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Source: 1985 Montreal International Convention – Multi Speakers – AA AND COURT PROGRAMS – RS 06415.mp3 File: 1985-montreal-international-convention-multi-speakers-aa-and-court-programs-rs-06415.mp3 Duration: 01:25:26
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…out on time because tape machines start rolling automatically and all kinds of things happen automatically and they stop. Tom Jay, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Tom. And I'm a general service trustee, and I'm here to moderate this panel on AA in the court system. To begin this meeting, what I'd like to do is ask for a moment of silence and gratitude for the AA recoveries of the past 50 years. Now, perhaps you'll join me in the serenity prayer.
God grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Now, we have a tradition of anonymity for some of you out there who may not be familiar with it. I'll just read our brief anonymity statement. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, television, and films.
Thus, we respectfully ask that no AA speaker, or indeed any AA member, be identified by full name or photograph in published or broadcast reports of our meetings. The assurance of anonymity is essential in our effort to help other problem drinkers who may wish to share our recovery program with us. And our tradition of anonymity reminds us that AA principles come before personalities. There are no current announcements.
Well, there is a current announcement. I have one. Listed on your program as one of the speakers today was Judge Knoedl, who is from Tacoma, Washington, who was unable to be here because he became ill while attending a convention. He became ill yesterday, and his wife called me and indicated he's in a hospital and won't be able to make it here. In his stead, we have Jack W., who is the recently elected trustee from the East Central Region, who is also a judge and who has familiarity with the subject matter.
It was a last-minute replacement, which I'm sure will adequately meet the needs of this panel. We have, additionally, Dave Simpson, Director of Correctional Facility at Pine Grove Correctional Center in Saskatchewan, here in Canada, and Pete P., an AA member who recovered through help from a court program. As I said, my name is Tom Jay, and I'm not here because I have any particular expertise in this area.
I think I'm mostly here because they wanted to give me something to do. However, each panelist will speak for about 20 minutes, and after that, you'll have an opportunity to ask questions. If that microphone is live, you can ask me. Even if it's not live, you'll just have to ask me a little bit louder. There's another statement to be read in the event that one of us chairperson types is chairing a meeting in a room that accommodates 400 or more people.
It's sort of an emergency-in-case-of-whatever type announcement. So rather than count all the seats up here to see whether or not we qualify, I'll read it in any case. In accordance with the municipal bylaw, the security service of Palais de Congress de Montreal, whatever, would like to draw your attention to the evacuation procedure for this hall. Staircases marked with the word Sorte, I guess that means exit.
S-O-R-T-I-E, if it's marked that way, you're not sure what it means. Thank you for your attention. So now I'll give you our first speaker, who by consensus of the panelists up here, will be Dave Simpson, Director of Women's Correctional Facility, Pine Grove Correctional Center, Saskatchewan, Canada. Thank you, Tom, fellow panelists, ladies and gentlemen. First of all, I would like to express my appreciation for the opportunity to be with you here today at your convention on your 50th anniversary.
I've been a friend and acquaintance of Alcoholics Anonymous for about 30 years now. And like a family's friend and acquaintance, I've been present or somewhere nearby while you've been growing and maturing and going about your business. And like a family's friend and acquaintance, from time to time I've been in contact with you
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and like a family's friend and acquaintance, from time to time I've taken pictures and snapshots and I've formed impressions about you. Perhaps these impressions are not always 100% accurate, but nevertheless they are the impressions that you have left me with. I would like to share some of my pictures and my impressions with you. Since this panel is on AA and the courts, I will focus mainly in that area.
However, I would like to touch on a number of other related areas as well. In order to assist you in relating to my comments, it may be helpful to explain a bit about my own work history and my relationship with AA. I live and work in north central Saskatchewan. 30 years ago, I began my career with the criminal justice system. And my involvement with the criminal justice system has included 14 years as a police officer, 10 years as an adult and a probation officer, 7 years as a deputy director of a men's correctional center, and 7 months as the director of a women's correctional institution.
Throughout that entire time, I have had an active and a direct involvement with both the courts and with AA. I became aware of AA early in my career. Back in those days, as I recall, it was difficult to know who was in the fellowship. Referrals were not made that frequently and there was limited interaction between individuals who were in AA and the criminal justice system. Staff and professionals in the system received very little education and training related to addiction, AA, and the recovery process.
And my recollection is that in those days, AA did not reach out a lot. The individual with the alcohol problem had to really want to do something about his problem and he had to reach out. Staff and others who were working in the system often were required to take the initiative to establish contacts and to make referrals. In going through my notes and papers that I've accumulated over the years, I found a number of pictures and was reminded of numerous issues and initiatives that are relevant to this panel.
At one point, I attempted to set up a selected group of probationers that the court would refer because of serious alcohol problems and with the involvement of interested individuals from AA, we would establish a selected group and a specialized program. The project never quite got off the ground. As a probation officer, I frequently counted or instructed probationers to attend AA meetings. Arrangements to receive feedback were met with considerable resistance.
There was resistance to the idea of AA playing any kind of policing role. My understanding is that arrangements have now been made in many areas to do precisely this. Attempts to set up a farm camp for offenders with addiction problems and efforts to establish a detox unit in our city also met with poor success. However, efforts to establish a community council on alcohol and drug abuse were more successful. This organization involved a large number of people in our community.
We became involved in research, in public education, and community organization. Large numbers of people were mobilized. The public was made aware of the extent of the problem and the need for some kind of action. Through increased public awareness and political pressure, we were able to successfully establish an impaired driver's treatment program and an outpatient treatment center in our community.
The community council on alcohol and drug abuse and the DWI program are now active throughout the province. These successful initiatives were products of shared efforts of various agency professionals,
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community citizens, and interested individuals who are members of AA. This was a sharing of responsibility, a pooling of skills. This was a partnership approach to deal with a staggering problem in our community. Let me focus more directly now on the point of this panel, AA and the courts. I'll attempt to identify what I see as critical or particularly significant about the involvement of AA in the court process.
First of all, alcoholism is by far the greatest contributing factor which brings people before the courts. Yet, it is the one area that officials at that point in the system are the least knowledgeable about and the least equipped to deal with. The second point in simple social work jargon can be described as crisis intervention. To illustrate, I would describe a court scene. To a defendant, an appearance in court is a bewildering experience.
