of the prisoners when they get out of prison, they go to specific institutions of specific place where they actually stay for a while and a can go there. So it's a way of not doing this stuff personal, but

being present and being available. That's makes sense.

Do you guys have any questions, comments, experience to share?

I can't really hear you come outside.

Thank you.

It's OK,

I go to the jail

and we have meetings every week

in. When they quit I gave them the numbers from their town. They can go to the A, A, but further we do nothing.

I don't know if that's a good solution. They can go of their own when they won't go, they go when

just like outside, they come or they come not

yes more. I cannot do that. I think

when they are from the other side of the country,

I give them the names of the groups and phone numbers so they have a choice.

That's it.

Sounds like Jimi Hendrix.

Umm I'm sitting alcoholic. I have a question actually about the women men stuff.

How does how is it going when you're just with a male prisoners and and women come for a meeting? Is it like

a normal meaning or is it like the motivations could change or whatever?

I'm wondering.

Yeah. I mean, it's basically a normal meeting that the person that I took over from was my was a friend of mine from the young person's group, Amy and she, I mean, it's all there's always 2,

you know, there's always

to sober Alcoholics in the room. And then we do, we take our meeting on the

in the health health wing.

So, you know, and it, there's, there's kind of staff there. So it's not, I mean, there's, there's two of us. There's no kind of that. Once the meeting is going, that's one of the that's the surprising thing. Once the meeting is going, it's an ordinary meeting with more or less the same kind of tensions and kind of strange vibrations that sometimes happen in an ordinary meeting. But you know that the

Yeah, I mean, I'm sorry, I was being slightly flippant earlier. Obviously the the prisoners do. There are female staff in the prison as well. So it's not their only

sight of women, but they could just do with a bit of variations.

Read this out. I might read this out. It's a why. Why do people go in there?

Yeah, yeah, sure. OK. Here's a guideline from It's a draft of YAA members going to correctional facilities. So one of the purposes of imprisonment is to afford inmates an opportunity to correct their illegal behaviour by addressing any underlying problem of alcoholism. A A has sustained a record for over 75 years as an effective option for many inmates to turn their lives around.

For members of a A, visiting sick Alcoholics where they where they are has long been one of the important and happiest ways of keeping ourselves sober. The book Alcoholics Anonymous includes a chapter on working with others, which states practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other Alcoholics.

It works when other activities fail. Later in the chapter it concludes that helping others is the foundation stone of your recovery. A A Fellowship encapsulates that this policy in its banner displayed at many a A meetings when anyone anywhere reaches out for help. I want the hand of a A always to be there and for that I am responsible. All members have to do in correctional centres is to be channels for the A A message. Everyone has a story to share in correctional centres because inmates are as varied as a A members. You don't

be in jail yourself. Not only are we doing 12 step and making ourselves useful in recovery as the 12 steps and 12 traditions talks about it, it also gives us the sense that sense of belonging we often lack as practicing Alcoholics. It also lets over Alcoholics see what could happen to them if they drink again. However, most of it important of all is the change we witness in inmates that motivates us to carry the a a message.

Hi, my name is Alexander Markovic. Alexander I have one question about the presence in

Australia and England.

Freedom. I don't know how to experiment. If you went one year, you're in jail, just eight months. So how is this thing Australia and in England?

Sure. Yeah,

you the, the way it works in in England tends to be that if you were so half your so if you get a 14 year sentence, you'll serve 7 and if you get if you serve half of it, unless you offend again within the prison system.

It's just kind of the way it works then.

Yeah, in, in Australia, the place that I work in is a remand centre. So there's about 600 inmates and they're, they're on remand. So they haven't actually been sentenced. So they're, you know, it's like a holding pen and they may be there from a few days up to six or nine months, but they're waiting for sentencing in, in like a proper jail. But I'm not sure what the the actual guidelines are on, you know, how long you know, you get

dependent on how you know compared to your sentencing.

But the one, the institute that I work in is all males in that metropolitan remand center. And only male AMA members can go in to attend that meeting. But there are other women's prisons that have women in there and women can attend those. A A women do attend and run a, a meetings in there.

Yes,

problem with alcoholic. I just wanted I had, I have a few comments I wanted to make just based on what you guys have just shared. One of the things I I went to icky pile last year when I came back, I, I came back to England and I wanted to carry the message the best that I could to many people as possible. Remember speaking to somebody at one of my home groups who basically started talking a lot about the prison service that he did sort of 20 years ago in America. And he mentioned a lot about how the most people where you going to find Alcoholics that are willing to listen,

you're more likely to find them in prison because they've got nothing else to do kind of thing. And they're obviously for a lot of people, alcohol is what actually got them to prison. So what I decided to do is I decided to get in contact with some people. We'll find out if there are people in AA who are doing service at young offenders institution so I could get access to young people. So what I did was I contacted some people in London who put me in contact with some other people. And basically I've been into felt some young offenders prison, which I suppose in Greater London

gone in and shared at two of the meetings there.

