Growing Together of Lake Worth, Florida

[GregFL]

Re: Dear old uncle Joe "Worse case, if he survives this treatment and will take him (as you say) 15 years to get right again, that implies that we will be alive 15 years from now, and that is good news. It certainly beats the alternative."


This statement assumes that the "rehab" really works.  I am here to say it does not.  I know very many graduates of these various programs, and most of them use drugs after graduating, some with a vengence.  Recapturing your free will often means thumbing your nose at your capturs,and returning to drug use seems to be the easiest method.

One of my best friends died with a needle in his arm, an apparent intentional overdose/suicide. He graduated at the same time i did.. Other graduates I knew are still messed up, some not.  Think about all the kids that used drugs when we were coming up and think about them now. Most have grown out of the destructive behaviors of their youth. Hopefully your son/daughter will also. Tragically, some die. No program can prevent that, and no amount of brainwashing will ever cure anybody, it just substitutes one set of problems for another, and sometimes makes things much worse.

By the way, my name is Greg,a  program graduate,  and I haven't posted in a long, long time. I was in "treatment" some 27 years ago in a place called the seed, the predecessor to the straight and the place where you son is now.  I personally knew the founder of Growing together and the "straight"  Are you aware that they both were derived from the same model, a st pete/ft lauderdale drug rehab called the Seed?


Good luck with your child, and I sincerely hope that your relationship with him isn't permanently marred by this. You see, broken families is the real legacy of these programs, not drug free kids.

[FaceKhan]

Antigenic what do you mean? Are you trying to tell us that Blopa pulled his/her kid out and some jerk is posting in his place? Or is it someone else you are referring to?

Slavish discipline makes a slavish temper... If severity carry'd to the
highest pitch does prevail, and works a cure upon the present unruly
distemper, it often brings in the room of it a worse and more dangerous
disease, by breaking the mind; and then, in the place of a disorderly young
fellow, you have a low spirited moap'd creature, who, however with his
unnatural sobriety he may please silly people, who commend tame unactive
children, because they make no noise, nor give them any trouble; yet at
last, will probably prove as uncomfortable a thing to his friends, as he
will be all his life an useless thing to himself and others... Beating them,
and all other sorts of slavish and corporal punishments, are not the
discipline fit to be used in the education of those we would have wise,
good, and ingenuous men...
John Locke, 1692

[Antigen]

Wonder who wrote that for him... No, Jason. Notice that it's been some time since Pablo's last post? And this one is sort of a bum's rush?


I'm guessing he either got busted or busted himself for talking to splits, pulls and screw-ups. Might have even brought some difficult questions to staff or the parents' group from here. So now, after they've installed cult members into the guy's home (and, believe me, they're running the place) and had a few more open meetings, maybe one of their grueling weekend seminars, now he's 'decided' that he's perfectly happy with everything about the program. Sounds just exactly like a canned response 'recomended' by the cult.


BTW, HI Greg! :-) Long time no hear from ya! Check your mail.

[FaceKhan]

Rant Trek the next generation oh. Ok I did find it a bit odd that Blopa would use 2 sorta different names to post the same message twice in 5 minutes and then to come up as unregistered when he was registered before although that could just be because his cookies expired.


Yeah he did seem to be giving us the "hello, goodbye, and in case I don't see ya have a nice life bit" there.  Well with what Dubya, Walters and Ashcroft have been doing lately we are all gonna find ourselves attending Bush's new cult which he will call USA, United Sitizens Association. Open meetings start next week right after the summary executions of political dissidents, moderate democrats, the left-wing conspiracy, George Carlin, the entire staff of the New York Times, and any and all drug offenders, who are according to Walters indirectly funding terrorism with their illicit purchases.  