The events have been speeding towards this culmination. He's unsure of the sentence that he might face. He's feared the worst. He's tried not to get his hopes up. He has tried to relive the past few weeks that have led up to this moment, but everything is confused. He feels trapped. There is nowhere to run. His wife and family may be in the court or at home, and he wonders what will happen to them. He looks for someone to blame, but who? He's feeling a great deal of anxiety, more confusion, more anxiety.
Thoughts flash through his mind. He's unable to think clearly, and then he hears the words, and then it's over. He's out of the courtroom, but he's still confused, and he's not fully aware of what has happened. He's been branded a criminal. What will this mean? Perhaps the sentence has been severe and his relatives are crying. Everything is hopeless, or the judge may have been lenient and a minimal sentence was imposed. Perhaps he does not have to go to jail. Perhaps it was a suspended sentence or probation.
But what does this mean? What will happen to me now? We can see that the level of anxiety of the offender has risen to a peak, which coincides with the time of sentencing, and this may last for a period of time as the realization of the consequences are considered. We can feel quite sure that this period of time is a crisis situation and that the offender is in fact in a period of crisis. The period of disorganization which accompanies a crisis, along with its reduced defensiveness, will only last for a short period of time. Then a period of reorganization and reestablishing of defenses will take place again, and we will have lost the opportunity for effective intervention. If the offender goes through this entire process and is able to rationalize away his being responsible, then he will not be accessible to modification. He will in fact have no reason to change.
Involvement at this point will provide the opportunity to accurately assess the degree of discomfort. The process of engaging the offender in treatment may be simple or it may be quite complicated, and there are two basic aspects, motivation and resistance. Motivation has to do with how much he wants to change and how willing he is to bring about change. This is related to how much discomfort he feels in the situation that he finds himself in and how much optimism he has about the possibility of favorable change.
Too much discomfort may bring about such a sense of helplessness that there is little reason or interest in change. One of the tasks of intervention at this point will be to help the offender to arrive at a degree of discomfort and hope which is favorable to modification. In many cases when a helping person is on the scene and is involved, a type of transference takes place. The person who experiences acute stress often tends to be more accessible to treatment because his personality is more fluid and because he is extremely vulnerable.
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At this point, there is a better opportunity for meaningful contact because the person needs help to reorient himself. At this point, there is a significant opportunity for growth and for a more optimal level of functioning. I could go on longer about the theories of crisis intervention and coercive therapy. However, I feel I have sufficiently illustrated that the court is a critical point in the criminal justice system where effective intervention can take place.
Yet, it is the one place in the criminal justice system where A.A. is the least active. It is not unusual for the police or the jail to receive a call from someone saying, we'd like to have some of our people come out and talk to you about A.A., about addiction and about the recovery process. But it is somewhat unusual for this to happen to a group of lawyers or judges. The degree of involvement of A.A. in the court process will depend largely on what you see as the mission or goals of A.A. and what the principles and philosophy of the fellowship will allow.
To what extent is the court and those who work in it off-limits to A.A.? Or to what extent do you take the initiative to reach out and offer your services and ensure that the officials and others who are involved are well-informed on the matters of alcoholism, addiction and the recovery process? With all due respect to judges and lawyers and others who work in the court, I would suggest that there is considerable need for your involvement.
A.A. has and continues to have a significant impact on all other areas of the criminal justice system, taking initiatives where it is required. I suggest that the court should be no exception. The fact that the court appearance is often the critical point where the individual can be diverted from a path of destruction to an avenue of recovery makes this an important issue. I realize that recovery does not take place in a flash, however, the first step is usually the most important and it is often the most difficult.
It is often critical in terms of follow-up and how the individual responds to treatment programs after he leaves court, it is often critical how he was dealt with in the court process. As in other areas, I would suggest that the best arrangement is likely a partnership arrangement, where professionals do what they have been trained to do and where A.A. does what it does best. The partnership that I have had with A.A. has, for my part, been a productive one and from time to time I realize just how much I have been influenced and affected through my association with the Fellowship and with individual members.
Many of my personal values and my professional skills reflect the effect of this relationship and I am thankful. From my position on the outside as a friend and acquaintance, I have perceived changes in the Fellowship over the years. There have been obvious struggles within your organization as to philosophy and direction. Thank goodness for those who hold and keep the radicals in line and hold to the basic traditions.
But also thank goodness for the radicals who need to be on the cutting edge and need change. I am sure that the dynamic process between the two is what keeps your Fellowship alive and effective. In closing, although I am not here to represent the criminal justice system, but since there are so few of us here that are not a part of your Fellowship, I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the critical role that you play and the very powerful and effective resource that you are.
May your determination and commitment never waver. Thank you very much. It was very inspiring and very informative, and I guess the dynamics between the, I guess,
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traditionalists and the radicals is indeed an active process. And at the risk of, I guess, of inspiring or precipitating a great transmigration within the room here, I think somehow or rather this side is non-smoking and that side is smoking, but I throw that out. Nobody moved, terrific. Our second speaker is Jack W., East Central Regional Trustee, who is a judge and who is familiar with aspects of the interaction of AA in the court programs.
Jack? Thanks, Tom. My name is Jack and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, everybody. I love it. Will the defendant please rise? He talked about involvement, need for involvement. Boy, I really got involved, all right. I joined it. I'm winging it, so hang loose. And I'm sure that I'm a very poor substitute for the person that was supposed to be here. And when we have our closing, I hope that we all say a quiet prayer for Judge Canoto because after all, he's non-alcoholic and it's all fit to come here and share with us.
And unfortunately, we don't have the privilege of hearing his words of wisdom, which I'm sure that we could have all received benefits by. I am, just so we set the record straight, I'm an administrative law judge and I really have nothing to do with the criminal system in that capacity. But in my past experience, I've worked as a chief assistant public defender and also as a chief assistant prosecutor, so I've had kind of a speaking knowledge to the problems involved with the drinking.
As a matter of fact, in the chronic stages of my alcoholism, I was chief assistant prosecutor. And when these defense counsel came in with these alternative plans to sentencing, I said, well, I don't know about that. We've got to get this under hand, you know. We've got to get this controlled. We can't allow those people to go out and drink and drive and all those other bad things. I often say, people ask me how I am or how I feel and I say, sober and out of jail.
