Alcoholics Anonymous, CATS, church, and other inmate improvement programs

The ICJ offers a variety of programs intended to help inmates improve their lives.  You should sign up for as many of these as you think will in fact help you.  You might hope the program helps you deal with your issues, but just getting out of your dorm and having serious discussions with your fellow inmates can be worth a lot. 

Sadly, the ICJ does a poor job of providing you with information about the various programs. There's scant information in the official inmate guide.  

If alcohol is a problem for you, you may want to attend AA meetings while in jail.  Fill out a kite for this request.  It may take a while to get in.  You'll meet once a week, with inmates from throughout the jail and a meeting chairperson  from the outside who's volunteered to do this task.  One rumor is that one of the volunteer chairs is in his seventies, has decades of sobriety, and lives hundreds of miles away, but makes the trip once a week because it's his form of service back to the community.

You'll find that the tone of the meeting is somehow different than most AA meetings on the outside.  The stories are more intense, the situations more dire.  (And things can be pretty dire for folks at AA meetings outside.

You may also be encouraged to sign up for a program called CATS.  In fact, your judge may order you to attend CATS.  The kite form has a category labeled CATS, so circle that on your kite and explain you want to attend.  The program usually is oversubscribed, so once again you may have to wait a while.  When they finally let you into this group therapy program, you'll get one day's credit for each weekly meeting you attend.

By the way, your judge and your guard and others may use the word CATS, but many don't know what it means.  The official jail guide doesn't define this acronym. For the record, it's "Correctional Assessment and Treatment Services.  "

Various churches offer services or meetings at the jail.  If you're at all religious, sign up to attend. The officiants tend to be right wing proselytizers, but that's OK if you want to participate in a religious event.  The jail has a chapel where you're meet; it's got a huge cross where the altar might be, so it's obviously bent towards Christians.  Again, even if this isn't your brand of religion, if you are religious, I advise you to sign up.

The jail offers other programs to improve your life.  For instance, there's a program for you to complete your high school education via GED.  Go for it.  To quote a corny line, "While you serve time, make the time serve you."