Slavish discipline makes a slavish temper... If severity carry'd to the
highest pitch does prevail, and works a cure upon the present unruly
distemper, it often brings in the room of it a worse and more dangerous
disease, by breaking the mind; and then, in the place of a disorderly young
fellow, you have a low spirited moap'd creature, who, however with his
unnatural sobriety he may please silly people, who commend tame unactive
children, because they make no noise, nor give them any trouble; yet at
last, will probably prove as uncomfortable a thing to his friends, as he
will be all his life an useless thing to himself and others... Beating them,
and all other sorts of slavish and corporal punishments, are not the
discipline fit to be used in the education of those we would have wise,
good, and ingenuous men...
John Locke, 1692

[Antigen]

Yeah, we're bad for his program... OTOH, it has just come to my attention that Drug Free America Incorporated is an inactive corporation in Florida. Not the same entity as Drug Free America Foundation (who has taken over the domain name). And I can't seem to find a law enforcement agency anywhere but Chicago that's giving away free drug test kits and gulag referals to parents.


Is it just me or could there be some disention among the ranks? Maybe just the hint of a retreat? I'd much rather see that than watch them dig their heels in and get what's coming to them. All personal animosity aside, I used to be one of them. There, but for the grace of God and one very kind fomer Jesuit, go I.

[Blopa]

It's me I am Blopa (Pablo) and I wrote a much longer reply, but it 'blanked out' or disapeared when I was about to post it, maybe because I am not a registered user anymore. The story of the password is a long one: I was receiving emails constantly for unrelated issues, so I changed my email address at this forum. Now I can't log in anymore with my initial username.


I did not revisit this site for a while until I could make up my mind regarding my son's placement. Up to then I had nothing to contribute.


Nobody asked me to write anything, I did not get in trouble and I did not pull my son.


I am getting kids 3 and 4 times a week, I talk with them a lot, play with them, eat with them. I talk to other parents and with former 'clients', etc.  Up to this point I think that this is a good program. There are several kids that leave the day they become 18 (so they can sign themselves out!), and others that chose to stay.  There are kids that are droped of the program by staff because their parents do not participate.  I witness all of this, nobody told me this things.


I guess that unlike cancer, the treatment and cure of drug addiction is still a 'practice' and not an exact science.  But after 3 or 4 other treatment programs and years of counseling, this is the best alternative we know.  Like others, my son was way on his way to kill himself with his life on the 'outside'; I doubt he would be alive today.  The first thing I had to secure was his life, and that we accomplished.  He appears to be working the program.


I see several differences between what I read was normal practice at those other programs and GT: there is no locking people in rooms, there are no special PBJ sandwich diets, no belt-looping (whatever that means), no sitting on top of kids, no spitting at one's face, kids can sign out at 18, kids can refuse treatment (I saw this many times) like not talk, refuse to take pills.  All these could be fundamental differences that makes this program different from The Seed, etc.


I understand we are taking a risk, but we were not sitting by the fireplace one day and out of boredom decided to send our beloved son to a jail!   We did this when life together became impossible, when his survival was at stake, when he was high and non-functional (like skipping school every other day), etc.  I asked here and in other places: Do you have a valid alternative as a solution? and NOBODY came forward with a workable solution. "Talk to him", "Love him unconditionally" etc. are the kind of 'solutions' suggested to me. I did all that, it does not work by itself.

[Cheeky54]

Re: You'll never see it. I can't believe after all that you have heard from people, that you don't seem to grasp the simple fact that you'll never see it.  The kids will come to your home, you'll talk to parents and graduates who are still obviously brainwashed, they'll never say anything against the program.  You'll never see it, until it's to late.  Even then you might now, I know tonnes of kids who after they got out of treatment tried to explain to their parents the things that went on when the parents weren't around, and by that point the parents are so programmed they don't believe their own kids.


I use to spend time (on staff) at a different centre trying to convince parents that treatment was the only solution, practiclly begging for the sake of the life of their child, to sign them into the program.  I would give everything in the world now if I could sit down with some of those parents and you and try to make you understand how wrong it is.


Tearing someone down to try and build them up into the image you want is wrong. They'll never be the same, they'll never be the person they were meant to be.  Even though I have been out of hell for 5 years, I still have not found myself.  I don't know if I ever will.  They'll always be a bit of them in me and that is really hard to accept.