And for a long time, I didn't understand why I said that because I never was in jail, recognizing, of course, now in recovery that I could very well go back there. But during, as I said, the chronic stages of my alcoholism, I was a chief assistant prosecutor in a very small community, and I got led home many nights, assisted when I could have well and should have been in jail. I might speak, and I am from central Michigan, and my experience in the criminal system is in Michigan, and I can only relate and share with you some of the things that we've done in Michigan.
I don't want to go over time here. From a prosecutorial standpoint, I think there's been tremendous inroads made in that area, especially in particular areas where AA has functioned and done well and developed a cooperation with a professional committee, have a committee that's very active in that area. I can say also that in the area where I was prosecutor, that we developed a system by which the judges would, on sentencing, allow persons to go into treatment.
In other words, they would come in and plead guilty or be found guilty, and then they would go through a process where there would have to be a pre-sentence investigation made. That was the area where, if you had an active cooperation with a professional community committee working, that they could work with the probation officers.
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I would say to you that are in AA and interested in involving yourself with the court system, that the one person that I think that I would key in on is the probation officers, because they have so much to say in influencing the judges in terms of what their sentence might be. Many times as a prosecutor, I relied on defense counsel presenting to me what that alternative plan was, and if it involved or if it was a drinking offense, and it involved treatment and involvement in AA, well, then we were very receptive to those plans.
Some of them were successful and some of them weren't. We'd get a certain amount of repeaters that would keep coming back, but we constantly were aware of what the situation was and made attempts to help people along in terms of getting into treatment and in terms of getting involved in AA. When I was in the public defenders, just to show you how my advancement in alcoholism went, I went from the prosecutor's position, had a slight sabbatical for a little while because it came by way of a court order that says that thou shalt not practice your profession for 120 days.
And it was through that process that it was driven home to me, my inappropriate behavior, and I found myself calling another chap who had been known as the town drunk, and he happened to be an attorney, and he was sober now, and he was the one that took me to my first meeting, and he also was an attorney, and ultimately got sober and stayed sober. After that, I got to a position in the public defender's office, and at this time I was sober and active in AA, and became so aware of this resource, not only because of my own personal experience and my own recovery, but seeing the impact that it had on the people that I represented.
Now, fortunately, in the community that I was working in at the time, which happened to be Bay City, they had a treatment facility, which I was involved with on the board, and it was AA-oriented, and we geared it up to process people that were referred out from the courts to the treatment center, and ultimately into AA. And one of the devious mechanisms that you use by accomplishing this is to get a district judge to sit on the board of the treatment center.
Some reason or rather he can't then resist, and he also carries a message back to the other judges. And it was very effective. Now when a client came in to me, and after listening to what he had to say and looking at the police report that was made on whatever was happening, and I did detect an alcohol problem and I found an individual that was involved with it or was receptive to the idea of receiving some treatment, I would automatically make a referral to the treatment center and coincidentally with that to go to AA.
Now at this point there was no mandatory factor involved. This is something that I was looking at along with what Dave was saying. I was looking at the end result. It would look good to get yourself into treatment to recognize your problem and hopefully that we can indulge the judge in having some understanding of what the problem is and get the kind of results that would be beneficial to him. It's kind of a two-edged sword.
You have to be kind of careful with this, especially when you're in the fellowship, because oftentimes they get through and the heat's on. You know, I didn't get in here because everything was okay. I came in here because the heat was on. And a lot of people that we get referred out of the court systems are into our meetings because the heat is on. In fact, it's on full blast. And they're very receptive and nobody's going to say to you, the alternative is to go to jail.
Do you want to go to AA meetings? Very few refuse the invitation. So this is the way we would work it and it was quite successful. The other thing that we did, and again because we had an active CPC committee at that particular community, was that we would have an alcohol awareness evening. And at that evening, we invited a probation officer from the district court, a probation officer. We would invite a circuit judge.
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We would invite a district judge. We would invite a member of the law enforcement agency of both the sheriff and the state police and the local police department to come and involve themselves with this alcohol awareness. And we had tremendous feedback from these people. As you see, they often sentence people to AA or sentence people to a treatment center and they may never see them again. But they're seeing all the bad people that keep coming in.
They see the people that are continually coming through the system. And it was refreshing for them to come to this meeting which involved AA and look around and say, my God, I haven't seen you in a long time. What have you been doing with yourself? And I haven't seen you. And it had a positive image effect on those law enforcement people because they actually saw that this program worked. And I would encourage you in your various areas to go out and try and get that kind of cooperation.
Sometimes it's not very easy and sometimes you have to do it very subtly. But I have found that where we do that, it has been successful. And I've seen people that have come in. I think that any judicial system today that doesn't utilize one of the greatest resources available to man in terms of recovery is being remiss in their responsibilities. But oftentimes they're doing that out of ignorance. And therefore it is our responsibility to carry the message to them to impress upon them that we are here and we are ready and we are willing.
By the same token, those of us in AA that are reluctant to receive these kind of people and resist it, then are violating our traditions of cooperation. And I think that where we have areas of difficulty along that line, that they can be ironed out. I've never seen a situation yet where they can't. We've heard oftentimes where groups and especially some smaller communities will say all of a sudden we're inundated with these people referred out of the court system and they really don't want to participate.
They're there because the heat's on. Well, I have to remember, but for the grace of God, go me, that I didn't come in here because it was a freedom of choice. And I have to remember that. And I find that if I have a group or there's a group that's becoming inundated with those and they feel like it's diluting the quality of our AA, that we might better take inventory of ourselves. And by the same token, we may find some alternative plans that will resolve those kind of difficulties.
Maybe carrying the message into the jail facility itself. Now the nice thing in Bay City that was so great is we got such great cooperation with the Sheriff's Department that he actually allowed members of AA to go to the jail facility and certain people were cleared to leave the facility to go to the regular meetings outside the jail. And we had a group of people that were willing to do that and made that kind of a commitment.
And so it worked out well in that regard because they could go to various meetings. It may mean one of the things that you will have to do is to go and set up an introduction to AA in the jail facilities. To work with a probation officer so that they can bring in the first offenders or the new offenders that maybe are going to receive this kind of sentence so they can understand what AA is all about from AA people.
