San Quentin’s former warden tells how Prison Groups offer alcoholic inmates a means for recovery from the disease that is often directly responsible for criminal records
ONE OF the hundreds of alcoholic inmates who appear before the California Adult Authority (Parole Board), for fixing of sentence and possible parole consideration, said to me: “I could not stop drinking because I did not want to want to.” He had often said that he wanted to stop but it never worked. He returned to drink, bad checks, prison. Wanting to was not enough. He believes that he is now on the road to sobriety and that wanting to want to stop drinking brought him to the realization that he could possibly get some help from the Alcoholics Anonymous Fellowship. He contacted the Chapter Sponsor at San Quentin Prison, was invited to attend the meetings, became an active member and, since his release from prison, has been in regular attendance in Southern California.
Those of you who are on the outside can understand that Alcoholics Anonymous in prison must have additional meaning. Addiction has contributed to imprisonment. In addition to the heartaches and personal losses, alcoholic addiction has deprived the inmates of their liberty. Fortunately, only a minority of alcoholics commit crimes. Those who come to us violate just about every section of the Penal Code: checks, burglary, robbery, murder, thefts, bunco, sex offenses. In considering these men for fixing of sentence and release possibilities, our first obligation is the protection of society. Next–is the man ready? Most alcoholics who come to us have a conscious or unconscious desire to commit a wrong. However, in their sane and sober moments they can control this desire. A few drinks and the brakes are released. They do the things that are within them. They are sick persons.
I have always said that “Confinement is punishment.” From the moment a man enters prison gates every effort should be made to change him–to make him a better person.
Fortunately, in progressive prisons the old methods of punishment have been or are being replaced by training and treatment programs. Brutality is not, nor has it ever been, the road to rehabilitation; rather, it makes a man resentful, full of hate and distrustful of all people.
In the treatment areas the men must search for reasons, not excuses. They must recognize their weaknesses and build strengths. They must get close to God.
Alcoholics Anonymous is one of the important treatment programs in modern institutions today. When, in 1941, San Quentin pioneered the first Alcoholics Anonymous group behind any prison walls, I said, “If the program will help one man, I want to start it.” In these eighteen years, hundreds have been helped.
Recently, I addressed an AA meeting in Long Beach and another in San Francisco, California. Among the hundreds in attendance at each meeting were fifty to sixty that I could call by first names. They were men who had been with AA for as many as seventeen years and men who had just recently been released. They were proud of their accomplishments. They showed me their business cards. They discussed with pride the years or months that they had been, for the first time in many years, sober and happy. They presented their wives, showed pictures of the children, their homes.
No wonder I am proud of these men and their comeback. They make our work worthwhile. Occasionally one slips and returns. We encourage him to continue in his treatment, to get back in AA.
In prison not all alcoholics will admit they are powerless over alcohol. But as the years roll on and they see the effects of AA on others, the “die hards” gradually come around. They see that their lives have become unmanageable. They are getting a bit closer to “wanting to want to.”
Before Alcoholics Anonymous and the treatment program were available to our men, no sufferer seemed to know definitely what caused him to drink. No one knew how to help him.
I have watched human derelicts enter the program and become men with a new outlook on life. During my thirty years in prison work and on the parole board I have seen thousands of men enter the front gate as the direct and indirect victims of alcohol. In the early 40s a new and revolutionary program was started in California. Each man is received at a Reception-Guidance Center, where he is studied and tested for a period of from six to eight weeks. His program is planned with him. It includes education, vocational training, work habits, conduct, attitudes, understanding, medicine, psychiatry, religion, individual and group counseling, therapy, family, counseling and any other areas that would help the individual. Alcoholism is one of these other areas. The Guidance Center staff encourages and directs the alcoholic to the AA program in the prison to which he will be assigned. Without participation in Alcoholics Anonymous and a real and sincere desire to be helped on the part of the alcoholic, I hesitate to estimate the value of any program.
The AA program is presented in a humble and human manner, without high pressure frills. This is the approach necessary to reach the man who has developed a highly suspicious nature. It helps him to face truth and reality, without self-pity or dodging of responsibility. It rids him of fears, hates, jealousies, and suspicions that have been his for so long. He learns how to eliminate his drinking–to fight the urge, the desire–to get help and fellowship from his AA friends.
