From Prison to Freedom 

Part Two

With two addicts in program supporting him in prison, he experienced real freedom before he was set free. 

They put me in an eight-by-five holding pen. Ironically, this physical prison would become the key to my freedom. 

On the wall at the foot of my bed, someone had scratched five words: “How did I get here?” For two days, those words were all I could see. God held my eyes open, forced me to stare at that question until I finally, finally looked at the truth: ME. I did this: not my ex-wife, not my childhood, ME. For the first time in my life, I felt the crushing weight of decades of guilt, remorse, and self-loathing. But in that tiny cell, something began to crack in the prison I’d built around my heart. From the general population, God sent me a friend—an alcoholic who had killed someone while driving drunk. He didn’t preach. He just showed me, through his hope, that maybe I wasn’t beyond saving. 

When my daughter bailed me out, I knew I had to find help or die trying. I found SA, and five minutes later, I called Frank, child of God; may he rest in peace. Frank called me back. Soon after,  I was on a Saturday Zoom meeting, shaking, terrified, hopeful. I met my sponsor. I started ninety meetings in ninety days. It took a year to finish my First Step—a year of facing every demon I’d spent a lifetime running from. With each step, another wall of my self-made prison crumbled. 

Then, in August 2021, I was sentenced to 53 days in jail. I kept working the Steps. It was all I had. Inmates called me “PapaPhone” because I was always on the phone with my sponsor. But God wasn’t done sending me help. He connected me with another inmate—a recovering alcoholic with rage issues who was also working the 12 Steps. We talked for hours about the Program, about surrender, about finding God in the darkest places. He became my accountability partner behind those walls, someone who understood the battle I was fighting. 

Together, we worked through the Steps. In that cell, in that solitude, with my sponsor on the phone and my fellow recovering addict by my side, I finally connected with God. He knew exactly what I needed. By His grace, I finished Steps Two and Three behind bars. The irony wasn’t lost on me: I was in a physical prison, but for the first time in decades, I was beginning to feel free. 

When I was released, I didn’t stop: meetings, calls, and the Steps one day at a time. By God’s grace, I’m now working on my 12th Step. Who am I now? I’m the same broken man, but with one precious gift: a choice. 

Every morning, I choose recovery over addiction. I choose freedom over my self-made prison. I have a relationship with God. I’ve joined a church. I still struggle. I still fall short. But every day, I recommit to sobriety. Every day, I forgive myself. Every day, I remember: I am worth it. I am worth God’s forgiveness and love. I am grateful for my arrest. I am grateful for the graffiti on that cell wall. I am grateful to be alive for the first time in my life. Why did God save me? Why didn’t He just let me end it? I believe He saved me so I wouldn’t die with all that hate poisoning my heart, trapped forever in that prison of addiction. So I could finally see a sunrise and feel something. So I could grow. So I could experience the promises. He saved me so I could make amends to the people I destroyed, so I could make amends to Him and know Him truly, so I could help others like me—lost, broken, drowning in their own prisons. See, there’s another way out. 

Since my liberation from addiction, I am freer now than I ever was in my so-called freedom. The prison of addiction held me captive for decades. But through God’s grace, the 12 Steps, and the Fellowship of SA, I found the key. I walked out of that prison and into the light. I had to go to prison to be set free.