Why does a Veteran For Peace volunteer as a mentor in a drug court? This one does it because he sees the problem of addiction as symptomatic of a society that violates human sensibilities for the sake of profit, that makes war for material gain, that asks its youth to fight those wars at the expense of their own humanity. Beating addiction is a maturing process. Maturity is what our culture so badly needs.
Room 512 in the Mel Carnahan Courthouse building has no windows. The men seated in stack-able black chairs around its periphery are, for the most part, looking inward. They are military veterans gathered for a meeting that occurs every two weeks prior to facing the judge, an hour later, in court.
Nineteen participants, six veteran mentors, are there to share their progress, their experience, strength and hope, in a highly structured effort to bring normalcy and sobriety to lives disrupted by PTSD and the drugs taken to erase memories and kill feelings.
This is the Veterans Drug Court of St. Louis, Missouri. On average, eighteen months of supervised drug and alcohol treatment, regular and rand. om “drops” , (urine sampling) psychiatric evaluation and treatment, community service stints, “self-help” meetings, sign-off sheets, and regular appearances before Judge James E. Sullivan to gauge progress and stimulate compliance.
Robert is the first one to speak. He has the lined, somewhat flattened face of an old fighter graced, however, with a wide, thoroughly genuine smile. When he came in the room he went around, shook hands and hugged everyone there. He was especially affectionate toward the mentors.
Robert is one of the few with a job. It sucks, way underpaid for the heavy lifting work, but he's grateful and has found the courage to seek another, better one, despite his felony record. What once held him back is now loosening its hold as he gains confidence in himself. My feeling is, “This guy's gonna' make it”.
A new guy just takes it all in. He has a slightly stunned look on his face. I'm sure he didn't know what to expect when he reported for this first time at the courthouse. He's been read into the details of the program, the structured course he will have to follow to avoid a prison sentence. He's what you call a Pre-sentenced participant, as opposed to those who are first sentenced, then offered the program that can, if they succeed, wipe the slate clean. Dontel is this young Navy vet's name and the resentment he feels shows in a steely gaze common to many of the younger vets when they first come in. He's probably expecting a lecture.
Well, he won't get it here. Each meeting someone different leads. We tell our stories, or the parts that apply to the pain another is feeling. The mentors are all veterans and in recovery themselves. Some may even have records. We relate.
Russ shakes his head, smiling wryly, and talks about his telephone, which hardly ever rings now. “It used to ring all the time, day and night. Come on out, it's a party, plenty of dope – or, man, I'm strung out. What you got? You know, everyone wanting me to get high with them or help them get there themselves. Now? I'm poison. The phone is dead.” He smiles as he goes on to tell of making new friends from the “self help” meetings, and his fellow vets in the program right here. He's relaxed.
We go around the room. Some are still silent, listening, trying to see their place in this unfolding chapter in their lives. They know this is a critical juncture. They know, from talking with others outside this room, that some of them won't make it. (If they don't it could mean prison or “going in the wind”, awaiting arrest at some future time.) They are wondering if they can; wondering if they really want to. Sobriety can be a scary place when your only comfort for years has been a drug.
Others are moving along, beginning to “get” it, to smile and laugh now and then and tell a bit of what life is becoming, marking small changes in outlook along the way.
That is the challenge of this court and the challenge for us mentors; to guide these veterans through a stormy sea-change in their thinking. Our tools are simple; the ability to listen, to share honestly our own experience, to help out with matters of process that confound, to genuinely care what happens to our charges. During the weeks between court appearances, we meet with our charges, talk with them on the phone, make ourselves available, maybe do a little research on a specific issue.
After meeting, we go into court and accompany our mentees before the bench as, one-by-one the judge reviews their progress. We are there to provide support and give the judge our insights, when asked.
Judge Sullivan was never in the military, never, to our knowledge, had a DUI, but he's made a genuine effort to understand the mind-set of the addict. He is also thankful for our service. In his case, that translates into respect for the individual, not just an empty sentiment.
Part of understanding the addict is accepting failures along the way. That is why there are sanctions and protocols to deal with the almost inevitable “slips”. The offender pays for it with a few nights in jail or community service, but is also encouraged to develop the tools to avoid it next time. The key word, so far as Judge Sullivan is concerned, is “honesty”. Oh, he expects the usual range of excuses (I didn't know that Nyquil had alcohol in it and I had a cold) and slaps them down hard, insisting all the while on the truth. People come to realize that the truth is their savior, no matter the behavior.
A wide range of counseling and treatment options are provided, either directly or indirectly by the Veterans Affairs Administration. Most of it local. However, some specialized PTSD treatment for very difficult cases may require leaving the state.
Jimmy, massively tattooed, with 2-inch disks inserted in his ear lobes, desperately wanted to get free of his addiction but was held back by his emotional responses to his experiences in Iraq. (There's more to the story, involving his very dysfunctional family of addicts, but this is the part we could address.)
Working with the VA, and with a pro-bono lawyer to get releases from the various courts laying claim to Jimmy, we got him into an intensive PTSD treatment program in Topeka, Kansas. It helped to the point where Jimmy was able to graduate out of the court system. However, he relapsed after few months. The mentors kept tabs on Jimmy, just in case, and got him back into treatment. We are all a work in progress.
Relationships develop, mentor – mentee, and it is inevitable that the mentors wind up with a personal stake in each of our charges. When they succeed, graduate, go back out and begin to engage the world on its terms, we feel joy.
When, despite a lengthy, determined struggle, there is relapse, we feel sad, but also hopeful that the lessons learned while in the system will eventually take hold. Once a vet has been exposed to people who really care and love him or her, has been given tools to cope with life's injustices, there is a very good chance that, down the line, that vet will remember and pick up those tools once again.