And more particularly by those who have experienced the same kind of situation and gotten into AA and become sober and stayed sober because they can identify with those people. I have difficulty to go to a prison facility and talk to prisoners about AA because I have never experienced that dynamic. That doesn't mean I won't go. I look out there and see how many of my ex-clients were there. And I'm a little careful they might want to stone me or something because you know sometimes when success, they don't have success, the reason they don't have success is because they had a poor lawyer.
But anyways I think it's important that we are willing to go into those facilities and carry the message and let people know what AA is about and what our principles are and what our steps are so that when they do our sentence and are sent to AA they immediately have some kind of information, some kind of orientation, they aren't coming into a strange environment that they're unfamiliar with. I'm going to tell a joke here.
I mean you've got to have some filler, you know. And I'm sure a lot of AA people that have been around for a long time have heard it. But I think it really typifies the dilemma of the defendant that gets into the system
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and finds himself, as Dave has mentioned, confronted, standing up there in front of the judge and the judge is going to lay a heavy on him and he recognizes that he's got to do something about his problem and he doesn't know what to do about it. But he finds himself maybe with a long jail sentence. And that may be the very thing that might have saved his life. And this is the joke and if you've heard it, please just be tolerant of me.
If you haven't heard it, maybe it means something to you. It means something to me even in my own personal recovery because, as I say, I had to suspend my practice for a period of time because I wasn't functioning well. And that was the very thing that brought home to me the inappropriateness of my behavior. And that's what these drunk driving charges would do. That's what an informed judge can do, is drive home to that individual the inappropriateness of his behavior.
And this is a story about the alcoholic sparrow. It's been around for eons of time, but I love to tell it. God takes care of alcoholic sparrows just like he does us alcoholics. And this one particular time, there's this alcoholic sparrow that's up north and it's diddling around and diddling around and all of a sudden looks around and there's no other sparrows to diddle around with. And he starts feeling the chill winds of the north and he says, my God, I better head south or I'm going to be in trouble.
So he starts heading south and he gets caught in a tremendous winter storm. It's raining and it's sleeting and the temperature is dropping and pretty soon ice is building up on its wing and it starts feeling like it's freezing to death. And pretty soon he can't fly anymore and he plummets to the earth. And as I mentioned, God takes care of alcoholic sparrows just like he does us alcoholics. And when it plummets to the earth, it plummets through a hole in a big barn.
There's a hole in this roof and it goes down and it lands on the floor of this barn. And in this barn is a lot of cows. Just about the time that this sparrow has taken its last gasping breath and is going to die, this cow does the biggest number you ever saw, just like this, right on top of that sparrow. Now I'm not a farmer, I'm an urban cowboy, but I've been told by my good farmer friends that when that happens, it's pretty warm and it starts melting the ice off the wings of the bird and it starts raising the temperature of the bird and the bird starts feeling pretty good and it starts coming alive and it starts doing whatever sparrows do when they feel good.
Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp. And about that time a cat is walking by and says, ah, I hear a familiar noise. And he starts digging in the dung. You notice how I clean it up? And it's a sparrow and he grabs it and eats it. And there's a moral of that story to me personally and I think to people that are caught in this dilemma. And that is that not everybody that shits on you, I couldn't clean it up that good, is necessarily your enemy.
And not everybody that pulls you out of it is necessarily your friend. And even if you're in it up to your eyebrows, you might better keep your mouth shut. And I think that's the fine line that the judicial system has to walk. They have to walk that line and it's a very difficult line and that's why we in AA need to give them all the help and support and awareness and assistance we can so that they can give the kind of sentence that will cut into and drive home the reality of the inappropriate behavior and yet give that person the opportunity to make a full and complete recovery which we all have the pleasure of having because we wouldn't be here on our 50th anniversary.
I'm sure I didn't say the kind of things that a good judge would have said if he's here, but you know when we receive loving invitations from guys like Tom, you just can't say no. And I'm glad to have been asked to be a part of this and I appreciate the opportunity of addressing you. Thank you very much. I'm sure you'll all agree that was a wonderful contribution by Jack. In fact, I even heard him clapping next door while he was making his presentation.
Our last panelist is Pete P., who is an AA member who has helped in his recovery through a court program. Pete? Hi everybody, my name is Pete and I'm an alcoholic. You know, I was doing fine until the judge over here said, will the defendant please rise? And you know, I had things about courtrooms that I didn't like and that was the number
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one on the list because I could handle just about anything else, but that moment of will the defendant please rise is still a very healthy fear in me and I'm glad of that. Anyway, as Tom mentioned, I did come through the court systems and got sober in AA, thank God, but I'd like to tell you a little bit of how I got to the court. I started drinking at a very young age, 16, in high school and it was, you know, like everybody else, I wanted to be part of the crowd and I thought that that was the thing to do.
I wanted to be socially accepted by my peers and I wanted to do what everybody else was doing. It never occurred to me that, you know, drinking beer would ever create me a problem, but the first night I had a beer with four other people in a car, after my first one I was reaching for another one and somebody that night says, hey Pete, you're supposed to space them out man, you know, you don't drink one right after the other.
So this leads me to believe that I was an alcoholic from the first drink I had and from that night on I continued to get in trouble. Now right away I didn't get in trouble with the law, but I got in trouble with myself and, you know, the little things that teenagers do, they lie to their parents about why they're not home on time or why this and why that and, you know, I started that and really I never thought I'd lie to my parents and, you know, right away I was doing this, you know.
I got a job in school because I needed one. I was doing so much drinking that, you know, I couldn't afford, you know, just to make it off what my parents had given me, so I got a job in a liquor store. And I wanted to be a good salesman and I thought that to be a good salesman the owner told me you had to know your product. And with this in mind, I tried everything in the store and it was a very big liquor store and I worked there a couple years, as a matter of fact.
And in this time I, you know, I could see my life starting to slip away and although, you know, it wasn't any trouble with the law yet, but, you know, I was just in trouble with myself and what I noticed was, you know, I was doing things that I thought I would never do and, you know, it crossed my mind that maybe this isn't the right thing to do or maybe this is kind of unnatural, but I quickly rationalized this because, you see, I was young and I was growing up and that's what every young person does, things that I were doing, you know.
So I, you know, kind of went through life and got out of high school and got a big job with a big company, I made lots of money and I, you know, thought that with the more money I had I could raise my social standards a little bit and I did and I quit drinking the dollar fifty a six pack beer and started drinking Michelob. And along with that came the responsibilities of, you know, driving up and down the road and stuff and I got a DWI one night.
