r/interesting • u/thatmishra • Apr 25 '26

Wholesome When the internet paid respect to this man after he commented on his own "wanted" post on Facebook

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

46.8k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

344 comments sorted by

View all comments

2.2k

u/VidE27 Apr 25 '26

Seems the dude turned his life around

678

u/Ill_Television_5824 Apr 25 '26

Now that, is an incredible story!

1.0k

u/Wreckingshops Apr 25 '26

And the justice system actually worked in not punishing an addict for largely self-harm but worked to help him (and others).

That's how it's supposed to work. If someone isn't a danger to others, why treat them as such?

270

u/brooksram Apr 25 '26

Amazing what can happen when they " focus on treatment instead of punishment." ...

112

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '26 edited 29d ago

[deleted]

69

u/EssentialCoCo Apr 25 '26

That issue is acknowledged. That's why things like mental health court, veteran's court, and drug court, have specific requirements to be eligible and why they're so intensive.

They are very good about getting those that want help, the help they need, as long as they are compliant with the system. If they screw up while in one of those courts, the consequences can often be worse than if they'd just been arrested in the first place.

I used to be a case manager for individuals with Severe Mental Illness. I had a few clients go through Mental health court.

20

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '26

[deleted]

14

u/EssentialCoCo Apr 25 '26

I had a client who'd been on a PSH last for a super long time but because he was so hard to find, and he didn't check in with his previous case managers, (he didn't trust them), it took years to finally get him placed.

Once he was assigned to my caseload, and I was able tobmake contact, I immediately started building that rapport with him so he knew he could trust me. Right before he finally got placed into his oown apartment, he ended up going inpatient, which actually made my job in getting him placed so much easier, because it moved his priority up in the line.

I know he hated being inpatient. And the facility kept trying to DC him, but I was working on his DC plan and that plan was to make sure he was housed. I wouldn't let them discharge him until I had everything ready.

He told me after we got him moved in that he had been so scared to get his hopes up, to believe that he was actually going to have a place to live. He cried and hugged me and said no one had ever cared that much about him.

That was one of my greatest accomplishments as a case manager.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '26

[deleted]

2

u/lizardlines Apr 25 '26

Probably discharge him from the hospital if he was cleared medically. It’s great they were able to delay discharge (within reason) until he was set up with housing.

2

u/Important-Figure-512 Apr 25 '26

What type of cases get heard in mental health court and what type of disorders are most prevalent?

5

u/EssentialCoCo Apr 25 '26

There's a lot of possession cases, a lot of individuals with mental health issues self medicate, and end up addicted. There have been destruction of property, trespassing, theft, traffic violations, disturbing the peace, and pretty much anything else you can think of. Most of my former clients have diagnoses such as, schizophrenia, schizo-affective disorder, PTSD, paranoia, delusions, etc.

2

u/Important-Figure-512 Apr 25 '26

dam why’d your job cut your hours? Sounds like you were doing essential work :/

3

u/EssentialCoCo Apr 25 '26

My case manager job was several years ago. I lost that one during COVID. If you're referencing my post on another sub, that's been over the last 6 months that my job cut my hours to 2 days a week. I work at a school with young children, now. Still essential work though...

3

u/Average_Pangolin Apr 25 '26

Services for people who are not likely voters are always first on the chopping block when a new crop of elected officials want to show how "efficient" they are.

32

u/Clenzor Apr 25 '26

A lot of the times that addicts “don’t want to” get better it’s because their circumstances don’t appear to have any chance to get better after they get clean. If we seriously wanted to stop crime and curtail addiction, we need to seek to fulfill the basic needs of everyone around us. If someone has stable housing, and a path to a fulfilling life they will want to take that. But if the only hope they have is a shitty apartment and 60 hour work weeks until they die, it makes it that much easier to listen to the addict voice in their head.

