Sparks, Flames, & Fire

[H2O Man]

16. Thanks.

I am confident that this young man has the ability to change his world; as he changes, everything around him changes, too. When his relationship with himself improves, it will effect his relationship with all he has contact with.

Years ago, while running a forensic group at the county jail (I worked for the mental health clinic), one of the inmates was already sentenced to state prison. He had been a solid high school football player, and was bright enough that he should have been able to take advantage of the scholarships offered to him. But his family of orgin was an anti-social system, and substance abuse was a way of life from youth onward. He had gotten out of jail before the holidays, and his mother gave him a gram of coke for Christmas. Nice. He got caught with enough of it, that the courts were sending him to prison.

I remember vividly that, at the end of the last group session he was in, he came over and shook my hand, and said, "I wish that I had met you earlier in life." That still haunts me. And I'm not pretending that all the inmates liked me; many did not. Some dispised me. But it remains important to me to do what little I can to help young folks -- male and female -- take a path in life that keeps them from the cycle of incarceration.