You know, my first reaction was, well, you know, just a bad run of luck and I had to go to court, I went to court, I got a lawyer and stuff and I went in front of this judge and he told me, he said, now, you know, let's hear your story. I said, well, your honor, the fact of the matter is this was just an isolated incident and although I had one or two beers, you know, I was, you know, probably drunk and this will never happen again and the judge says, well, you know, I don't have any problems with that, I believe you and, you know, but although drunk driving is against the law in Maryland, you know, I have to do something to you so I'm going to fine you a hundred and fifty dollars and he said, I'm going to give you six months probation and he did and later and by this time…
Later and By this time my life was just it was just miserable and and all I was doing was existing, you know How I held on to this job? I don't know. I
[00:45:03]
Tried a couple things to Instead of the geographic cure. I decided that I needed some responsibility. So I bought a house and I bought a house down on the river and along with that came a lot of partying and so the Responsibility just you know, wasn't the answer I Wound back up in court again with this DWI and I live in a small community small County in Maryland and there's only two judges there and my luck. I drew the same judge. I had the time before this guy He watched me come in the room that morning and he kept looking back there every now and then you know and I Thought well, you know, this won't be too bad. You know, it's not just a slap on the hand and sure enough my my time came and He said what's what's your story this time? I said, well your honor. It's just an isolated incident He said, you know This this this court has has no mercy on on drunk driving and this is your second offense and And your second time in front of me and and this really angers me so he said I think you have a drinking problem and I'm gonna see if I can't get you some help. And so he court-ordered me to go to jail for ten days The fine was five hundred dollars and he court-ordered me to see a alcohol Counselor for I think ten sessions and so I got through this and the alcohol counselor In this period said, you know Look, you know You might have a drinking problem and what you should do is go to a a and as soon as she said that I said lady You know, we don't need to talk about that. I'll deal with my alcohol problem, you know, and She said that really You know, they're they're not bad people and and you should go to at least one. I said well, I'll think about it and So anyway, I went on life and you know, not really thinking about Any any Consequences down the road and I thought really I could stop anytime. I wanted but you see I was young and I had plenty of time to stop drinking, you know, I then continued in life and Continued to drink and drive and I got another DWI and This time I'm thinking to myself, you know, I really do have a problem and I really have to do something about it I Talked to a few people and and this lawyer I knew pretty well Well, we got to know each other real well because he was getting a lot of my money and He said, you know Maybe you ought to try going to a a it's just because uh, you know You you got to do something and he said really I don't even want to represent you Yeah He says because the courts position on this is it's just like mine, you know It's against the law and I'm I don't defend it and I said well You know, that's real nice after I give you $500. That's how you're going to talk to me so you know, I went to an a a meeting and I don't remember what went on there because I was drunk and The the gentleman I called about going to the meeting he says now whatever you do don't drink That day try not to drink that thing. I said, okay, no problem. I met him at the meeting and he says After the meeting, you know, he says would you like to go to another meeting? I said, yeah. Yeah, it'd be a good idea This is very good. I'll pick you up tomorrow night about 7 I said fine You know and I got his phone number before I left there because you know I knew I might have to cancel out and I had to work overtime a lot and that's That's what happened. I never went to the meeting that night and you know, I Continued to drink for about another year and a half and I got caught again and this time I just didn't know what to do I was almost going crazy and I Tried and tried to think of anything I could do, you know, and I called this lawyer and he says well And you know you you you got to do something here, you know He says what you need to do is go back to a a he says because listen I've defended people and and they've got in there and they've done well and and I don't see him anymore He says that tells me that they're not in trouble. I said well, you know a A is just not for me. You know, it's it's uh, it just won't work for me. I've tried, you know I've been I've been to an AA meeting So
[00:50:00]
He says all right, we'll have to see what we can do and in the meantime I knew that if I went in front of this judge again, he was going to give me a year in prison and find me the max and I Knew a lady that worked at the courthouse and she said that you know, this judge is supposed to be retired And I said well, I'll get this Case postponed as long as I can and maybe he'll retire before I get there and We had it postponed three times and the lawyer called me up one morning says, okay listen Thursday morning We got to be in court at 9 o'clock. I said, okay, I'll be there and I really figured If I was going to retire, I wouldn't wait till the end of the week You know, I'd go around Monday or the Friday before and I walked in the courtroom and he was setting up there sure is the world the same judge and I Honestly believe that he waited for me I honestly believe that he waited for me to come in front of him one more time so he could retire but anyway, I got in front of him and You know He says well, what's what's your story this time?
And I said, well, your honor the truth of the matter is I think I got a drinking problem and I'm doing something about it I'm attending a a and I didn't say meetings. I just said I'm attending a a and He said well He said that's that's fine. He says you should have been attending a a a long time ago he said but The the position of this court on drunk driving is is the same as it's always been and and you know, we don't defend it and so Also in the last year and a half There's been a lot of strong lobbies against drunk driving and and the public outcries here and and I have to do something to you He says and it looks to me like you want to do life on the installment plan And he says so I have no alternative but to give you the max and that's What us judges call throwing the book at you?