And it was really interesting because to be honest with you, I didn't again do it. I thought, I don't want to go into a prison because I've never been into a prison before. So my thought was why would anyone in a prison want to listen to me? And the other thing that I thought as well was I, I got sober at 22 years old and the age for the prison, the young offenders prison was actually kind of 15 to 21. I thought that they might not be able to identify with me, but I thought, what the heck, I'll give it a go and see what happens. And I went and did service the first time

and I must admit it was like it was by far one of the best things I've ever done in recovery.

What I kind of found was I sat down, especially the last time that I went in because there were more guys there. I went into the meeting and I sat down with these guys and, and what I think they really liked was the fact that I had come into the prison and I wasn't telling them what to do because I'd read it in a textbook. I was telling them what to do because I'd actually been done exactly the same thing as them. And what they were so used to seeing was people like councillors coming in and telling them what to do when the councillor hasn't actually done what they are imprisoned for.

And it was interesting because it was exactly the same as talking to a newcomer.

You see the glint in their eye when I identify with what you're going on about. And what I found as well was that they identified a lot with me getting server at 22 years old. And I think for them it helped them knowing that it was actually possible to come out of prison and actually turn up to a young person's meeting in London, for example, and actually live a sober life, you know, because I think I agree with the lot what Williams had, a lot of people actually leave. And the second they leave, they take the money they're given and go straight to the off licence and they don't even stand a chance. Whereas I think that they do actually at Felton

don't give them away to finally just give them a list of meetings and basically they can go to those meetings if they choose to. And, and some of them have been successful. But I think the thing that I got up from it was it was really worth doing. And, and what I found was that even though at first I didn't actually want to go and do it, I was best off just turning up and seeing what happens and giving up shot for a couple of times. And it worked out great. So at the moment I'm going through the security clearance process, which, like you mentioned, takes a really long time to actually become a secretary at Felton Young Offenders Prison.

And I think all I wanted to say was that there's a lot of people here, which I'm really pleased about. And if you haven't done service in a prison or you are doing service in a prison and like brilliant. But if you haven't, it would be really cool if you kind of went away and actually found out what was going on in your community. And if you wanted to go and do service at a young offenders prison or if you're a woman and you weren't comfortable doing service in a men's prison, you could go and find out about women's prisons. Because I'm sure there's a real, if there are one with the prison island service in is a boys prison. So I'm sure that there are the women's

young offenders prisons in England that probably nobody's actually going to do service at. And I think the best way to probably find out is obviously ask at your Home group, ask at your intergroup or ask it your sort of region and find out what's going on in the area. So that's all I have to say. So yeah, thank you.

My name is David and I'm. Hi Daniel. Maybe you send it this and I didn't listen, but how many people are attending your meetings in when you

for me in Australia, approximately 10 to 30 people attending out of like I said, up to 500 people. So it's fairly good numbers.

One with scrubs, there's only over 8, but there's a waiting list because the prison is understaffed. So they they can't bring, they have to bring all the people off the wing in order to come to the meeting. And that that requires staff. But as I said, there's a waiting list at Wandsworth

and I went to do a chair in Wandsworth again last week. The week before, I thought there'd be eight of them and there was a room of 30 prisoners because they've got a, they've got a, a rehab wing, they've got a wrapped wing there. The the, the thing that is different from a normal meeting is that in most meetings you tend to have quite a high kind of medium of

sobriety. You know, you have a few people who have been sober a while,

whereas in one of scrubs a lot of them are only just, it's basically a meeting largely of newcomers and probably me and the chair will be definitely me and the chair will have the most sobriety in the room. So this we could do with having more meetings so that more people could could come in.

And so they had a bit of a running start when they got out because one a week isn't enough, you know, there's one a A and two enemies.

And yeah, then maybe we could get more people into it and we could do with going in with three people as well. I think that would improve it so that then you have more of a, you know, more of this kind of ballast of sobriety to stop people feeling, you know, the feeling in the meeting being too kind of mad.

Yeah. So, yeah, that's that's going to say also the it's considered a privilege in in Australia to go to the a, a meeting. So if you've not been behaving, you're allowed to go there.

And also we give that free coffee at the meetings, which they don't always get coffee. So some of them are just there for the coffee and and you know, then they come along and they say, you know, that was really great. And some of them are also there. They've maybe got other problems. They identified a drug addict or whatever. So we point out that they might want to attend, you know, NA when they when they leave,

But I guess as long as they're there and they're hearing the message, you know, they know that there's something for them to do when they get out. I think the hardest thing is trying to get them, you know, like to get to attend a meeting once they leave prison. That's that's the biggest, the biggest challenge. And I guess we just can carry the message and

see how they go. I mean, we die. Actually. They used to get tea at Wormwood Scrubs during the meeting, but they don't do that anymore. But I think people do partly just come because of the atmosphere in the meeting is very different from an atmosphere anywhere else in a prison, really. They're just that sense of like, it's being a safe place where people can talk. And the things that, you know, the way that we talk in recovery is totally antithetical to the whole

prison mentality. You know,

the idea of allowing yourself to be vulnerable, you know, holding hands at the end of the meeting. I can be a bit embarrassing actually.