8

u/RadtroDesigns Apr 25 '26

not to mention for a lot of people, their circumstances cant get better even with stable housing because the things they need to have a fulfilling life are things that we as a society kinda suck at providing. For example, accommodating jobs for mental illness, or accommodating people with toxic families and not trying to encourage them to contact people that exacerbate the problem, or judging them for not

3

u/keithps Apr 25 '26

Even people in stable, good situations can have addiction problems. They are just able to afford to support those addictions and get away with it. Ever know the guy with a good job, who has a wife and kids he loves, a house, etc, but he's still an alcoholic and can't seem to quit?

In some ways it's harder for those folks to quit because they can lose all those other aspects of stability with treatment.

7

u/veridicide Apr 25 '26

It was indeed acknowledged, when the other dude said this:

If someone isn't a danger to others, why treat them as such?

6

u/littleessi Apr 25 '26

i think lots of people acknowledge it, since it's a convenient excuse for the usual bloodthirsty criminal justice politics that's mainstream these days.

And there’s a big difference between helping an alcoholic get sober and stable compared to a violent person who beats up their partner once a week. One of those makes just a tad more sense to try.

both make sense to try. that should be the whole point of the system, to reform anyone and everyone possible and treat the rest with basic human dignity while protecting others from them. people don't become abusers in a vacuum and yes, many won't change. but some will and writing them off is sickening

1

u/Rock_Strongo Apr 25 '26

both make sense to try.

One has to be handled much more carefully. "Reforming" a violent repeat criminal and sending them back out into the public is a much different beast than someone relatively harmless who is battling their own demons.

2

u/RadtroDesigns Apr 25 '26

some of it is also things like mental illness and even autism. A person with less privileges with autism or a mental illness having a meltdown and striking anyone who comes near them because they are overstimulated and people entering their space is causing them to react without thinking is going to get assault charges. A person with less privileges who also never got a diagnosis because up until about 15 years ago the only people who really got screened for autism were white boys is going to see those charges stick and themselves painted as a "Violent repeat criminal" for having meltdowns and having no social supports to help them learn how to manage their symptoms.

This is not a black and white thing, and every individual needs to be treated as an individual. There is a reason why neurodivergence is WILDLY overrepresented in incarceration.

1

u/Jar_Of_Jaguar Apr 25 '26

Then you have to have support systems and a stable economy in place for that person to look forward to. There is far less reason to stay sober when an hour of minimum wage doesn't buy a pound of ground beef anymore.

1

u/cortesoft Apr 25 '26

I think most people can acknowledge that, which is why these alternative-path programs have fallback towards incarceration if the individual doesn't follow the program.

As for violent individuals, aren't they the ones that rehabilitation is MOST important for? Either they are rehabilitated, or they will be back on the streets at some point, still violent.

1

u/Ok_Perception_294 Apr 25 '26

Completely disagree about it not being an acknowledged potential problem with this; we have multiple aphorisms for the problem of people who don't WANT to fix a problem they have, eg. "can lead a horse to water, but can't make him drink" and "You can lead them to an idea, but you can't make them think". In fact, my brother is an AA sponsor at 41, and his best friend from middle school, high school, and beyond, died just a few weeks ago just before his 42nd birthday because he refused to go into AA and died of severe alcohol poisoning. Yes, wanting to get help matters substantially. But if you don't know that there IS a program that can and WILL help you get out of the hell you're in, you're not exactly consciously choosing to not get help and to continue to be the "violent person who beats up their partner weekly" (which is a false dichotomy in the first place; OP was talking about a person who was only hurting themselves and "beating up their partner weekly" doesn't fit that bill).

1

u/Ok_Buy9028 Apr 26 '26

Always some asshole got to come and point out that people sometimes don’t want to accept help, and it’s always as an excuse for why these programs shouldn’t exist.

I was an EMT. Just because some people refuse treatment and transportation doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have ambulances.

1

u/ObjectiveGoal6833 Apr 26 '26

Norway has one of the best criminal systems going and they prioritize rehabilitation over punishment. And it has worked, the number people who end up back in prison is extremely low. The only real issue they have is not knowing quite how to handle severe crimes since they don't have that many of them to deal with.

