By Lem Satterfield<\/p>\n
As \u201cGangsta Grandma,\u201d Evelyn Wilson nurtures troubled men and women in a way that not many are capable of doing.\u00a0<\/strong><\/i><\/p>\n A Harlem, New York, native, Wilson says she became addicted to alcohol and cocaine following the deaths of both her parents before her 13th birthday.<\/p>\n Now 80, Wilson is an ordained minister in the Unity movement and will mark 50 years of continuous sobriety in May.<\/p>\n Wilson is a former prison counselor who was known by the inmates as \u201cGangsta Grandma.\u201d She now lives in Savannah, Georgia, and operates two sober-living homes \u2014 one each for men and women.<\/p>\n Wilson shared her story of redemption and altruism with Zenger.<\/p>\n Zenger:\u00a0<\/strong>Can you describe your childhood?<\/p>\n Wilson:\u00a0<\/strong>I grew up as the only child and a latchkey kid in a Harlem community. I was 11 when my father died; my mother died the following January, but that\u2019s not an excuse for my becoming an alcoholic and cocaine addict. I went to live with my first cousin and was loved.<\/p>\n Growing up my idols were not men and women going to work every day or graduates of Morehouse College or Brown University or women who went to college. My idols were the people in the fast lane who frequented bars, wore flash clothing and made big money.<\/p>\n At age 12, I fell in love with alcohol and drank it every chance I got. I loved the way it made me feel and didn\u2019t know a human being could feel that good. Life was running in and out of bars, dating drug-dealing boyfriends. Dating a big-time drug dealer made you a rock star.<\/p>\n Zenger:<\/strong>\u00a0How did you meet your husband?<\/p>\n Wilson:\u00a0<\/strong>I met my husband, Edward Wilson, at a dance. We danced well together. They called him \u201cWhip\u201d because in that community, he was considered smart. I didn\u2019t know what a criminal Whip was until we started dating. Whip got locked up and disappeared for a month.<\/p>\n That pattern continued until he came home from prison in 1979 and was shot and killed during a drug deal gone bad.<\/p>\n Zenger:\u00a0<\/strong>What was your first job in the recovery field?<\/p>\n Wilson:<\/strong>\u00a0I was two years sober in 1973 when I became a counselor at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, New York, for their alcoholism program. Because there was no counselor certification, I used Elmhurst as my volunteer work hours. I was told, \u201cIf you drink, don\u2019t bother to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n I worked at Elmhurst for 15 years, during which time I graduated from Adelphi University with a master\u2019s In social work and became a certified alcohol and drug counselor. I left Elmhurst and began working at The Health Insurance Plan company of New York as a social worker.<\/p>\n Zenger:\u00a0<\/strong>How long were you the director of Hackensack University\u2019s alcohol and drug treatment program?<\/p>\n Wilson:\u00a0<\/strong>I worked there for 21 years, directing the alcohol and drug treatment program beginning in 1987 until retiring in 2005. Everyone I hired wasn\u2019t in recovery, but everyone I hired had a license or certification. I learned what an alcoholic needed in program administration.<\/p>\n If my employees were going to work with alcoholics and addicts, they needed to have some kind of educational background understanding of what an alcoholic was and was not. That didn\u2019t mean that it had to come from them being an alcoholic.<\/p>\n But they needed to know what being an alcoholic and an addict did to the patients physically, mentally, spiritually and environmentally. I wanted to help the patients to be comfortable, stay sober and remain in recovery. I retired and moved to Savannah, Georgia.<\/p>\n Zenger:\u00a0<\/strong>What was your role 10 years ago at Coastal State Prison in Garden City, Georgia\u2019s Recovery Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) program?<\/p>\n Wilson:\u00a0<\/strong>For three years, until 2009, I worked at the department of family and children\u2019s services. My position was assessing parents who had their children taken away from them due to their substance-abuse problems.<\/p>\n Until working at Coastal State, I had always worked in an outpatient situation where people had the freedom to come and go. But as a prison contractor, you\u2019re considered a guest in the state\u2019s house. So in the middle of an assessment with an alcoholic or addict when the warden says \u201cLockdown,\u201d they have to go back to their cell. Of the 1,800 prisoners, 450 were in the RSAT program who are addicts and alcoholics who violated their parole by drinking and\/or drug use.<\/p>\n I drew on my personal experiences and the consequences of my being an alcoholic and addict to help them look at their own experiences. These were not murderers or bank robbers. Their problem was primarily being addicted to alcohol and\/or drugs.<\/p>\n They continued to violate parole by drinking and drugging. They were not cognitively aware of wanting to drink and get high, thinking that the next drink is not going to be like the last one and that something different is going to happen, and it\u2019s going to be favorable.<\/p>\n Zenger:\u00a0<\/strong>How did you gain respect and become a change agent?<\/p>\n Wilson:\u00a0<\/strong>My counselor\u2019s role was to help them recognize the pattern that caused them to get locked up for the same charges. You\u2019ll lose your freedom and be in prison with the consequences of not being able to sit on the toilet without 18 other men or women watching.<\/p>\n You have to get up and go to bed at a certain time. Unless they\u2019re able to take a look at the consequences that come along with that, no matter the environment, they won\u2019t recover. Some will believe you; most of them won\u2019t.<\/p>\n What I learned from Al-Anon [Alcoholics Anonymous] is that you don\u2019t have to get upset with people who continue to relapse. Unfortunately, in some cases, you have to allow them to do it their way and let alcohol and drugs do their job \u2014 and they will.<\/p>\n Zenger:\u00a0<\/strong>How did you earn the nickname \u201cGangsta Grandma?