[Antigen]

Alternative solution Pablo, I did offer you an alternative course of action. You just didn't like it. But I'll repeat it to save you the trouble of going back over old postings.


Take a look out your window down to the waterway. See all those little boats skimming playfully on the shimmering water? Buy one or rent one with the money GT will squeeze out of you if given the chance. Take your boy, your wife, maybe a friend or two and spend a couple of weeks or months touring pleasant little sub-tropical vacation spots.


Or maybe a tour of Europe?


Or something more to your liking.


I know this stuff doesn't sound medical or magical enough to do any good. But the fact is that drug abuse and other self destructive behavior is not a disease. In young people, it's more often an adventure gone bad or just a simple lack of perspective. Help your son gain some of that. Give him a change of set and setting and a little distance from his problems. From the look of things, you can afford that.


Even if you can't carry off any of the high buck options mentioned above, it's real cheap to walk the AT. That would afford both of you all of the adventure, solitude and oportunity to commune with nature offered by those high-buck wilderness programs without the risk inherent in abandoning your child to a psychotic, sadistic cult.


Cheeky's right. I never heard of physical beatings during our family's 10 year association with The Seed in Ft. Lauderdale. And I only got sat on once in Sarasota. It was the psychological aspect of the program that was so harmful.


After months of limited sleep, constant surveilance and antagonism and just overwhelming emotional group interplay, they're telling him things like "Your parents don't want you any more, that's why you're here." Every kid suspects that whenever they're at odds with their family. And, in that state of mind, he believes it without question.


Did you say there's a tendency toward suicide in your family? There's no worse thing you could do than to expose your son to this particular type of treatment. Suicide rates among former clients, including graduates and staff, runs around 100 times (one hundred times... no typo) the national average.


Cheeky, you will find yourself. Your self never left, it's just that you were trained to reject you. No life is without some sorrow, but it'll be alright, I promise.

[velvet2000]

Re: Alternative solution I've probably said this before here, but talking to your kid, loving him and supporting him is the best solution in the long run. You want to force your son to change right now dramatically because you're scared for him. That's understandable, but wanting and actually trying to force him to do it are two different things. If he died out there, you would miss him but know that you were the best parents you could be. If he doesn't die in a straight based program, you will live with the knowledge that you exposed him to torture and pretended that you didn't.


Once again, as myself and many others have said, I was not beaten, I was not belt looped, I was not sleep deprived or starved. I was humiliated, insulted, manipulted, and denied the right to be myself. Going through an experience like that during your youth is much harder to recover from becuase you are still emotionally developing, than it is for adults who also are torn over cults like this.


I once started my own program that helped youth who were far into addiction. It was non confrontational, you could come and go as you  pleased, there wasn't even any counseling, kids could just talk to kids. The only real rule is that the kids had all the power and anyone who judged or broke confedientiality would be dismissed. The result was an extremely succesful program where most kids changed quickly and were able to move on to better things. My point is that tough love doesn't work. Actual unconditional love does.

[Kathy]

GRowing Together Did you check out the police report.  Alot more rape goes on in the program than what is reported.... I'm sure the Naked Crusader still lives at GT.... For your son's sake, I hope it/he doesn't.  I'll pray for you and your son.

[ramprato]

Same old song & dance...... I've given out to you till I'm blue in the face Pablo, you don't listen, you just brush aside everything that is said to you. You try to "convince" us all that what you are doing to your kid is right. I sometimes wonder if you are really just trying to convince yourself that you think you right or why else would continue to keep coming back here all these weeks later. Remember now, we are the "screw-ups" according to GT, why do you still want to hang around here anyway?, you obviously got it all figured out. You run a good business, make good money, you must think of yourself as such a "success", so what could we possibly tell you that you don't already know? If your looking for some kind of guarantee that your choice was right, your not going to find it here.....People here went through 20 years ago what your son is experiencing NOW, and I don't think you are seeing too many good results from our experiences Pablo. So why Pablo do you keep coming back?    

