LifeRing Presentation at Parolee Center Gets Good Response

Two S.F. Bay Area LSR convenors, Bettye D. and Marty N., presented LifeRing to the men of the Cornell Corrections halfway house Monday night April 23, and met with an enthusiastic response.  This was our fifth visit to Cornell (click for report on most recent previous visit) and the most successful yet.  

When the men began to assemble in the dining room, they looked like a tougher crowd than usual. But they paid attention when I outlined the "Three S" to them -- sobriety, secularity, and self-help -- and they listened intently to Bettye telling the story of her drug bust and her subsequent discovery of LifeRing and her more than 17 months of sobriety.  When we were done talking, they were kind of silent at first and didn't have a lot of questions.  But then the dialogue started, and pretty soon they began to open up.  One of the men said he was addicted not only to drugs but to being a criminal -- he called it "criminalism" -- and at this point Bettye cracked up, and then we all cracked up, and the ice was broken. 

Lisa R., the counselor in charge, had asked us before the presentation to come back the following week and lead an actual LifeRing meeting.  Toward the end of our presentation I asked for a show of hands, how many of the men were interested in participating.  Nearly all the hands went up.  One of the men made a special request that Bettye be the convenor, and this met with general approval.  At the end of the meeting, they were like a group of little boys, smiling, shaking our hands, accepting hugs from Bettye, and in a good mood all around.  

Cornell Corrections is a program for State prisoners who are being paroled back into the community.  They first spend up to four months at this residential facility, where they are allowed to work at outside jobs but are closely monitored.  The facility is located in the Tenderloin, San Francisco's Skid Row.  As one of the men remarked, if they wanted to know what drugs did to you, all they had to do was look out the window.

-- MN 4/23/01