Arizona Prison Program

For well over ten years, I had tried to get an SA meeting going in a Tucson unit of the Arizona Department of Corrections. I had gone through local authorities, a prison chaplain, a contractor for a treatment program, and top administrators of the Department of Corrections in Phoenix.

Unable to generate the necessary support, I continued to sponsor prisoners individually by mail. But then God did for me what I could not do alone. My prayers were answered when one of my regular correspondents reported that his Associate Deputy Warden would like to have me meet with him and a counselor to discuss the possibility of starting regular SA meetings in his unit. By then, all Arizona sex offenders had been moved into a single prison complex in Florence, Arizona.

We encountered no serious obstacles, but we did experience some delay while I qualified as a volunteer: orientation program, background check, TB test, and ID photo.

Our meetings started in mid-August, and have continued almost every Friday evening since then. I make the hour-and-a-half drive for our one-hour meeting. We allow thirty minutes before and thirty minutes after the meeting for discussion of the program and fellowship.

Nearly all of the fifteen regulars have taken turns leading the meetings, and I have been impressed by the openness and honesty of their sharing. Nearly all have worked some of the Steps and have substantial sobriety. We have used sobriety chips that I had printed on card stock because plastic and metal are both prohibited. It has been a great pleasure several times to go an hour early to hear Fifth Steps. Once another Tucson member accompanied me so that we could both hear Fifth Steps.

We will soon be considering the extension of the program to another unit in the same complex. Certainly these men have done at least as much for my recovery as I have done for theirs. Together, we thank God for this special opportunity.