Jail wasn’t where I planned to find clarity. It was not peaceful or inspiring, or something I would ever wish upon anyone. It was uncomfortable; it was humbling and filled with consequences I couldn’t run from anymore. But, during these jail stays, I couldn’t escape. There were no distractions. No running or numbing. Just me; surrounded by a group of other women who were all struggling internally with the same forced reality check. Jail forced me to sit with, me.
In addiction, life is loud. There is constant chaos, constant distraction and continuous avoidance regarding what you truly feel. If something feels overwhelming, you have the ability to escape it easily. Jail took that option away and in that stillness, every time, I was forced to face the things I had spent so much time avoiding. I was forced to sit and think about the choices I had made, the opportunities I had lost, the patterns I repeated and the toughest of all, the person I had become. When you’re in a cell alone, it’s just you and the truth.
Jail taught me accountability in a way that life never could. It is not the kind of accountability where you say “I messed up” and move on. It is the heaviest accountability that you’ve ever carried. It’s a weighted blanket that you cannot remove. It is where I finally realized I can’t keep blaming other people for my life and that all my choices were my own. When you are forced to sit with your own thoughts and have every freedom stripped from you, you begin to appreciate the smallest things. Things like waking up in your own bed with a pillow, or being able to turn off Rosanne from the TV that is constantly playing all day. You appreciate food, sunlight, real clothes and most importantly, your friends and family.
Jail also taught me how to shift my perspective. Every time I went to jail, it felt like everything was failing apart but, looking back now, it was one of the only times in my life where everything slowed down enough for me to truly see where I was heading…and where I was heading, wasn’t where I wanted to go.
And through it all, there were people who never gave up on me. The group of people in the photo above are the people that were fighting for change in my life much harder than I was. They showed up for me in ways I didn’t deserve at the time. They believed in something in me that I couldn’t see at the time. They spent their time listening to my lies, trying to encourage me to do the right thing; all while I continued to do the exact opposite. To this day, every time I hear a knock at my door, I still feel like probation is outside, ready to take me away…which is funny at this point, but still so real. I used to think they just wanted to see me fail and now, I know with certainty, they saw in me what I did not see in myself. They continued to arrest me, with the hope that I would find the right path.
I don’t romanticize that time of my life. It was painful and heavy, and filled with consequences I will carry forever. But I will always remember what it taught me. Accountability. Stillness. Perspective and grit. Jail was a place that broke me over and over again, and also where I began to rebuild.
This lesson doesn’t have to come from a jail cell. But if it did, don’t waste it.
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