Lived Through This
No One Deserves Addiction
On the powerlessness of wishing for someone else’s recovery
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A rocky trail through forests and fields winds around the back of Quaker Hill in rural Maine. Before traveling to the summit, I pack a bottle of water and some grapes and my notebook. This time I also pack my nephew’s letter.
The tradition of letter-writing survives in families like mine whose loved ones are spread out over the country in county jails, state prisons, and federal penitentiaries. In prisons, smartphones are contraband, so stamps are still currency. My nephew, Alan Michael, is in a county jail awaiting trial. He can be held indefinitely without bail because he was on parole from a state prison sentence at the time of his latest arrest. He’s 25 years old, and he’s written me dozens of letters over the last seven years. I always write back, eventually.
The forest is still damp from last week’s monumental thunderstorms, and a new generation of mosquitos has hatched. Far off the coast, Hurricane Cristobal pinwheels north and then east. It never makes landfall, but its outlier winds cascade through the forest’s branches and down into the hollows, keeping the mosquitos mostly at bay. When I get to the top of the hill, the forest gives way to open fields marked by lines of hardwood trees. Here, the wind is loud enough to silence everything.
From the summit, I can see hay fields and forests, a church spire poking out of trees, and more green hills. I pull my nephew’s handwritten letter out of my backpack. Blue ink on narrow-ruled white paper. His penmanship is neat and legible.
Dear Aunt Michele, Well here I am yet again. I suppose that adds me to Georgia’s 87% recidivism rate. Not blaming anyone but myself for why I am back here.
At the end, he has signed himself “Alan Michael,” although I know he dropped the Michael part when he was in high school. The compound name was too Southern, like “Billy Bob,” and his mother had moved him to rural Idaho when he was eight to get him away from our family in Savannah.
It’s been more than 20 years since the day I met him at the Savannah train station.