\u201d<\/p>\n Wilson:\u00a0<\/strong>In prison, they\u2019ve got nicknames for everybody whether you know it or not. If you\u2019re not an inmate, then you\u2019re the police. But once I told them my story, they didn\u2019t see me as the police. What I did was share my background of having been involved in drugs and alcohol.<\/p>\n So I asked one of them, \u201cWhat do they call me?\u201d And he said, \u201cThey call you \u2018Gangsta Granny.\u2019\u201d So I asked, \u201cWhy \u2018Gangsta Granny?\u2019\u201d He said, \u201cBecause you know the game.\u201d Once they had heard my story, they knew that I did know the game.<\/p>\n Prisons don\u2019t care about who is an alcoholic or who is an addict. If you commit a crime because you\u2019re an alcoholic, the prison system doesn\u2019t care about that. If you\u2019re charged with an assault and you were under the influence when you assaulted somebody, that assault takes priority.<\/p>\n Zenger:\u00a0<\/strong>Where are your men\u2019s and women\u2019s sober living facilities, and how do you manage them?<\/p>\n Wilson:\u00a0<\/strong>I have been doing the women\u2019s housing for a little over three years, and the men\u2019s housing for a little over two years. The idea for a women\u2019s house came as a result of working with a women\u2019s program in jail. They would get released and not be able to find affordable housing.<\/p>\n They would have to return to their drug-using boyfriends or to drug-infested environments. I can house eight women, and I can house six men. Women have difficulty getting sober living like men because they think women are going to get pregnant or bring men.<\/p>\n Or that if something breaks in the house, women don\u2019t have the skills to fix it. I provide affordable housing and income-based rent in a quiet, family-oriented, clean, residential, tree-lined neighborhood in Savannah, Georgia.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a policy-protected neighborhood, giving them the opportunity to get themselves together where nobody\u2019s hanging on the corner. They won\u2019t get bombarded by someone selling drugs or men whistling at the women. Nobody\u2019s standing on the street.<\/p>\n I bought and furnished the houses with my own money with some community donations. I provide furniture, utensils, pots, pans, sheets, pillowcases, quilts, beds, TVs, and musical equipment. The only thing they bring is their clothing and personal belongings.<\/p>\n The criteria for the housing is that you are involved in an outpatient treatment program, signing a release for me to obtain their urinalysis from that program. Nobody\u2019s sitting around the house watching soap operas. You have to go to work or school. Their status is anonymous.<\/p>\n I tell the residents of my housing that there is no reason for you to hang over the back fence. You don\u2019t have to tell the next-door neighbor that you\u2019re an alcoholic and an addict and you just came out of the penitentiary. All they know is that you rent from Mrs. Wilson.<\/p>\n Zenger:\u00a0<\/strong>How did you become an ordained minister and what is your spiritual message?<\/p>\n Wilson:<\/strong>\u00a0I became a licensed Unity Teacher in 2006, and I am an ordained minister with the Unity Movement. I had been going back and forth to Unity village in Missouri for five years prior to that taking classes and studying.<\/p>\n I got into Unity when I was trying to get sober. My alcoholism had really gotten bad. I was hospitalized more than six times, and in those days, there weren\u2019t any detox regimens. I was having a difficult time getting it together, and a woman who was suffering from schizophrenia came up to me and said, \u201cYou need to go down to Lincoln Center in New York and hear a man called Eric Butterworth.\u201d<\/p>\n Eric has written many books. In fact, Oprah Winfrey has announced on her show many times that \u201cDiscover The Power Within You<\/a>\u201d enhanced her life. Eric Butterworth wrote that book.\u00a0Maya Angelou and Oprah Winfrey<\/a>\u00a0were Unity students. Maya Angelou eulogized Eric Butterworth.<\/p>\n In 1971, before getting sober in 1972, I began to listen to Eric talk about the truth of how God loves me. I had never been in a church, per se, but it\u2019s not really a church but a center where the ministers talked about there being one God who loves you just as you are.<\/p>\n My family was Methodist, so we were always preached at rather than taught. So I would rather be taught than preached, so I was being taught how much God loves me, and I began to believe that. I believe to this day that God wants me to be clean and sober.<\/p>\n Zenger:\u00a0<\/strong>Can you discuss the notion of judgment?<\/p>\n Wilson:\u00a0<\/strong>My minister is a Caucasian gay man who has been in recovery for 22 years. I have been taught through Unity that I look to what it is that you are doing with your life as it applies to my life. If I don\u2019t want to be judged, then I can\u2019t judge. Judgment is a full-time job.<\/p>\n I am not one to think that anybody is better than me regardless of what you\u2019ve got, how you look, nor do I think I am better than anyone else. Unity has taught me to choose the battles that I want to fight, so I know how to remove Evelyn from certain battles today.<\/p>\n So I can love you and just move out of your way. Unity teaches me to be more of an individual. If I say that I want peace and love in the world, then I have to be a peaceful and loving person. God does not disrespect persons. God loves everybody.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why there\u2019s such diversity and why everybody is so different. If God wanted everybody to look the same, we would all have the same skin color, hair texture, and eye color. But God created us with diversity because diversity gives us the opportunity to love what we see.<\/p>\n What I say to the inmates is that God is a respecter of persons and that if God got me clean and sober, then God can get you clean and sober. The fact that you are locked up is a hiccup in life. People go through many hiccups in life, but the key is not to stop at that hiccup.<\/p>\n They do something about it, and they move forward. But you can only do that if you feel you\u2019re worthy of doing that. My philosophy is the better you feel about yourself the better you\u2019ll treat yourself.<\/p>\n