Tag: addiction

Sentencing

June 17th, 2026

I’m tired and I should be asleep right now, but obviously I’m not. I went to court yesterday and I’m still wound tight. I am replaying the events of the hearing in my head over and over, hoping for some clarity and closure. So far, I’ve had no luck with that. Maybe by writing about the episode, I can sort things out. It’s got to be better than lying in bed and staring at the skylight for the next several hours.

This about the sentencing of a young woman, a person who is dear to me. It’s been a long time coming. The woman was in court yesterday for two felony convictions: battery on a police officer and her 5th drunk driving charge. The arrest for battery occurred about 2 1/2 years ago. The OWI (Operating While intoxicated) charge is 17 months old. Finally, after numerous delays, the two cases have been resolved. The young woman dragged her feet in the judicial process in hopes of avoiding prison (she has done time before). At one point, she wanted to go to trial for the OWI charge. She eventually changed her mind, bowed to the inevitable outcome, and pleaded guilty. Things wrapped up at yesterday’s hearing.

A sentencing is like an inverted graduation ceremony. It’s a milestone in a person’s life. You just don’t get a diploma.

The young woman wanted me to be there for her sentencing. I’m not quite sure why she wanted that, especially since I was instrumental in getting her in that courtroom to begin with. I turned her in for drunk driving because I thought she was going to hurt or kill somebody. I called the cops just prior to the battery incident because she was drunk and angry, and I have learned the hard way that I should not interact with her when she is in that condition. When the woman is drunk, I let the police handle her. They get paid to do that sort of thing.

In any case, I was there for the hearing at 10:00 in the morning. The courtroom is nothing fancy. It’s a cramped, claustrophobic space with a small gallery for visitors. A courtroom, any courtroom, is an uninviting place. Nobody really wants to be there. Like a hospital ER, a courtroom is somewhere you have to go because you or someone you know is in trouble. In an ER it’s for a medical issue. In a courtroom you are there for a different kind of trouble.

The woman’s hearing was scheduled for 10:00, but it didn’t start until almost noon. That’s typical. These things seldom start on time. While I was sitting in the gallery, I got to watch the warmup act. A young Black man was pleading guilty to armed robbery and fleeing an officer, and then getting sentenced for those crimes. The prosecution, in its effort to get the guy four years in prison, presented a dashcam video of the high-speed chase through a residential area of the northside of Milwaukee. The police were following the defendant’s car through this maze of side streets at 70 miles an hour. If nothing else, the video showed that the young man had demonstrated exceedingly poor judgment. The young man had friends and/or family in the gallery who got to watch the show. I wondered what they were thinking.

Dashcam and bodycam videos are commonplace tools for the prosecution. A picture is worth a thousand words in many cases. A video is worth even more.

When the young woman finally arrived, she was shackled, which is common practice when a defendant is in custody. The public defender made a point of telling the judge that I was in the gallery to show support for the woman. The prosecution talked about the plea agreement (three years inside and three out), and then she wanted to show bodycam footage of the battery of the police officer incident to give the judge a sense what the young woman was like when intoxicated. Oh yeah…

It should be noted that I was physically present for all of that mayhem. I have vivid memories of that day. The bodycam recorded all of it, albeit from a different angle. I quickly realized as I watched the show that I was in the video. I was an unwilling participant in the action. That still feels utterly surreal. At one point I am in the background, observing the chaos. There is also a brief a close up of one of three cops giving me the keys to the young woman’s car. It was reality show that was actually real.

So, what happened during the few minutes of the video? It was action packed. The young woman had backed her car into a ditch. She was drunk (BAL of .20). In Wisconsin the legal blood alcohol level is .08, so she was almost three times over the limit. The three cops tried to coax her out of the car. They were remarkably polite and patient with her. She was belligerent. They finally got her out her vehicle and cuffed her. At this point she screamed,

“I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU!”

Okay. Then a female officer began to escort the young woman across the street to a squad car. The young woman kicked the cop, knocked her over, and they won’t down hard on the pavement. Two of the three police officers got the woman back on her feet and the female officer limped slowly away to lean heavily on the hood of another squad car. The officer was clearly in pain.

The young woman once again screamed, “I will fucking kill you!”

Then she gave a wild laugh like Bellatrix Lestrange from Harry Potter as they pushed her into a squad car.

It was really quiet in the courtroom for a few moments. The judge looked at the young woman (and at me) and said,

“That was a sad video.”

Sad? I could think of other far more descriptive adjectives for that shitshow, but the judge was a professional and a master of understatement. He went on to tell the defendant that the police had been patient, and even kind to her. He described her own behavior as “ridiculous”. Once again, I can think of other adjectives for her actions.

On the plus side, the judge noted that the young woman has made repeated artempts to get into recovery and stay sober. He mentioned a letter I had written to him where I had said the woman never gives up. That is true. She never quits. She is strong and resilient. She sincerely wants to get healthy and stay that way.

The prosecution, public defender, and the judge all focused on the defendant’s mental health and addiction issues. The plan was her to get enrolled the substance abuse program (SAP) as soon as possible once she gets to Taycheedah (a prison near Fond du Lac, WI). The judge decided to give her 18 months inside for the battery charge and two years for the drunk driving. The sentences are to run concurrently. If she successfully completes the SAP, then she can qualify for the Early Release Program at 14 months. She estimates that she can be out in 18 months. That sounds about right.