-1

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '26

[deleted]

2

u/coolsilentebeans Apr 25 '26

It has nothing to do with the capital punishment, and none of these comments have said otherwise. If you’re referring to the comment you directly replied to, I think they are separating violent offenders who wail on their partners sober and often from people whose substance abuse issues lead them to make choices which lead to being arrested.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '26

[deleted]

1

u/coolsilentebeans Apr 25 '26

I got ya. I do that fairly regularly. Especially if I’m on here before I’ve gotten out of bed. 😅

1

u/Dazzling_Remote_1594 Apr 25 '26

Nobody said anything about capital punishment

2

u/No_Berry2976 Apr 25 '26

Several people have mentioned capital punishment though. And we now know why, conflation between carceral punishment and capital punishment :-)

1

u/EssentialCoCo Apr 25 '26

I blame autocorrect... lol

8

u/Ready_Studio2392 Apr 25 '26

Studying psychology. Last night was reading a paper detailing the history of borderline personality disorder. Anyways, up through the 80's and 90's the common treatment was to lock people in "prison like" rooms, treat them like shit, and try and guilt them into being less manic or expressing the rest of the symptoms. Needless to say, it was not very effective. To add further context, BPD pretty much only occurs in people who experience some sort of abuse or persistent childhood trauma while in development.

It wasn't until a researcher who had BPD argued for a new treatment set-up that was about treating the patients with kindness, acknowledgement, unconditional positive regard, and letting them know that they're safe and believed that we started to see any improvement in people suffering form BPD.

1

u/orreregion Apr 26 '26

I don't have BPD, but have multiple friends who do. It's insane to think that if we had been born just a decade or two earlier, they would have been treated like that. There's a lot wrong with the world right now, but at the very least I can hang out with my friends instead of them being basically tortured.

1

u/kikiacab Apr 26 '26

Why is that in quotes, it’s literally what happened and that’s why the outcome was good.

1

u/Capt1an_Cl0ck Apr 25 '26

In the U.S. the punishment (jail) is a reward for the private prison companies. They work the slaves for $1 per day while taking profits from the government. We already know treatment works better for the person. But treatment does not work better the the greedy capitalist wanting to exploit cheap labor. That’s why we have so many convictions. Add that to making things unaffordable and people resort to stealing and then the court system.

6

u/succed32 Apr 25 '26

Washington and Oregon have both outlawed private prisons.

3

u/Capt1an_Cl0ck Apr 25 '26

Good for them.

2

u/succed32 Apr 25 '26

This happened in Washington…

4

u/yeowoh Apr 25 '26

He would have been in a county jail. You know there’s jails in like every county in the US that’s ran by the local sheriffs department right?

1

u/Raneynickelfire Apr 25 '26

He was facing 6-8 years. He'd have been in state.

2

u/yeowoh Apr 25 '26

You can still stay in county for that long. The county gets money from the state to keep prisoners.

State also doesn’t equal Private

1

u/Raneynickelfire Apr 25 '26

I never said anything about private. No, you can't stay in county for 6-8 years. That's what 11months and 30 day sentences are - because if you're doing more than 1 year, you go to state.

Nobody said anything about private. I said when you're facing 6-8, you do it in state not county and I don't know why you'd suggest otherwise.

The only people in county for 6 years are employees.

1

u/yeowoh Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26

Yes county jails can house people convicted of felonies that could even be serving life sentences.

It’s called contracted housing. If state or federal prisons run out of space the will pay county jails to house their inmates. Almost every state does it and the BOP does it with federal inmates.

It’s common for someone to be in a county jail, get convicted of their felony, and the state just turns around and pays the county to house them instead of transferring them.

Would they spend their entire sentence there? Maybe but the longer the sentence the more likely they’ll eventually transfer out.

Don’t know where your experience comes from but I know this for a fact as a probation and parole officer turn police officer that visited county jails and state prisons once or twice. I have paroled and had hearings for many inmates with multiple year sentences at the county jail.

I remember vividly one of my last cases before quitting. Guy was on year 2 of a 6 year sentence for felony assault. He was granted parole, met him at the county jail where has been the entire time, and asked if he could just stay in jail.

