Recovery Spotlight

My name is Taylor, and I am a person in long term recovery. I was addicted to everything, but my drugs of choice were alcohol and methamphetamine. I used for many years (17 to be exact) and nothing made sense to me until I was about to be sentenced to prison for 5-7 years. I had attempted 12-step programs since I was 18 off and on, tried rehab on my own twice, and once court ordered from which I absconded from. NOTHING MADE SENSE. I was graciously given another chance and was sentenced into the very drug court program I now work for. The chance at being taught real world things, like staying sober while job hunting and being rejected, staying sober while working 7 days a week and barely getting by, staying sober while walking around the very town I used in, these were all things no prison or rehab could have taught me. The drug court team acted as training wheels to life. I became very involved with 12-step programs where I learned how to accept things, work on things, grieve and handle shame. I learned that for me, my drug and alcohol use were moral dilemmas. To use would mean I would be a burden on those that I love and care about, and that wasn't okay with me anymore. I now have a skosh over three years clean and sober. I dedicate a good chunk of my time to working with addicts in various stages of the recovery process, and hope that I can help people recover by showing that it is possible.

Hi, my name is Christopher Hicks, and I am an incarcerated person in the Wyoming State Penitentiary who currently works as a Certified Peer Specialist in the Youthful Offender Transition Program (VOTP) and this is my recovery story:
My recovery story starts out like most everyone else's who need recovery and hope in their life. I was lost in my struggles with mental illness, verbal and physical abuse, trauma, and addiction. As a youth, I struggled with severe depression, anxiety, anger and many traumatic experiences with violence that left me with post-traumatic stress.

As an adolescent I turned to self-medicating with drugs and alcohol as a way to cope with my trauma and mental illness. I used drugs and alcohol to numb the emotional pain and negative feelings I experienced. This of course was only temporary and never actually helped. In fact, it only ended up making things worse. I certainly never thought I could become an addict until I was one. My life was immensely difficult and filled with constant struggles, lots of pain and hardships that lead to suicide attempts.

As a teenager I was so lost in my struggles with addiction and mental illness that I did not see that I had fallen in with the wrong crowd until it was too late. One wrong decision is all it took to change my life forever. One night after heavily drinking, I was sitting in the back seat of a car when my best friend went into a home and shot and killed another person. That night would change many people's lives forever and that was one of the worst nights of my life. There is not one day that goes by that I do not wish I could go back in to time and change everything that happened. I am deeply remorseful and sorry for what happened. No person deserves to be a victim of a violent crime. Under the State of Wyoming's accessory laws, anyone who has a minor participation in a crime can be charged and sentenced in the same way as the person who committed the act. I was arrested and sentenced to a Life without Parole for this.

After becoming incarcerated, my struggles didn't go away. They got placed inside of a pressure cooker that helped to forge me into the man I am today. I still had all the same problems with depression and post-traumatic stress. I still had intense negative feelings and emotions. I still had irrational thought patterns and unrealistic beliefs that caused me to perceive reality inaccurately. I still had no coping mechanisms or skills to deal with my problems until the day I found my own personal recovery.

I had a reality check inside of incarceration and a deep desire to turn my life around, feel better, think healthier, and atone for the mistakes I made as a teenager. Finding recovery was the best thing to ever happen to me and was how I changed my life. Recovery showed me change is possible and it can help you too. Recovery gave me the tools I needed to process those negative feelings I was having without distorting them or putting negative interpretations on them that cause suffering. Recovery taught me how to challenge and change my irrational thinking and helped me to develop healthy coping skills and mental clarity.

Recovery empowered me to take responsibility for my life and change my attitude and outlooks. I began to reprioritize my values and beliefs and begin to make better and healthier choices one day at a time. Ultimately those days brought me closer to the person whom I wanted to be, and I changed.
While incarcerated in Wyoming Department of Corrections for the past eighteen years, I have taken every available opportunity to better myself through criminal thinking classes and Cognitive Behavioral mental health classes offered from WDOC. I participated in mental health counseling and with the help from family, I was able to purchase my own higher education correspondence classes. I currently have a Paralegal Certification; Personal Trainer Certification and I have become a Certified Peer Specialist who currently works in Wyoming's Youthful Offender Transition Program (YOTP) in the Wyoming State Penitentiary. I teach Health and Wellness classes, assist with AA/NA meetings, teach clients how to write legal letters, and I have received Question, Persuade, & Refer (QPR) suicide prevention training. I lead and perform the nightly physical fitness training in the YOTP treatment program, and it is my greatest honor and joy to work with others and provide peer support and rehabilitation to youthful offender inmates every day.

Being a Certified Peer Specialist gives my life that has a depth of value and quality that I cannot put into words. I am a completely different person today because of my recovery and the work I do with others to assist them on their journey towards recovery. Today I am a rehabilitated person living a life of recovery and sobriety that models good behavior and teaches recovery skills while I am incarcerated at the Wyoming State Penitentiary.