The young woman called me from jail later yesterday to explain more of what will happen to her. I told her that all I want is for her to get healthy and be able to care fulltime for her little boy. Maybe that is a big ask. I don’t know.

That’s the story, thus far.

I hope I didn’t bore you.

Going Downhill

April 2nd, 2026

I’m old enough to have had friends and family members die from chronic debilitating diseases. A sudden death is traumatic. I know this because one of my younger brothers died in a car wreck at the age of twenty-eight. But a slow death, one in which there is a gradual disintegration of mind or body, is agonizing. It’s like watching a slow-motion train wreck. The progress of the disease seems to be inexorable, and human efforts to stop or even to slow it down are often futile.

My mom died from Alzheimer’s disease. I have close friend whose father is suffering from the same tragic ailment. My friend’s father used to be a brilliant mathematician. Now he’s not. Now the man has great difficulty with walking up stairs and performing a number of other everyday tasks. The father, oddly enough, can still improvise music on the piano, but his other mental faculties are slipping away. My friend tells me that sometimes his dad is okay, meaning that his father hasn’t gotten any worse. The disease plateaus for a while and then continues on its negative path. There is not a smooth downward trajectory. The disease attacks the brain in fits and starts, but the overall direction is always clear.

I had two friends from work, both of whom died from cancer. One of them suffered from a type of blood cancer. The other had a brain tumor. Both of them received treatments, chemical and/or radiological. Each of them rallied for a while. I remember in visits with each of the two men how their wives would light up at any good news. The wives encouraged their partners and told them that they were getting better and it would be okay. My two friends did get better, but that was only a brief interlude, and eventually they both succumbed.

I had another brother who died from complications of alcoholism. Officially, he died of a heart attack, but it was more than that. He didn’t take care of himself, and I don’t think he wanted to live. His mental and physical decline were in many ways similar to that of somebody with Alzheimer’s. My brother would have a severe medical crisis, then he would recover, but he never quite recovered to the previous level of health. He always dropped down a step. I, along with many other people, hoped that he would turn things around one day. Other folks with addictions have been able to do that. My brother didn’t.

I sometimes speak of watching somebody else slowly die. I don’t think anybody actually just “watches” somebody whom they love die. To me, it is impossible to simply observe the destruction of someone else in a disinterested way. It’s not like going to see a Greek tragedy in a theater or binge watching a slasher movie on Netflix. The person who cares about the individual who is desperately ill is not just a spectator. That person is also a participant in the drama.

I am currently a participant in the struggle of a young person who seems to have the same disease as my brother. I love the person and I cannot separate myself from their suffering. I hope for their recovery, but I often feel completely helpless. I know I cannot save the individual.

So, what is left? There is hope. It is perhaps a forlorn and irrational hope, but it’s all I have. I cling to that hope despite all evidence that it is pointless.

That’s what I do.

A Backhanded Blessing

March 25th, 2026

She’s in jail. A person who I care about very much was incarcerated two days ago. It sucks. It’s really hard to give that event a positive spin. The person is looking at more than just jail time. They are staring at potentially years of prison. In many ways it’s a grim future.

On the other hand, it could be worse. I guess things can always be worse. The person is an addict. Their drug of choice is alcohol, although I am not sure that the word “choice” is accurate or appropriate. I think that for this individual the ability to exercise free will is much diminished. They aren’t in control of their habit. It is in control of them.

For weeks now, actually for years already, I have agonized about what this person would do next. My wife and I have lived in fear, a fear that this young woman would die. The person we love was unstable and sick, and with her anything was possible. We never knew what would happen. As I was told once, “The pattern is that there is no pattern”. That is the truth. There has been nearly constant chaos for as long as I can remember.

Now this person is in a location with structure and routine. She is relatively safe, well, as safe as person can be in a jail. Jails can be scary places. I spent just a few hours in a jail, and I remember quite clearly moments of raw fear. The only advantages of her being in a jail are that she probably cannot harm herself or others. Jail is not a good answer to her problems, but it is the only answer currently available.

The truth is that since this person was incarcerated, I have been breathing a sigh of relief. I am not as scared as I was just a few days ago. That does not mean that all is well. It isn’t. This turn of events brings new challenges for the young person and for everyone who cares about her. We’ll get through it together, but it will be hard. I look at the bottom line in this situation: she is still alive. Everything else is secondary to that.

It bothers me that in our society the best we can usually do for a person with mental health issues is to lock them up. We have a decades-long War on Drugs that has never had any real successes. Our country frequently blows up boats that may or may not be bringing drugs into the U.S., but we don’t make nearly the same amount of effort to understand addiction and its treatment. We only care about people with mental health problems when they inconvenience or endanger us. If a person decides to use a drug to quietly commit a slow-motion suicide, we are okay with it. We don’t care about the harm that addiction causes because we don’t care about the common good. We only give a damn when it hits home, and hits hard.

I prayed, and still pray, every night for the person I love. I prayed that she would survive. God answers prayers, but often in odd ways. Sending this person to jail is a backhanded blessing, but I’ll take it.