So, yeah. But yeah, I mean, I think that they, they do see it as a as a privilege. And and like I said, they always, you know, they always say thanks for coming in

talked about working steps with sponsor in person.

Anyone interested in that or

feel the atmosphere

we we don't have in in one of the scrubs? They can have postal sponsorship so they could do the steps that way, but most of them are there on remand so they're waiting to be sentenced. Well, the only reason that they've served their whole sentence in one with Scrubs would be if they had connection with the local area and so far we haven't had any.

But if they did show an interest in working steps, then

yeah, I'm sure we could find a way of doing this. But there's no, there's no time. And you know, we see them for one hour a week. So, you know, to sit and do step work with them isn't really viable at the moment, but it's something we should look into.

My name is Ben. I'm alcoholic. I, I, I just wanted to sort of pick up on what was just said. In the States, we had done a meeting that was similar to this meeting for about a year and a half. We did work in a prison, but the way we did it is we brought in a number of people.

It was all volunteer basis. We would go in maybe once a month or so to the general population and speak to the general population about what we were doing in the meeting. And it was a step meeting. We would bring people through the steps, not necessarily like

umm, through like a, an, a wall service. We would use the big book and we would try to do as much one-on-one stuff as we could, but the way we would do so we'd go in and speak to the general population and then all the, and anybody who wanted to come to that voluntarily would come to the group voluntarily. And we'd have maybe 3 or 4A A members come in and work steps with guys there. We would work them through like the first three steps in sort of a group setting

and then when we had people working on their 4th step, we would invite them to help work the other guys, the new guys through. So the inmates were then

beginning to sponsor some of their their peers, which seem to have pretty good results. And then we would work with them one-on-one during their fourth steps. They were allowed to keep some paper and pencil and they were allowed to keep handouts that we gave them that sort of would help instruct on the questions, point them to the right pages in the books and things like that.

And that seemed to have pretty good results. It's true. You guys covered it in really great detail. I think all this sort of the insurance and outs of the, of the jail commitments, but some people are certainly there just to sort of meet one another

and like just chat and like just hang out and not go to like what other commitments they have to do in prison. But the, the thing like you're saying, it's just like NEA meeting is the point is you go and you share the message and hopefully somebody will get that message. And through the year and a half that I was doing that, we've had some really amazing experiences. And some guys get out and then they freak out and they don't know what to do and they relapse, but they know where to go. Like one of the guys I worked with in that in that institution.

Found me like years after he got out and I ended up working through the steps again.

But so that was a really good, I think system for doing it. And it invited them into the process of sponsorship already and invited them into the process of the steps. And while they're there, they're just rotting. And like, sometimes they'll even do steps just out of boredom, which is like pretty great, actually really like, you know, like it's just some way to like sort of shatter the, the, the stagnation that they're in. But they're getting, they're getting through a fourth step, which is pretty powerful.

And some of the guys were making amends over the phone and and things like that are making written amends via mail.

But the other thing I want to touch on just quickly is that

go in like people, they need people to come in and there's tremendous respect for from the, from what I found, you know, I, I was not, I never went to jail. I'm not a particularly like, like jail. I don't have a jam mentality. I mean, like I grew up with all these people and I was a heroin addict, but I'm in a, in a, in a drunk. But they just have tremendous respect for people that come in and offer their time because they are, especially in the states, they're completely marginalized

by most of society. They're left out, they're forgotten and they feel that incredible pressure. So as you guys were saying, like from whatever background you come in, if you're there with the intention to help, it's really, it's registered quite well. And there's some dramatic stories that some of my friends have about like being involved in prison riots and the and the prisoners like creating a barrier to protect them. I mean, this is rare. This is a very rare instance of a prison riot, but I mean,

the prison, the inmates are generally quite respectful. And yeah,

and they understand like what's going on. So I mean, people have inhibitions. I think that they should they should do it anyways. I mean, it's it's one of the most powerful ways of carrying the message and getting over your own fear to do that is a

is also really good for you. Yeah. So I think there are ways to negotiate the steps as well. I'm sorry, I talk very too much. Thank you. Thanks. Can I, can I just say, I mean, I, I feel like it's partly just the, the effect of sitting on

over the table, but I feel like I should somehow be, you know, defending, defending what we do in, in when we scrubs. I mean, I haven't been doing it very long. I'm only learning the ropes and I think there are problems with it. And I think we should do more to, to, to, to sponsor people and encourage people to do step work. But it's just that we've only recently been allowed back into the prison and there's talk at the moment of doing

two meetings a week and that would be improved.

But I, I mean, I, and I'd be really interested to hear more from, from you guys about how you think, you know, what, what you think would be a good way of doing it. You know, because