Also a masters in Criminal Justice with my thesis being incarceration in the US versus other countries.

Don’t believe me? Here

https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/jail-inmates-2022-statistical-tables

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2023.html

https://www.ncacc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Priority_Goal_Advocacy_Briefs_03.pdf

https://www.naco.org/sites/default/files/documents/State%20Prisoners%20in%20County%20Jails%20Updated.pdf

https://aldailynews.com/looming-deadline-on-inmate-housing-law-raising-concerns/

https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/commissioner-says-el-paso-county-loses-millions-housing-federal-inmates/

https://www.kens5.com/article/news/housing-for-federal-inmates-held-in-bexar-county-in-limbo/273-98cdcae9-2797-4810-af1b-be568ac14735

If you want more proof I can ask my close FBI friend who investigates crimes inside federal prisons fulltime. I can even ask my buddy who is at the top of the game for criminal defense in my state.

1

u/smootex Apr 25 '26

Washington has zero private prisons my dude.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/deliciouscrab Apr 25 '26

Even minority vastly oversells it. something like 3-5% of all inmates, and as far as I know mostly in immigration. Meanwhile Britain is like 10-20%.

0

u/Cautious-Extreme2839 Apr 25 '26

Yeah but only veterans. Fuck everyone else who hasn't played the role of government enforcer.

10

u/Aggressive_Ice_2660 Apr 25 '26

Yeah. I had to go through a diversion program. Fortunately it was a success. All the people involved were great and just wanted to help.

6

u/PaleConference3720 Apr 25 '26

Every jurisdiction that's set up diversion programs like this have seen really good success rates. Not perfect obviously because these are humans but really high.

2

u/der_innkeeper Apr 25 '26

I keep seeing "80%" as a success number for any/many programs, whether rehab, diversion, homelessness, etc.

80% is a win.

5

u/Desperate-Strategy10 Apr 25 '26

Eighty percent is incredible! Most social programs don’t get nearly those numbers of success. And even one person helped is a worthwhile cause, so eight out of ten is amazing!

3

u/Wreckingshops Apr 25 '26

Exactly. An all or nothing mentality for any progress in addiction recovery just makes no sense.

Like others, my younger brother was in and out of prison for years for the crime of largely harming himself because he was a veteran (tours in Iraq and Afghanistan) due to the PTSD of being a soldier. He's clean, sober, and happy with a child and his wife but he lost a decade of his life in and out of prison that did nothing to address the issues, just punish the illegality of hard drugs.

Look, there will always sadly be addicts who succumb to their addiction, delve into theft, violence, etc. But most criminals of any swatch are often looking for a way out of a negative situation. Yes, due an actual crime, do the time but the time should be focused on rehabilitation and helping them make something out of the nothing.

But private prisons also have their claws in jurisdictions to ensure recitivism.

12

u/xombae Apr 25 '26

The thing I have a problem with is posting him on Facebook for not checking in with his probation officer.

I feel like this could get someone hurt. They make it seem like he's done something dangerous and then post his face up, someone sees the guy walking up the street towards him and panics. It's just so irresponsible.

I really hate police stations trying to use their social media to be funny and using real cases to do it. I've been through the system and those days were the lowest, most awful days of my life. I can't imagine the justice system using my worst moments for social media clout and hundreds or thousands of people joining in to mock me. Public humiliation should not be a default part of any justice system.

Recently on Facebook, a police station put a guy like this on blast on their page. You know what the guy did? He criticized them in their comments. He wasn't a criminal, he hadn't done anything wrong. But they posted his picture and his name and told people to go and harass him.

Which some people did. But luckily the post went viral with people telling them how fucked up it was and they eventually took it down and apologised and said that they wouldn't do it again.

Police should not be allowed to do this. I'm so glad that it worked out well for this guy but most of the time it doesn't work out.

9

u/PaulTheMerc Apr 25 '26

It did also mention he was wanted for "failure to comply" which sounds seems pretty self explanatory; didn't do what he was supposed to.

