“Like a tsunami,” he describes.
Kelly says he began leaving his young family for periods of time. He began to steal to pay for his addiction and his marriage suffered.
"I got to a point; I didn’t want to deal with life."
Theft, buying and receiving stolen items led to leaving home, one to two days at a time, then weeks at a time and then months. One day he left saying he was going to the store. It would be 16 months before he returned home.
“I was in the streets in midst of my addiction, running wild,” committing burglaries he says.
“I had gotten reckless and ruthless and I just didn’t care.”
When he came home his wife took him back, however his addiction continued. A continuing cycle of jail, treatment programs, and relapse followed.
Treatment didn’t work. Kelly recalls participating in more than 30 treatment programs, but his addiction remained.
“I got treatment savvy. I could go in and give them
what they wanted."
He says he would complete a 30-day program, by
day 35, he would be high again.
“I wanted to stay clean; just couldn’t figure it out.”
In 1997, following a divorce, he went to the streets again; homeless for the next three years.
"I ate out of garbage cans and dumpsters. I had the same set of clothes on for a year; didn’t bathe. It was an awful time for me.”
His felony career began in 1996. Prison followed in 2002. Parole in 2004 led him to Lawrenceville Chief Parole Officer (CPO) Carrie Goldring. “He wasn’t ready to get sober,” she says. “I wasn’t ready,” Kelly confirms.
On his way back to prison during a court hearing, the judge threatened him with 25 years if he ever again appeared before him in DeKalb County.
Kelly says the prosecutor called him a menace to society, a blight on society and that Kelly would never amount to anything and that if his family had any sense, they would throw away the key and never look back.
But Kelly got a break when a new judge took over his case. Kelly says this judge was the first person to give him hope. He recalls the judge saying, "looks like you never really had a chance at life, never lived, or knew how to live.”
Kelly agreed. “I’d been high all my life, in and out of prison, in and out of jail and he gave me a chance.”
The judge gave Kelly five years but banned him from DeKalb County. Kelly says, “That was the beginning of change for me."
He was paroled and sent back to CPO Goldring. “She didn’t want me but parole (Parole Board) saw fit to give me another opportunity at life. When that judge saw fit to give me a chance, I said I was going to try my best to do things different and parole gave me an opportunity to get out and I was blessed to get into a program in Lawrenceville.”
The program through the Lawrenceville Parole Office was new. A grant paid for treating substance abuse for paroled offenders. It was led by a counselor who was a recovering addict.
"She (counselor) called me out on my stuff. She worked with me and helped me see things differently. I tell you that was the best time that I had, that time on parole, because I learned so much and I’ve been blessed.”
After completing the program Kelly says he was afraid to go back into the world.
“I was so scared of tripping up, because I had relapsed so many times. I just wanted it so bad; I just wanted to stay clean. That was my only purpose starting out. I just wanted to stay clean."
Kelly remarried his wife. "I wanted to be a father to my daughter and a husband to my wife. Above all that, I didn’t want to get high. I didn’t want what that prosecutor said about me to be true. I didn’t want people to look at me like that. I live my life today to make everything they said about me to be untrue.”
The program opened up doors for Kelly and through another program called CARES; certified addiction recovery empowerment specialist, Kelly completed the training and became one. Kelly says that accomplishment pushed him forward, made him believe he could do something different with his life and make a difference for others struggling with addiction.
“That’s my thing. I want my people to know that we do recover. We do make it through to the other side, with help. I couldn’t do it by myself, but I could with help.”
Kelly says he’s now earned several certifications, including as a forensic peer mentor. He works with the Georgia Consumer Mental Health Network, the Department of Corrections and the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities.
(Continued on page 16, PAROLE SUCCESS)
The prosecutor in his case was not kind to Kelly. Kelly says the prosecutor called me a menace to society, a blight on society and that I would never amount to anything and that if my family had any sense, they would throw away the key and never look back.
But Kelly got a break when he says a new jude took over his case.
Georgia Parole Review
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