When his mother died of cancer 10 years ago, Ryan Tice didn’t just lose a parent; he lost his best friend.
“I had her funeral on my birthday that year,” Tice said. “I lost the only person I was able to be truly honest with. It got pretty dark from there.”
Tice said it was in that time that he became addicted to opiates -in particular Vicodin- and started down a path that ended with five felony convictions and a life-changing sentence from an Isabella County judge.
“In 2011 I had my fifth felony – a drunk driving and fleeing and eluding,” Tice said. “I was hurting on the inside and covering it with Vicodin and heroin. I thought this was where I’d always be but I wanted to be free. I don’t think anybody enjoys being an addict but you can’t see a way out.”
A friend told him about a faith-based in-patient drug treatment program called Mid-Michigan Teen Challenge; the program -for adults despite its name- was 14 months, double the length of the jail sentence Tice was facing in Jude Mark Duthie’s courtroom.
“I asked the judge to send me to the program instead of jail,” Tice said. “He did. I took that challenge and it changed my life.”
Years later, Tice -originally from Mt. Pleasant- is free of substance use, recently married and is actually running the program he credits with changing his path; his full-time career position is as the director of the men’s program at the Saginaw area treatment center.
“I found freedom there,” Tice said. “Freedom for me is that I don’t go to bed worrying at night that I’m going to get caught. I’m able to live a life.”
In his position at the center, Tice recently heard an attendee complaining about the judge who sentenced him to treatment; Tice remembered the chance Duthie gave to him.
“I said. ‘You have no idea the pressures the judge is under, politically and emotionally. You should thank him for the opportunity. You could be somewhere worse,'” Tice said. “And then I didn’t want to be a hypocrite. I had wanted to send Judge Duthie a letter thanking him for a long time.”
A few days before Christmas, Tice sent his own letter.
Read the letter: Tice thanks Duthie for choosing treatment over jail
“I wanted to write it, I wanted to honor and encourage (Duthie). My fate was in his hands,” Tice said. “He could have done whatever he wanted. He could have easily sent me to prison. It was by the grace of God that I am here.”
In addition to sending the letter to Duthie, Tice asked the Morning Sun to publish his words of thanks, saying he believes that often judges hear criticism and rarely the positive effects their decisions have on other people.
The letter appears in full on the opinion page of the Sunday, Dec. 31 edition of the Morning Sun.
“Truth be known you could have sent me to prison a couple of different times,” Tice wrote to Duthie, thanking the judge for the chance to attend treatment over jail. “Since then I have completely changed my life… The decisions you made that day …have had a positive and lasting effect on my life. I hope this letter encourages you on the day you read it…Thank you for giving me a chance.”
Tice said the letter is “double-sided,” in that he hopes to express gratitude to the judge and also encourage others to face addiction head on.
“I was a coward when I was addicted,” Tice said. “People don’t have to be stuck in addiction if they’re honest with the people closest to them. Most people care about and love you and they want the best for you.”