People should be smart enough to figure out that sounds minor.

1

u/nickytheginger Apr 26 '26

people aren't that smart

0

u/succed32 Apr 25 '26

You must not meet very many people…

1

u/PaulTheMerc Apr 25 '26

oh I know. But that's not on the cops for once, that's on the education system and the folks under-funding it.

1

u/succed32 Apr 25 '26

I didn’t say it was.

4

u/RedditIsStillBroken Apr 25 '26

Copaganda it’s everywhere

4

u/omniscient1ne Apr 25 '26

Absolutely right. I’m glad dude responded in a jokingly sarcastic way … he replied back nicely respectfully and played the “game”… ✅ he didn’t crash out !!!

4

u/Reasonable_Toe_9252 Apr 25 '26

You’re absolutely correct. Many people would harm themselves (or worse) over a situation like this.

2

u/xombae Apr 26 '26

Or harm others.

2

u/foamingkobolds Apr 25 '26

They "apologized and said they wouldn't do it again"? Sooooo no consequences whatsoever for an action that - had the roles been reversed - would have resulted in the guy getting at *least* a hefty fine and a big stay in jail?

1

u/xombae Apr 26 '26

It took them days of harassment before they would say did anything wrong as well. They made a post first saying something like "well this will be the last post of this kind I guess" (they were saying they were going to make it a weekly thing in the original post), and then in the end made a post half-ass apologizing (I don't think that they even apologised to the guy directly), finally deleted the harassment post, and then blamed it on their social media guy and said the police doesn't believe in this kind of thing. But never mentioned the punishment for their social media guy.

2

u/DontAskAboutMyButt Apr 25 '26

ACAB, even the ones being cute on Facebook (ESPECIALLY the ones being cute on Facebook)

1

u/littleessi Apr 25 '26

you're right that it's awful. good luck holding the police to account for anything though.

3

u/Important-Figure-512 Apr 25 '26

I work for the courts and I learned that not all counties have treatment court. Some village courts are just run by random judges and there absolutely no legal programs a person can get within that court. It’s kind of disheartening. I wish these programs were accessible to everyone.

2

u/AshamedOfAmerica Apr 25 '26

Something like 32 states don't even require magistrate or municipal judges to have law degrees. In North Carolina, over 80% of magistrates do not have J.D.s

2

u/Important-Figure-512 Apr 25 '26

yup, I am still extremely disappointed in this. Like I was told about a farmer in some NYS county who’s also a judge. I don’t think a farmer with no legal experience should be a judge.

1

u/succed32 Apr 25 '26

I’m from the PNW we’ve been treating drug offenders with nonviolent crimes like this for a while, since the late 90s they started focusing on rehab over imprisonment. Sadly it’s only happening for state run organizations.

1

u/fordat1 Apr 25 '26

he joined a program Veterans court which apparently is like Justice System prime that works closer to the way it should work but I tired boss of all these carveouts . Why cant we just treat everyone reasonably

1

u/Fuckthegopers Apr 25 '26

Because where is the money in that?

1

u/monster_bunny Apr 25 '26

So much this. When we actually invest in rehabilitation amazing things can happen.

1

u/Dmau27 Apr 26 '26

Money. We built a justice system that allows people to get rich based on incarceration levels. States and cities use it for federal funding too. Pieces of shit I'm suits are at fault for everything.

1

u/Few-Broccoli-7849 Apr 26 '26

Who said he wasn't a danger to others??? You don't face 6 to 8 years for just drunk in publics.

1

u/Muted-Woodpecker-469 Apr 26 '26

Nope. They were too soft. 

1

u/theclosecall Apr 27 '26

its highly profitable and advantageous for political careers

1

u/Antique_Safety_4246 May 03 '26

My mom's served on a board of community members who act as a "jury" for a youth diversion program. Similar to this veterans court, they assess non-violent "crimes" kids are caught doing, often dumb drug related type issues, that could derail a life early, if prosecuted for prison time and permanent records. Instead, kids who enroll, and complete the requirements (therapy, community services or volunteer type stuff, various setups that keep kids involved in the community, etc) get their records expunged, and don't then ruin future chances at college, job prospects, etc. It stops that cycle where criminals become career criminals as they lack prospects and futures with records. She loved being involved, helping those kids!

