Thomas Gorham is a licensed marriage and family therapist and a certified alcohol and drug counselor who has been working with prisoners in San Quentin State Prison for the past 12 years. He sat down for an interview to explain the importance of treating prisoners for substance abuse. Here is some of what he said:
How would you describe San Quentin’s Addiction Recovery Counseling (ARC) program?
We provide in-prison drug and alcohol treatment using science-based methods. Science-based methods are evidence-based techniques, proven at changing criminal and addictive “acting out” behaviors. We encourage clients to utilize proven Twelve Step recovery and provide extensive addiction-oriented education classes as a way of helping clients see another way of looking at the world. We help them avoid obstacles to successful re-entry.
What problems do you see within the prisoner and parolee population?
Many clients are caught up in a set of behaviors repeated over and over that produce negative consequences in their lives. We provide professionally trained counselors to help them look at the world in another way, which helps them live better, happier lives. So many clients have family of origin trauma, which affects their adult lives. This pain needs to be addressed instead of avoided. A thoughtful moment allows a chance for healthier decisions. Unhealthy choices have negatively affected most of our clients, which is why prisons like San Quentin are so crowded. Many people are really stuck in this pattern.
What causes change in your clients?
Change doesn’t happen by accident. Some have had enough – they’re doing time because of past behavior. Very few people want to come back to prison, and we know addiction is what keeps bringing them back. The statistics and studies back this up. California’s recidivism rate is about 70 percent during the first three years after being released. So often, it is drug- and alcohol-abuse and criminal thinking that bring them back. The numbers are staggering.
What motivates you to volunteer your time and energy to inmates in ARC?
I fell into this field by accident. I was incarcerated as a result of my alcoholism. I was a chronic, hopeless alcoholic. A Berkeley judge and a few caring people in drug court helped me turn my life around. My recovery finally stuck after wasting 10 to 12 years in active use, and after two or three attempts at treatment (about the average for most addicts to finally “get it”). I hit bottom in my 40s and spent 11 years living under highways, in empty lots, houses, and abandoned cars, too drunk to care. Beaten and abused, arrested and alone, I know the pain of addiction. So, I now put an equal amount of energy into my recovery. That means educating myself and helping others, including the often forgotten men and women in prison. In a few hundred alcohol-related court appearances, nobody offered me treatment until it was almost too late. Don’t get me wrong; incarceration is good if it keeps people safe, especially from themselves, but addiction is a health problem, and if treatment is not offered in combination with jail time, that is a crime in and of itself. If we as a society could understand this simple concept, we would not be suffering with overcrowded prisons and recidivism at 70 percent. It is tragic.
What’s your biggest challenge keeping the program alive?
I hope the San Quentin administrators will continue their support of the ARC program. Options Recovery Services will do its part. Recently, CDCR decided to cancel all SAP programs in northern California prisons, so ARC may be the last program to provide addiction treatment in this half of the state! San Quentin’s ARC is a model that’s working and helping lower the state’s high recidivism rate — one of the worst in the country. Our program is evidence-based, uses proven methods, and is highly successful.
It seems only logical to keep it going.
Despite short-term budget problems, we need to be thinking of long-term solutions. The best way to reduce overcrowding in jails and prisons is to provide addicts with treatment inside prisons, and aftercare to help them re-build their lives. That will lower costs and improve lives for the long run. Nobody wants to come to prison, but addicts are powerless without the kind of intervention and programs Options and ARC provide. We all need helpers along the way. ARC provides professionally trained and certified counselors who help people rebuild their lives. I’m here to stay, and so is ARC if I can help it.
For more information visit www.optionrecovery.org