In addition to my talks before AA groups in the free world, I appear at our institution groups from time to time. The fellows know that I am not an alcoholic. They know of my interest in them and a will to help. They know that Alcoholics Anonymous will help them individually.
Recently, one of my associates on the Adult Authority (Parole Board) and I attended a meeting at the California Medical Facility at Vacaville. Dr. King and Sponsors Ed and Norm also participated. There were about 375 in attendance at this night meeting behind prison walls. The following afternoon, while hearing cases for release consideration, I got a letter from one of the inmates who had been a speaker the night before. I had known this man in prison for nineteen years. He had made three trips back. He is out now and is making good. AA is working. Here is his letter:
“Dear Warden Duffy–Thank you so very much for helping to make last evening’s Alcoholics Anonymous meeting one of the best of the year. Both Mr. Porter and yourself left many inspiring ideas with each of us.
“Hearing you speak about the ‘old days’ in San Quentin brought those days quite close again in my memory and it is just a little hard to associate the way we used to think and act with the way we do now. As you spoke, I looked about at some of the newcomers and from their expressions I don’t think they could grasp just how drastic the change has been.
“On your journey to other prisons, Warden Duffy, try to convince the fellows there just how important Alcoholics Anonymous is to them, and how really simple it can be for them to find serenity and peace.
“If you recall, I spoke about how important the First and the Tenth Steps were to me–and in carrying the message to the fellows up there I feel that they can benefit by the years I wasted before I could come to take that first simple step. The First Step is to admit we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable, but it’s really simpler than that: just use the word admit–and I underline that word because it’s the key to serenity.
“When we admit that we aren’t the person we like to have others think we are, and that we really are lonely, unhappy, selfish people–only then can we start back on the road to recovery. The longer we lie to ourselves, and others, the more complex our lives become. This old machine that drives us is so complicated that it won’t even allow us to associate with decent people because we are afraid they will find out all about us–we sense that they can see through our lies and subterfuge. They will find out how inferior we are, how incapable of belonging to anyone, and how easily we can be hurt. And the funny thing is that the lies we tell to impress others only hurt us all the more. These then are the things we eliminate when we take the First Step and admit. Suddenly, through AA we find that we aren’t alone, that someone does care about us, and that there really isn’t any need to lie to these people because they have all felt the same things and told the same lies. A sense of relief is felt when we are with the group because it’s the most wonderful experience we’ve had in years when at long last we can just simply be ourselves.
“As we grow in AA and share with our friends, we find that AA offers a lot more than just sobriety. It offers mental sobriety too, or what we call serenity. We smile at the man in the hall and he smiles back; we listen to others and if he needs it we try to help. We don’t fret about what happened yesterday–there just isn’t anything we can do about that or what we do tomorrow–it’s just the way we live today that counts. Our plans turn realistic–no more Cadillacs and weekends in Vegas–and the other wild dreams from the old way of life. . .just the contentment that comes from being honest and useful and once again belonging to someone.
“Tell the fellows that in AA they always have friends–thousands of us all over the world who are ready to help day or night. But also warn them that AA isn’t a soft touch because we pay our own way, and warn them that AA doesn’t mean just learning the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions, and being able to repeat the Serenity Prayer–because it’s when you feel you have the program in the palm of your hand that you get into trouble.
“Now a word or two on the Tenth Step: continue to take personal inventory. Yes, every day we must look over our being. Am I being honest? Am I again resenting the man in uniform? Am I intolerant? Too cocky? Did I tell a few lies today to impress someone? These are the things that are so important to our peace and serenity in this new way of AA life.
“Forgive me, Warden Duffy, for turning a thank-you note into a lecture of AA philosophy but remember, the Twelfth Step tells us to carry the message, and what better way can the boys in the other prisons get the message than from one of their own, who knows every trial and tribulation they go through in their daily prison life and who took nearly twenty years to start admitting he was wrong.
“Again let me express my appreciation for the time you and Mr. Porter took from your very busy schedules to come and talk to us. This feeling is expressed by the entire group and sent along with the invitation to come again whenever you can.
“Serenely yours in AA, Gus.”
I want to congratulate and thank each and every member for the sincere interest they have taken in the AA program and for the help they have given all of us in our prison work; and for the progress they have made toward solving one of America’s greatest and most distressing problems–alcoholism.