And he fined me a thousand dollars and he gave me a year in prison but he he suspended that year to 90 days in jail and I was really happy about that and Anyway, I you know went to jail and he did grant me living and work out but One morning they came in and I was asleep and they kicked me and and I says get up get up wake up You know, we were kicking you out of jail because we're overcrowded here and you know, it's this this County Jail was a hundred years old and it was just very small so The news media were was really coming down on on the overcrowded Situation and they were playing it to the hilt and so they had to get rid of seven people that day and I Went out there in the jailer said now look you're nothing but a drunk So we're gonna let you go He says what I want you to do is go home and lock yourself up in your house and stay out of trouble for the next 17 days Just because as far as anybody knows you're still in jail And I says, you know, I'll do that. That's that's a good idea And if you can imagine telling an alcoholic on a hot August morning Not not to drink and don't go to any bars and go straight home and lock yourself up in your house for the next 17 Days you you're crazy so I went right to a bar and waited for the bar to open and got drunk and I stayed drunk for about a year. I never got in any more trouble. Thank God, but I did get to a a and The reason I got to a a was In Maryland, not only do they put you in jail and give you a fine but they also take your license for drunk driving and and there's no public transportation where I live, so I needed a driver's license and they told me that they were going to get back to me and they did and it took them about a year and And They said the only thing we can we can do is is, you know, have you attend a a meetings and I was talking to a friend of mine a drinking acquaintance and he said, you know, Pete I really feel sorry for you, man You know, the jail time wasn't bad and the fine is only $1,000, but they sentenced you to a a that's well, what an unfortunate person and And Finally I Had to go to my first meeting and it was in my hometown and and it took me a while to find this place about three weeks But I found it and you know
[00:55:02]
The first impression at this one a meeting that I was drunk at about three years ago. It was everybody had a smile on her face and people came up to me and they shook my hand and They welcomed to me and and one man even poured me a cup of coffee and You know, I said That was okay, you know and and that came back to me when I walked in this room because they did the same thing again and They told me That if I want what they have I had to do what they did to get it And I wasn't too sure about that because there was an older lady who had been in a program for a long time at that meeting and She said that she would go down Main Street of this town on her hands and knees and push up a marble Through town with her nose if it meant staying sober. I said, I didn't know whether I was ready to do that or not, but Anyway It was pointed out to me that if if I wanted to bad enough that I could attain sobriety and I could also maintain it for a long period of time if I worked the program one day at a time and I said well, I'm kind of in a situation here. Well, I have to be here and And This guy came up to me he says, you know Pete he says nobody comes to a a Just because it's a nice day and they don't have anything else to do says we're all forced here one way or another and You know a judge just happened to force you here and and I never looked at it like that But it was the truth and he says, you know, there's there's there's no wrong way of getting here, you know We'll help you in any way we can So I said fine, you know, I said now there'll be a meeting here next week He says well, do you want to go to a meeting tomorrow night? I Says yeah, you know I had to get to Meetings I had to get to two meetings a weekend Sure enough. I said, yeah, I'll go and I said I'll get this thing out of the way And then I don't have to go for another week but this this guy was pretty active and going to meetings and stuff and He just said I'll be up Tomorrow night and the night after that and so I was going to meetings and I didn't really know what was going on I couldn't comprehend what they were talking about They were talking about a higher power and this and that and I you know, I told this guy to me I said Jack, you know, I'm I'm kind of in the dark here, man, you know, I says You know, you need to explain some of this stuff to me. He says Pete I'll explain to you. But all you got to do is don't think don't drink and go to meetings and I said, okay. He says now this Thursday night. I got to open a meeting up and make coffee He says I want you I'm gonna be picking you up early Because I want you to come down help. I said sure. That'll be fine. You know, I went down and Set up a few chairs and he said good He said now next week. You're gonna start making a coffee. I Said well Jack really you people are doing fine without me I mean you're doing a great job and I said what I really need to do is just kind of comment and listen and and Six months or so or a year. I'll catch on and maybe I can do it. Then he said well Pete That's not really the way to do it he says the way to work the program is get active in it, you know get in a a don't be around a a and And So the next week I was making coffee and the week after that I was opening the meetings and and you know, I Really liked it because for the first time in my life. I Had been a part of something. I was I was accepted and I had a feeling a sense of a sense of belonging and that's what I'd look for all my life and You know, I Belonged to a lot of things. I Belonged to a lot of social members of the VFW's the moose clubs the else my wallet I could pull out a social membership to just about anything and The reason I did that was because it just cost a few dollars to belong and you know for a long time That's what I wanted. I wanted to belong but you know, I Got around a and about the second week. I was there there was a bus trip to New York and Jack said now listen don't plan anything that Saturday because you know, you're gonna be going to New York. I Said well, I really don't have any reason to go to New York and I said really to be honest with you Jack I can't afford it and he said Pete you cannot afford to be in New York He said, Pete, you cannot afford to be in New York, you know, he said, you're going to be on the bus, and I said, well, where's it going in New York, he said, well, you just get on the bus and go, and, you know, I did, and that was one of the nicest days I had
[01:00:05]
in my life, and I've had a lot of nice days since then, but it was people like that, and a lot of other people in that community that didn't turn me away, they said, they welcomed me with open arms, and they said, listen, you're not unique, because we've been there, and you know, I had four DWIs, and I met a guy that had five, and you know, I didn't feel too bad, and there was a lot of people there that could relate to, you know, being in jail, and for a long time, I thought, you know, I can't go to an AA meeting, because I'm probably the only person that's ever been in jail, and I just, you know, they just wouldn't accept me, and if they really knew what I was like, they'd probably kick me out of there, you know, but that wasn't the case, and I was fortunate enough to be around people that were very active in the program, and like I say, this guy Jack F., and Gene R., and a lot of people ran there, and they, in their own way, they kind of pushed me into it, but if it wouldn't have been for that, who knows what would have happened. I mean, that's exactly what I needed, and after I was around a while, I heard a few people around that were kind of anti-court cards, you know, and that upset me a little bit. I said, you know, you talk about Karen and Sharon, and you talk about, you know, AA, and you're welcome and stuff, and I heard that, and that kind of threw me for a little loop, but, you know, I also learned that everybody's entitled to their opinion in AA, and that's okay, you know, and I'm not saying that, you know, there was a few things that happened in Maryland that, you know, weren't pleasant, maybe, because of court cards, but I do know this. I'm one person that got sober carrying a court card to an AA meeting, and if it'll work for me, it'll work for anybody else, and I just like to thank everybody for coming out today. I'd like to thank the rest of the panel, but most of all, what the judge says, remember, if you see somebody with a court card come to your meeting, and you're a little doubtful, just remember what he said, for the grace of God, there go I. Thank you.
