Jason Kotas

What is your position at RISE? 

My official title is re-entry specialist. I graduated from the first cohort of this program while at the Omaha Correctional Center and stayed on as a peer facilitator until I was transferred to the work-release center, which is where I was when hired by RISE. Our founder and CEO, Jeremy Bouman, told me that he had been interviewing me for ten months, I just didn’t know it. Originally, I was employed as a program coordinator, which is just a fancy way of saying “office gopher”. Seriously though, I really felt like I was getting payed to go to school. Ten months ago, I couldn’t even turn a laptop on, let alone use one. Now I am teaching others, and that’s pretty awesome. 

How did you get to this point?

Back in 2012 I was deep within a methamphetamine addiction. I would oftentimes be awake for days, even weeks, and then I would sleep for 10 or 12 hours and start all over again. Towards the end of my last run on meth I was staying up for 24 days at a time, sleeping for 12 hours, and then going for another 3 and a half weeks. I used to think such descriptions were exaggerated until I was living it. If you push enough chemicals into your body it will not shut down--you will not be in reality, you will not know what is going on within you or around you, but you will not sleep—I was already out on parole after starting a sentence in 2011. Yet I didn’t care what I was supposed to be doing for my parole, I had a drug addiction to feed. On December 8, 2012, I was involved in a 25-mile high speed police chase. I was racing at 125mph in a stolen truck down gravel roads. I should not be alive today let alone sitting here for this interview. I was born and raised on a farm and I can tell you that you don’t drive that fast down gravel roads sober and well rested, let alone high and sleep deprived. I now know in my heart that God was the one keeping me between the ditches that night. 

That was the beginning of my end and led me to a bottom I had not yet hit. I spent six days in a cell by myself in the Seward County jail coming down from all the chemicals in my body. When I was finally stable enough to move into the general population, I was allowed some library time. I walked in and said out loud to no one in particular, “I’m an addict and I need some help.” I saw a man in an orange jumpsuit standing in the corner. He said “here,” and tossed me a book for a 12- step program. I did not see his face and to this day I could not tell you who he was, but whoever he is God used him mightily in my life and I owe him a huge thank you. About five pages into that book, I found some hope. I would love to tell you that I stayed clean from that moment on, but I did not. 

After a month, I was moved from Seward County back to prison. I immediately asked to go to the Substance Abuse Unit (SAU), not because I wanted to stop using drugs, but because I was out of options. I was a three-time felon and I was looking at hundreds of years in prison, so I decided to play the treatment card. I did it because I did not want to spend the rest of my life behind bars, not because I wanted to stop getting high. I continued to use drugs for about six months. July 4, 2013 is the very last time I put any mind-altering substances into my body. Today I have been clean for almost five and a half years. 

One day while standing in front of a mirror in a SAU bathroom, I had a conversation with myself—an honest conversation—I was almost 40 years old and I knew it was time to grow up. I started working a program of recovery, I participated in the classes and I took ownership of my life and the direction I wanted it to go. During this time, I started hearing things that made sense to me--that hit my heart--I can honestly say that I never expected that. Soon I realized that nothing magical was going to happen outside of me to fix me, and if I truly wanted to change, I was going to have to do some work. This involved going all the way back to my childhood and facing some things that I had been running from for decades. I grew up with an angry alcoholic under the roof, and as I got older I chose to emulate some of his lesser qualities.  Somewhere along the way I started believing the lies in my head that told me I was worthless and would never amount to anything. Those untruths had become my reality. No matter how hard I tried to keep my life together, it would always fall apart.

I have been saying for years that my kids have an amazing dad, they just haven’t met him yet.

When did you see yourself start to change?

Around the fall of 2013 while I was in treatment. SAU’s curriculum taught me that it doesn’t matter what I’ve been through, what matters is how I choose to live today. The counselors got me to ask myself, “What am I going to do differently?” November 27, 2013, almost one year after that high-speed chase, I graduated from the Substance Abuse Unit. November 27th is also my Dads birthday. We still haven’t spoken but I know that I love him. I have love in my heart for everyone, even if that is not where they are in their own lives. 

I was asked to stay on as a resident mentor and model a program of recovery, and I lived on the Substance Abuse Unit for an additional three years. Prison in general is a community of people watchers, so if you are walking the walk, and not just talking the talk, it carries a lot more weight.

I have spent the past five plus years reading, writing, studying, learning and building a relationship with Jesus Christ; that I may apply His Godly principles to my life. I continue to work my program of recovery with the help and guidance of my sponsor, and others in my network of support. I have dug deep within myself and rooted out things that should never have been there to begin with—resentment, hate, shame, self-obsession, and all sorts of other crap—During this time I have gotten to face and accept some major challenges in my life. I got divorced from my wife of 12 years. I faced five counties of felonies and received a 13.5 to 27-year sentence. I signed away rights to my four beautiful children to their Grandma; my ex-mother in law. Yet when I look back at all of this, I know that I got exactly what I needed. I could not be a good father to those children from either a prison cell or caught up in my disease of addiction.

Has your family been a part of your transformation?

My two sisters are in my life, as well as aunts, uncles, cousins, ex in-laws, and other family. My kids are now 16,14,12 and 9, three boys and a girl. I have been in touch with the oldest two since getting out of OCC, but only get updates from my sister-in-law about the two youngest. Grandma doesn’t think too highly of me, and she has valid reasons for feeling that way. I have to own my part. I have said and done some awful things in the past, but I do hope that she gets that stuff out of her heart someday soon for her own serenity. 

I have been saying for years that my kids have an amazing dad, they just haven’t met him yet. I have seen people in recovery get their children back in their lives after six or 12 months of being clean, and I am so happy for them. But when it comes to me, I still have to battle those negative thoughts such as, “It won’t happen for you,” “You don’t deserve to have your kids in your life,” or “They don’t want you.” Such thoughts remind me that I am still human, and my enemy is still there. I have been walking this thing out for a long time in faith, and I have been blessed with a beautiful new life. God has carried me through some very dark times, both in and out of recovery, and I know today with all of my heart and soul that all is as it should be. 

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