If you happen to pay any attention to my blog I want to say I am sorry for my absence. I have no good excuse other than prison is a strange place and most things are outside of my control. You would think that I could never be pressed for time but somehow it turns out that even in a concrete box time can get away from you. Also, somewhere in there is a bit of laziness as well I am sure:-)

Recently they started the "suboxone program" inside Michigan prisons. Suboxone is a partial opiate based drug used to help people wing off of heroin. In some really bad cases it is used as a replacement therapy. That means that there are people out there who are so deep in to addiction and they have suffered and lost everything and they just can't stop. They are going to die. In those cases it is sometimes appropriate to put someone on suboxone indefinitely because it is just safer than shooting heroin and fentanyl.I am in a unit with around 170 other inmates. There are now about 30 of them on suboxone. They call them out in the morning and sit them in chairs, they put smocks over them so that their hands are covered, then the nurse dumps the crushed up suboxone in to their mouths and then they sit there for about 10 minutes while it dissolves and then after a mouth check they leave. They do this every single morning. The guys that do this now have a physical addiction to suboxone. If they were to stop then they would have the same withdrawal symptoms as they would if they where coming off of heroin. I have withdrawn off of both so I speak from experience.The issue is this: you have inmates who have been in here for years and have not used heroin in as long and then they get on suboxone a few months before they go home and all that does is insure that they are actively addicted and using when they leave, it does not make sense to me?

Even after all these years in here, some days it just hits me different. I find myself observing a lot, watching how people move. It feels almost like if you took all of society and shrunk it and then put it in a box. The ecosystem here is so primitive yet there are shades of humanity and at least the illusion of what feels like a societal framework. There is your religious groups, your gangbanger groups, your businessmen, you have the supply and demand of needs and wants, you have friendships and enemies. It´s like looking at society through a telescope and hitting the zoom button. The difference is that in here you have no option but to live in the middle of all of it. There is no relocating or choosing what part of society you will live amongst. In here you will live in the middle of all of it and learn to maneuver and adapt. It is very difficult. There are so many personalities in such close proximity to one another and a lot of the times those personalities are not of a positive nature. We are in prison for a reason and usually it isn't the positive and good natured who get sent to here. We are by far not all bad people but the majority do seem to at the very least have some emotional and psychological issues that show themselves in ways that are not always good.

Message for D: I received what you wrote and then noticed a new name on my Jpay contact list, D. B. , is that you? I sent a letter through Jpay that you should of gotten? I have been told that Jpay doesn't always alert you when there is a new message so I just wanted to write you on here as well. Thank you for your response and I would be very open and interested in hearing your experiences regarding panic attacks or anything else you might want to talk about. This is the very reason I started this blog, it was to grow my world and to be of service in any possible way I can. I hope to hear from you soon. Rich.....

I wonder how far back is normal to remember of your childhood? I feel like I don't remember as much as I should? I have specific memories of certain moments when I was young but I can't put together the ages I was in those memories and it´s always just fragments. It´s almost like I started existing around the age 10 or 11except for those flashes in my mind of memories that have little context to them. It´s almost like I am remembering a dream that I once had many years ago but now I'm not sure if it really was a dream or maybe it really happened? But deep down I know that it was real. I'm not talking about all dramatic or traumatic memories, some of them are just simple things like I have this memory of sitting in the dirt with some of those small matchbox cars? I was making roads and little towns with them. I don't remember where I lived or how old I was or if anyone else was around, but I can see it so clearly in my memory. I can even feel how I felt in that moment, I would have liked to spend eternity in that right there.

I just wanted to send a message and prayer out to the wife, kids, and loved ones of Charlie Kirk: with all my heart I am sorry for your loss!!! I know that my words don't mean anything and I will be honest, I disagree with probably more of Charlie's view points than I agreed with but I also think that he was a good human being who cared deeply about our youth in this country. I believe he was a good father to his children and husband to his wife. You could just watch them on TV and see how happy they where. As wrong as I thought he was on a lot of issues, I respect that he was always open to listening to others and debating In a open and honest way. I pray that his wife's love and memories are stronger than her pain. This shouldn't happen in America. I hear our government keep saying how they are going to bring the political temperature down after every tragedy and within a day one side is blaming the other and nothing changes for the better. I am listening to Fox News as I am writing this and the hosts keep trying to get Trump to say that everyone should do better in the way the political sides treat each other and he just doesn't have it in him to say it. He just continues to call the other side "far left lunatics" and he's saying that they want to murder the right. It´s not just Trump though, I hear people on the other side always calling republicans Hitler and even worse. I just don't know how it gets better from here and that's depressing. I think about my grandkids and wonder what things will be like when they are my age? I worry for them.

I find it really hard to like or respect men. I will be completely honest, sometimes I feel like I very much dislike them with a passion that I worry borders on hate. My daughter recently had a domestic violence situation and it reinforced a lot of that. Before I continue in what I want to try and say I need to make some confessions, otherwise I would feel like a hypocrite. I was once a horrible man when it came to how I treated women. I have committed all the typical sins that men commit. I have lied, cheated and mistreated women in so many ways. I have hurt women that loved me all the way to their souls I think.

I am not a Democrat nor am I a Republican. I am not even an independent. I am just who I am and I live by the truth regardless of what side of society it happens to be politically advantageous for. Of course I am human, I have my own biases but that doesn't make me see everything through that lens. I see each political side basically tying themselves in to pretzels trying to rationalize and justify the unjustifiable. I am embarrassed at the lack of personal courage and backbone of my government.

The most frustrating part of prison is when you have done all the work. When you have sincerely chosen to change and to be a better person and then actually did it, but still you have more debt to pay. Still you remain in a box. I have sincerely with all my heart and everything good in me become a better man. I have put so much work in and I was consistent, authentic and relentless and somewhere along the way I succeeded. That doesn't mean that I am done, I will always continue to grow and to be better, that mission is never finished. I wake up every morning and look in to the metal thing on my wall that is supposed to be a mirror and I love myself. I cant begin to know how to express to you what a miracle that is. I am so grateful and thankful, I literally feel overwhelmed even in this exact moment with real hope! But then I remember how I still have 12 years left and that's what's frustrating, I am so prepared and excited and I can see my path so clear in front of me yet I can't move forward. I feel stuck at the starting line! I still owe a debt that requires more of me, a debt that can not be fulfilled with any amount of work. It doesn't acknowledge anything other than time. Time is the only currency that it accepts.

I have been thinking a lot about panic attacks. The truth is that I have been having a lot of them. In a recent response from D I was asked to write about this. I will tell you up front that I have no idea why I have panic attacks, I only know that they suck and are really scary. I stopped having them for a long time and just a few weeks ago they came back with a vengeance. Nothing significant changed in my life around this period in time. I have no new problems. It is really the opposite, I feel more blessed than I have in a long time. This blog has changed my life for the better. I have been holding my thoughts and feelings inside of myself almost all of my life and having a place to go and share them, and even get responses from people who care, it has opened my world up in a way I never thought was possible.

It occurred to me recently that I use the word HOPE a lot. When I use it I mean it. It´s when I have this feeling in my chest, like an overwhelming need or desire of wanting something to happen or just to be true. The more I think about hope and what it actually means, the more powerful and significant of a thing it seems. Doesn't the simple task of waking up in the morning and choosing to live throughout the day require hope? No matter how much I lose or how bad things are, there is always this thing inside me that looks towards the future with some form of ???, the only possible word that fits at the end of that sentence is hope isn't it? Why else would I continue on?