Well, that was terrific. Well, you can see court programs can work in the life of one alcoholic at least, and I'm sure there are thousands more, and I guess there's a few of you can identify with those isolated incidents which get closer and closer together. I had a solution in New York City for that DUI stuff that Pete was talking about. I was able to avoid it through, I guess, through my resourcefulness, essentially. I drove and drank and drove drunk thousands of times, but the way I was able to avoid DUIs was to be simultaneously with that activity a member of the New York City Police Department, and so on those occasions when I'd get stopped for erratic driving and whatever, or have occasional accidents and whatnot, I'd show them this detective shield, and they'd say, oh, okay, just take it easy going home. So that's one way you can get around it, and I guess if God's looking over your shoulder, you can also avoid killing yourself while you're getting those breaks, as it appeared to be back in those days. Now we're going to have an opportunity for anybody who'd like to ask questions of any member of the panel, or of the panel collectively, or however you want to do it. If you feel you can't be heard, hopefully that microphone out here is live, and you can just approach the mic and address your questions or remarks I think you'll find that any kind of governmental agency feels the need to have accountability,
[01:05:06]
and certainly the defendant himself is not looked at with any sense of accountability for his word, so to speak. So most courts that I'm aware of, now in other areas it may not be true, they do want that card signed as at least some evidence that the person is living up to what his probation requirements are. It's something that he can show, and that probation officer, in case the judge makes inquiry, can say yes, at least he's bringing in a card, and he's apparently making these meetings. Now it's not fail-safe, so to speak, but it's certainly some indicia of an effort.
My name's Bill, I'm an alcoholic. I'm also a partner and counselor in the system in California, and we have a community business and drug trafficking program. We also have two programs, two bills in California, one in Senate Bill 541, the first amendment, and one in Senate Bill 38, the second amendment. I've also been Secretary of the District of Liberties. My question is, to what degree is Amy responsible for what we see here in the Senate? You know, the court must be required not just to sign, I agree, as a counselor representing the court in the county of Riverside, but also from the standpoint of ADA, to what degree can we tell a person that comes in and has a court signed, to leave at a particular time? Do you police that action?
I would say, number one, my experience has been, and I don't want to get the golden mic award, but I'm going to answer that. I don't think that we police it. I think that the chairman of the group, in the spirit of cooperation with the court system, is willing to sign it. I refuse to sign it until the end of the meeting. That's just my personal attitude. You know, if he wants to come, that's fine, but I'm not going to sign it until the end of the meeting.
That and I sign it, but I sign it out of the spirit of cooperation, realizing that this may be the effort to try and help this person get his life straightened around. So I don't feel that I have an obligation. I just feel that I have an obligation as an ADA member to cooperate with the court system, and I do it out of that sense of cooperation. I'm Jack, and I'm not a lawyer. I'm Jack, and I'm not a lawyer.
Mr. Simpson, you emphasized intervene early, or at the right time. When? When the iron's hot. The judge says, I think you, you know, I mean, you can't just wait to leave first. Obviously, the earliest point, the better, and you may not be able to be there in person. I think what I was trying to intimate in my comments is that, directly, if that's possible, indirectly, if it's not possible, through your influence on others who are part of the court process, whether it's the police officer or the court worker or the probation officer or the judge himself, to assist those in assessing the appropriate time. And I think each case might be somewhat different. It depends where the person is at in his own life and how ready.
But I think during the court process is a time when you can bring the bottom up and a time when you can speed up his readiness. So I think in large part, with your active involvement in terms of assessing his readiness, the motivation, the hope, the opportunity, to some extent, you can manage the question of when. I'm one of the old bastards that said we don't want it. Then when the people out on the cutting edge, the radicals started doing it, I could see they were doing it wrong, so I took it away from them.
There's only so much you can do yourself. I think part of what I was trying to say is the greatest impact you can have is through others. It's an educational process. It's ensuring that judges understand what alcoholism and addiction is. It's not necessary for you to be there all the time. But by educating and mobilizing and making people aware in the community and in the courts, those people involved at various points are able to assess
[01:10:04]
the readiness. I certainly rely on your judgment as to how you become involved, but I would certainly urge you to become involved in helping those people who are dealing with the person somewhere in the court process to become well-informed and well-educated and knowledgeable about intervention. Thank you. I'll just make a comment for the benefit of those persons who want to address the panel using this microphone. Speak into the microphone lest you don't get picked up on the tape, and God knows we all want to be on the tape.
I don't think it works. It does. It does. Speak into it. My name is Wynn, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Wynn. And I'm also from California, Fairfield, California, the home, the original home of my blessed life. I can assure you that the Anheuser-Busch Institute couldn't be any compensation for making that commercial. I've been in this California program ever since it was initiated. I happen to be in the county, one of the four pilot counties on the program that previous board members talked about, the drug driving program, the first offender, and the multiple offenders.
I think there's some things that both ADA and the courts and other people that we work with don't realize. As a member of a cooperation group, a special community committee, I have no authority whatsoever to deal with the courts except on the approval of the ADA group and their experience. The ADA groups run ADA, and anything that we do in connection with the court cases, the groups have to let us know what their problem is and we try to solve it.
When a judge does 16, 18, 20, 15 people every Monday morning to slay drunks and drunk drivers onto the roofs, it's causing a problem and that's why we got into it. I think that it was brought up by the panelists that the greatest thing that we could use is the flow screen along with communication with the courts. Find out what their program is, what they would like us to do, and we work with them and do it.
One of the things that we've accomplished in our particular district is a court program cooperation with the courts, which is very effective. We have meetings with the judge periodically, the presiding judge of the municipal court, and in California, the probation officers are all members of the California court system under the Superior Court system. So we get together with the judges, with the municipal and Superior Court judges, and just have a rap session on how things are going, and along with the probation officers, we also do staff, because they're the ones that have to carry out the court orders.
And as a result of this, we have a very good system working, bearing in mind that the groups are autonomous, they do whatever they want to. As far as signing slips are concerned, they can say, we don't want to, and that's it. There's nothing that we can do as a committee or the courts can do. The court people will have to deal with other groups as well. We will set down certain suggestions to the groups that most of them in our particular area have adopted.
One is that the slip that we sign has to be on the official letterhead of the National Patient Department or one of the court contractors under the SB38 program. That's the drug driving program. Either one of those two. We will not accept slips from the groups. Some of the groups will accept slips from the employers or from the client's lawyers or anything else, things of that sort. We also require that slip be turned in before the meeting starts to the chairman of the meeting and then are not returned until after the meeting is closed.
It's working very well. We're getting a lot of people, even one-timers, first offenders, into our AA meetings. It's showing up. This program has been in use for about four years, and it's still working very, very well. Hi, Ray. Jack, you touched on a point that bothers our home group. We have a fear that the quality of our meetings would be diluted if we were inundated with people from the courts. Have
[01:15:03]
you had any experience and how have you dealt with that? Yes. In this regard, when we find that experience happening, if there is an active cooperation with a professional community committee that has some dialogue with the courts, and we go to that committee and say, hey, this is what's happening in our group and we're having a problem with it, we need some relief, hoping that that committee will then go to the courts and explain it to them, and then we look for some method in which to channel the difficulty away from the group, and that is, number one, finding if there's other groups in the immediate area that's not having that problem who are willing to receive at least part of them and trying to get the sheriff's department or the court system to rotate it. Sometimes they only know about one group or they only know about two groups. They're not aware that there's a number of groups, so making sure that they have that understanding, the size of the group, and if they would encourage these people to rotate it.