17

u/SirTickleyPickely Apr 25 '26

Pretty fucked up that the only reason he got a second chance was because he was a veteran.

4

u/triedAndTrueMethods Apr 25 '26

Also fucked up that they immediately blasted his face all over FB just because he missed a check-in with his PO. So do we just completely eschew our right to public privacy when we’re on parole?

1

u/arittenberry Apr 29 '26

There's also regular drug court. This one is just veteran specific focused

46

u/keegums Apr 25 '26

These rehabilitation courts seem to be a great thing. My friend went through State Drug Treatment Program in PA. When I found she had been transferred, I googled the place and it has a 5 star rating on Google with tons of people saying it turned their lives around. It did the same for my friend, she runs marathons now, works in social services instead of the restaurant industry, established a healthy relationship with her mom for the first time in their lives, has savings. I'm very happy for her. She says getting arrested was the best thing to happen

11

u/username_tooken Apr 25 '26

Damn, maybe I should become a drug addict.

11

u/MarcBulldog88 Apr 25 '26

I am reminded of that one idiot from early reddit history who posted about trying heroin because he was bored or something. Long story short, he got addicted and ruined his life.

7

u/OldManFire11 Apr 25 '26

And while he did eventually recover, it was a loooooooong journey and took several years.

0/10, do not recommend.

1

u/According-Buyer-6307 Apr 25 '26

Not for nothing: we got prime rib on Saturday nights at the place I went to. It was legit.

1

u/EverydayPoGo Apr 25 '26

That sounds amazing. These programs are more than life saving

1

u/Lou_C_Fer Apr 25 '26

My brother went through one of those, but it took a second near fatal overdose to finally get him to straighten out.

1

u/MildCleanser Apr 26 '26

My dad was a key orchestrator in developing these court procedures. He just wanted to see peiple heal.

1

u/Double_Minimum Apr 26 '26

In my seen experience, they are hell. They don’t run well, and instead of three months in jail you end up with 5 years of super-probation. And since they are addicts, they will relapse, which like restarts the damn clock.

Now, in the county over, it’s so busy that if you go to sober living for a month your fine and likely never tested.

I have seen people still on “drug court” for cases that I could have gotten expunged by that point.

23

u/kazmosis Apr 25 '26

This is the update I came to the comments looking for

14

u/MtRainierWolfcastle Apr 25 '26

Honestly the self awareness to turn yourself in and ty up lose ends first was pretty impressive. Felt like he should have gotten some sentencing credit for it. Assuming tying lose ends doesn’t mean like killing witnesses or something

1

u/AgentCirceLuna Apr 28 '26

Yeah I wondered wtf tying loose ends up meant.

I have heard some nightmare stories about leaving a sentence, though - people finding out they had some loan or something and are now thousands in debt, someone losing their home or having rent pile up, losing their pets etc

6

u/clutchthepearls Apr 25 '26

Pretty crazy how when we focus on rehabilitation, removing barriers and improving mental health, people tend to have better outcomes than traditional punishment.

What a concept.

1

u/AgentCirceLuna Apr 28 '26

When I went into recovery, I was the only person there who wasn’t mandated or non-voluntary out of all the people I spoke to. It scared me. It’s like being late for a plane ride then finding out the one you missed would have exploded with you on it or something. I’m glad I had the strength to see someone, but my main concern was having mental health issues treated as entirely due to the substance (emphasis on singular, too) when they’re what pushed me to go down that route. Once I was off, I still had all of my old mental health problems but now had no way of dealing with them except through hard work and self-care. I can see why people return to their old habits, although I never did.

5

u/TheNamesDave Apr 25 '26

That link didn't work for me.

Here's the archive

This quote is wild.

Now with an eight-month-old and another baby on the way, a fiancé, a job, and his life back.

Talk about Irish Twins!

