Editor, Times-Union: Attn: Sterling Templeton I’m really not trying to be unfair to you and your fellow prisoners whom you know, and according to you, “have had numerous chances to come out of prison clean and sober and start out on a clean foot.” I guess what I’m not understanding is what you expect Kosciusko County to do to “teach us how to live as productive citizens.”
Drug court, drug counseling and more probation instead of prison are the answers suggested by you as ways to help stop the epidemic of methamphetamines. Where will the money come for all these extra sources of “help”? Cut backs are happening all over the country, what makes you think the government has more money to put into prison reform? I have to wonder if counseling could help you stay away from meth. If more than one trip to prison, where you got clean the hard way, didn’t teach you, what makes you think that some counseling sessions are going to get through to you? And evidently, free support organizations for drug addicts are no good … right? It really isn’t that hard to understand what you have to do to be a productive citizen. #1. Stay off meth #2. Find a job #3. Show up at said job sober every day (so you don’t lose it) #4. Find new friends that don’t do meth #5. Hard work on your part and constant self- regulation. No one else can do this for you.
Contrary to what you wrote in your letter, using meth is a crime … it’s against the law. It may be a “nonviolent” crime, but it is a crime. Addiction isn’t a “sickness” … cancer is a sickness, other diseases that people contract through no fault of their own, are “sickness.” Addiction is something that you contracted through bad choices.
All you have to do to not become addicted is not to start using. You can’t play the victim here. If you do, you risk never becoming sober. Your life as a sober productive citizen can be attained. But only if you accept the responsibility for your actions, and only if you realize that you are the only one who can stop the self-destruction that began the first time you made the choice to use an illegal drug that has been proven to be addictive and unhealthy. I wish you, and your friends, success in your quest for sobriety and for a happy productive future.