The other thing is to go in, and if it gets too bad, to see if you can plant the meeting, set up a separate meeting. Have AA people, usually old-timers, people who have been around for a few 24 hours, some people who have come through the system, and establish a new meeting, and strictly geared for those kind of situations, and I found that that's been highly successful, where they've done that, and then with the idea of encouraging these people to go out into the separate different meetings. Those are the only ways that I've seen it, that we've handled it, and it seems to be successful, but there has to be some dialogue with the people that's sending them out so that they understand it.
So you're saying you do recommend that the judges send them to specific meetings? Well, not to specific meetings, no, but it may be, usually the referral source number one is not the judge. The judge says, you're sentenced 90 days to AA, but it's the PO officer, the probation officer, that usually establishes the criteria and gives them the slip to sign and everything else, but he may, and the guy says, well, I don't know where AA is, where do I go? And maybe this PO officer only knows about one or two groups, and he says, well, I know there's a meeting on Tuesday night here, why don't you go there? Or there's a meeting over here. Well, to make sure that, like the older gentleman that was just up here, younger gentleman that was just up here, mentioned, you have to have a dialogue and work with these probation officers so they're aware of where the groups are, and so they can inform the person of where they can go.
Thank you. You're welcome. Hi, my name is Lee, and I'm a grateful member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Sorry, of Al-Anon, my mistake. I'm confused that there's so many of you here, and so few of us. The other reason that I'm here is that I'm also been doing work in research and policy in DUI, and the answer to the last question, I think, responded to part of my concerns, whether court referrals might create dilution for groups, might overload groups. The other part of the question is the effectiveness of this, since it appears to be different than the idea, the voluntary idea of people attending AA, though as people have pointed out, it's in some sense never voluntary.
In Maryland, in particular, I understood there was a study at Johns Hopkins done on this about court referrals and court cards, and what they found was that, according to the study at least, that it seemed to work in terms of reducing DUI recidivism in the area of the judge who had originated the program, but that in other areas in Maryland, other judges who had imitated it before it became mandatory, that it seemed not to work, and if anything, the data indicated that the people who went through it were having more recidivism.
And I wondered if there is any sort of collected evidence or other wisdom you have to offer about the effectiveness of court referrals in helping alcoholics and in helping drunk drivers. I think that, in my experience, the members, the group members, I know around where I live, have to kind of, they don't have to, but they take it on themselves to, you know, help people out and, you know, make them understand that, you know, we're here to help you if you want help.
And I believe, at least in the two-county area where I live, that seems to work, and also we, Maryland has also instituted a drunk and driving monitor program, and it's, as far as I can see, it seems to be working real well. Our local intergroup has what we call an informational meeting, or orientation meeting,
[01:20:03]
and in other words, you're not just sending a guy out of jail that is real resentful to an AA meeting, and he's told a little bit about what AA is, and to really, like, let him know and let him understand a little bit, people like myself are there who have been through the courts and have went through the program and are now in Alcoholics Anonymous, sober and happy, and live in productive lives in the community.
And, you know, the key ingredient here is power of example. It's, you know, as far as I'm concerned, you know, actions speak louder than words, and I think that's what has really helped in my community. I might just say here as moderator that, unfortunately, we're running out of time, and as I indicated, this thing is fully automated and running by itself, so it has to end at 1 o'clock. But I suspect that we have time for one more, and that perhaps you can speak to the panelists after the meeting, and perhaps we can do that just outside of the meeting room so that the next group coming in will have an opportunity to set up.
I'll make it brief. My name is Leilani, and I am an alcoholic. I'm on the other end of the spectrum. Coming from Maine, we have a DEEP program there, which is Driver Education Evaluation Program. After they have been to court, they are sent to that, and upon evaluation of that, then they come see me, either evaluation or more assessment on the client. And they are very resentful as far as going to AA meetings.
They are said to go. They are ordered to go. The probation officer says you go and get the slip assigned. We don't have any court cards, which I think is an excellent idea. That's something that I'll take back with me. And does that mean I'm hearing that is the state law? I mean, is this in every state that if you say you go to AA, that you must go to AA? I mean, is this within the judicial system or the motor vehicle department?
It's within the judicial system as far as I'm concerned. It has nothing to do with anything else. And if you don't, then you're in violation of a court order, and you can be show-caused in. Regardless of bringing a slip back? Right. The slip, of course, is some method by which they try to document that you're going to AA. And it's not fail-safe. I mean, somebody can go and talk to somebody and have them sign the whole damn slip if he wants to and turn it in.
We don't know. But at least in Michigan, we don't. We rely on a certain amount of credibility in that regard. Maybe Dave can answer. I'd just like to comment to a couple of parts of what you're alluding to. One is that I think this problem is so huge, it requires more involvement than simply the courts and AA. And I believe an effective approach to this requires perhaps, I don't know if I can use the word, less anonymity, to speak from experience in our own community.
What has happened there that I think has been quite productive is that interested and committed individuals who are part of the fellowship have become active in the community. And through that kind of a process that also involved the political process, there's a combination of effort by the AA fellowship, the courts, the people in the system, the community. And part of what is happening there is that we have a government, I suppose, a government-run DWI program where offenders are sentenced to.
They attend that. There's a follow-up program with government agencies. AA is involved as well. From my experience and the best of my knowledge over four or five years now, while people do come into that program with resentment, very few leave with resentment. Most leave gratefully, and I don't have the results or the effectiveness of that program. But from my own knowledge, it has been quite effective.
Thank you. I'm afraid we're going to have to close. What I'd like to do is, if you don't mind, do spend that moment of silence for Judge Knodel, who has an apparent heart attack and is here in a hospital in Montreal. A moment of silence for him. Why don't we just do that?
[01:25:14]
Okay, I'd like to now thank our three panelists, who I thought were excellent. Jack, Pete, and David.