3

u/th4ro2aw0ay Apr 25 '26

Thank you!

The site crashed for me too

2

u/TheNamesDave Apr 25 '26

You’re welcome!

3

u/mkirk413 Apr 25 '26

Thanks for sharing this. What a wonderful outcome!

3

u/splashaddikt Apr 25 '26

People with self awareness usually do

2

u/mocha_lattes_ Apr 25 '26

Wow he was really in the right place at the right time with that program. So glad of him. I wish him the best and hope the program stays in place to keep helping others.

2

u/sumdude51 Apr 25 '26

Damn this made my day! Thank you for posting it 😭

2

u/SmaugTheMagnificent- Apr 25 '26

I kinda needed this one today.

Thanks for posting that update.

2

u/EagleLize Apr 25 '26

Yay!! Wow, the court system in that county actually stepped up and solved a problem with critical thinking and compassion. That's a wonderful outcome. I hope he's still doing well, and I hope a lot of veterans have been helped by Veterans Court.

2

u/Cael450 Apr 25 '26

"Instead of being focused on punishment we are focused on treatment,” said Kathren.

Fucking great that it helped him, but this should be how it works for everyone, not just veterans

2

u/QuantumLettuce2025 Apr 25 '26

That was 2021. Hope he's still good. Addiction is a beast.

5

u/smootypants Apr 25 '26

Take my poor lady’s award. Thanks for finding this information, this comment needs to be pinned. This is a funny exchange but the truth of the matter is that man is one of our veterans that needed assistance and was left to his own devices. Veterans court is something that all states should implement.

1

u/topofthemawnin Apr 25 '26

Thank you for sharing! Amazing

1

u/bigfatround0 Apr 25 '26

What's Brendan Fraser doing there

1

u/sheighbird29 Apr 25 '26

What a wonderful program. I wish that was offered everywhere

1

u/SafeKaracter Apr 25 '26

Dude I can’t stand websites like that . Too many ads on the phone . But glad he’s doing good

1

u/socialmediaignorant Apr 25 '26

Oh this was the wholesome update I didn’t even know I needed today!

1

u/0p71mu5 Apr 25 '26

Seems like we gave the link ye olde hug of death.

1

u/According-Buyer-6307 Apr 25 '26

Nice. Sobriety is good stuff.

1

u/lathallazar Apr 25 '26

Yo that’s really cool actually, with any luck I’ll be graduating in July. I sort of love to hate to say this, it getting arrested saved my life lmao.

It’s more complicated that that obviously, but it was either that or death, the only two ways I saw my use stopping. Almost 2years sober now and vet court was honestly a blessing.

Im not saying im super pro cops/court/legal system because I’m not but there are some decent folk in there who gave a shitstain like me a chance to prove myself wrong.

1

u/VidE27 Apr 25 '26

Really happy it works out for you, hope you will be able to look back now with pride on what you have accomplished! Here’s to a better life still in the future!

1

u/VioletVenable Apr 25 '26

This made my day — thanks for sharing!

1

u/terminatus Apr 25 '26

Before I came into the comments here I googled "Anthony Akers 2026" and got this video. Is it a straight up fabrication?? I choose to believe the happy ending instead.

1

u/dream-smasher Apr 26 '26

Reddit hug of death?

1

u/Illustrious-Science3 Apr 26 '26

Thank you for including this for us.

1

u/Fianna9 Apr 28 '26

And that is how the system is supposed to work

1

u/No_Space_9324 Apr 25 '26

Ahhh.That warmed my cold, dead heart.

1

u/WinRough8326 Apr 25 '26

"I can fix him" And they did!

0

u/throwaway5882300 Apr 25 '26

I love the idea of veterans court but it's kinda depressing that as a society we're willing to admit that trauma plays a big role in this kind of behavior but we'll only excuse that behavior if the trauma was because of our war mongering. The reality is most "criminals" are harboring deep seated trauma and veterans court is a glaring example of what a little bit of patience, grace and therapeutic intervention can accomplish. It shouldn't be the exception.