January 12, 2017 - Alton Lane

West Bay Rotary

January 12, 2017

 

Peggy Smith from Center for Non-Violent Communication introduced Alton Lane

She met Mr. Lane when he was in the re-entry center in Belfast after being incarcerated.

He has used non-violent communication to re-frame his life.

 

Alton Lane

 

Abused from age 5-12 which made him an angry & hateful person

This caused him to shut down his emotions and he was living on the street by the time he was 12.

 

He didn’t have a supportive family life & he started using drugs & felt accepted by this group of people.  All he wanted was love and there was no emotional connection – He was taught that men don’t express emotions or say I love you.  If people got to close he created violent situations to protect himself.

 

When he was 17 years old he was going to have his first child.  Child wasn’t born yet and he hated her. His parents had changed their lives and found god and he went to them for help.  He was afraid that if he had a daughter she would become him.  His parents raised her – they don’t have a relationship.  Had a son at 18 – named after him, acts like him and he hated him.  The hate was to protect him from caring about him.  He was drinking at doing drugs every day.  At 21 -  he was in a bar and someone sucker punched him and he ran him over in the street & he felt no remorse. He felt like he had to hate everyone and really hated himself too.

 

He went to prison for running the man over.  Took 9-10 classes – after a few months he was back to his old ways and believed that he didn’t deserve happiness. – he pushed everyone away.

 

He met Rhonda – they’ve been together 11 years – has happiness.  He allowed himself to open up & feel.  Her children call him dad.  They say he’s not a bad person & they love him. 

 

Never had a license – got pulled over, went to the Maine Coast re-entry center.  He convinced himself that it wasn’t going to work.

 

While in the program he went to the non-violent communication class.  Thought Peggy was crazy.  A couple of classes in, he started to connect to his feelings and he asked Peggy if it was okay to have all of these feelings.  Connected these feelings to needs – were those needs okay? 

 

In 2009 both of his parents died.  Dad asked him not to get drunk & hurt people.  He got high and hurt himself.  He didn’t want to live – he wanted to die;  he never had the courage to pull the trigger.  Today he enjoys helping people. He couldn’t believe when his sisters told them that they were proud of him. 

 

Went to work at the jail – his sister’s boyfriend was in jail for aggravated assault against his sister.  He didn’t hurt him – he walked off.  His sister never told him that it happened.  He called his sister a couple days later – they didn’t want to tell him because they were afraid that he would have a violent reaction and they didn’t want to lose him. 

 

If we change our thought process – we can change our behavior.  He never patted himself on the back for his successes, but he feels pretty good about himself. 

 

He quit all chemicals.

 

Is there a single thing that you want us to walk away with?

Change is possible – people can change

 

Is there anything that we can do?

Show each other love.   Learning to love people that we disagree with.  Know that there is a way to learn

 

How did you get support for yourself when you were beginning to feel your emotions?

He would talk to Peggy a lot. 

 

Was there an a-ha moment?

When his family started to reflect unconditional love.  Having the feeling of goodness that he had from being a part of the family.  The moment he realized he thought his family was awesome and he never wanted to lose them.

 

Did you go to re-hab or detox in jail?

He de-toxed at home alone.  It wasn’t nice. 

 

How did the book happen?

Only Human – Alton Lane

Originally it was just a manuscript to get the chatter out of his head. 

 

Where else are you speaking?

Maine counseling association

Riverview psychiatric

Working on getting into the schools – it’s difficult to get into the schools.