[2dogs2]

Blopa  Hey man!!!  I'm just gonna bit my lip. But before I do... I just want to tell you that the suggestions you were given,("Talk to him", Unconditional love) do work.  In fact they aren't supposed to be "tactics. You should have been applying them to your son all along.  Shoulda, coulda ,woulda....

  I know things are seeming so much better now. They are better , your kid is safe and he is learning some respect and all that....  But , later (since there is no talking you out of it) when your kid starts telling you and other people things that totally conflict with your own (and his) version of how things really were, listen to him and accept it because if you tell him he's crazy you will be right back where you started...probably worse. You are going to see. That is a fact. When is the question, and at what cost.  

   I would also give you this challenge: Find me one person a year after G.T. who thinks they truly needed what they recieved there.    I'm not talking about the ones who are still envolved in the program.  Good luck........Dogs

[FaceKhan]

Re: Blopa Pablo, you were never looking for information, you were looking for someone to sympathize and validate your fears and concerns. That is what GT does for you. They make you feel as if you are doing the right thing. The problem is that while you are being supported your son is being warehoused and tormented to keep you from knowing the truth and to keep the money coming in. You are a new and naive member of a cult and your son is the only one that you will believe who will give you the truth and that is why he is kept from you and that is why you are told from the beginning that when and if he complains that your are not supposed to believe him. Smart, successful, loving people can be duped by cults like GT, if you were not smart, successful and loving, you would not be of interest to GT. They play off your ego, and your rectitude and your love of your son to get your money and initiate you into their twisted belief system.


I am 18 and I  have many friends who have been way into all sorts of drugs. They stole from parents to support their habits (although they were not addicted they just wanted to get high) and they were high, drunk, stoned, tripping, rolling, or shrooming for a long time. By every common misconception about drug use and abuse, by the word of every cop and  health teacher, and drug war zealot, a lot of them should be dead by now. But they are not. In fact in the last few months, most of the people I know who were the most heavily into drugs have cleaned up totally, because they began to realize that they can't handle it, that even though they are not chemically addicted they needed it to get through their day and the rest of their lives were on hold. My friend "J" who has probably been drunk or stoned from middle school to the end of highschool has quit everything, even ciggarrettes in the last six months. He swore off the harder stuff months ago, and then quit weed and ciggarretes this month. At first it was almost uncomfortable to me, because unlike many of them I never got into to most drugs and I almost never drink, and so when they said we were quiting I was


 One of them was court ordered to rehab recently but that was because he failed drug tests while on a probation for a DUI but none of the others had ever been arrested or gotten in trouble for anything.


 For me, I never had a habit to quit. I did one thing occassionally when I felt like doing it and since it was so infrequently I never felt any of the possible negative effects.


"There is always choice. We say there is no choice only to comfort ourselves with the decision we have already made. If you understand that, there's hope. If not .."  

Slavish discipline makes a slavish temper... If severity carry'd to the
highest pitch does prevail, and works a cure upon the present unruly
distemper, it often brings in the room of it a worse and more dangerous
disease, by breaking the mind; and then, in the place of a disorderly young
fellow, you have a low spirited moap'd creature, who, however with his
unnatural sobriety he may please silly people, who commend tame unactive
children, because they make no noise, nor give them any trouble; yet at
last, will probably prove as uncomfortable a thing to his friends, as he
will be all his life an useless thing to himself and others... Beating them,
and all other sorts of slavish and corporal punishments, are not the
discipline fit to be used in the education of those we would have wise,
good, and ingenuous men...
John Locke, 1692

[Blopa]

Growing Together of Lake Worth, Florida I am a parent of a teenage boy that abused every drug, was kicked out of school, stealed from us repeatedly and got in trouble with the police for minor ofenses. He had a very defiant attitutde with us also. As he kept failing drug tests and all the warnings and consequences did very little to improve his behavior or stop his growing, daily drug use, I sent him to Growing Together. I am interested in information about this place and program as I love my son and want to help him and not harm him. I will appreciate any factual info anybody can provide me.

Thanks!

[ramprato]

Blopa Thank you for writing,


I hope you have had the chance to see the police report about Growing Together at the following link. Its contents concern a sex abuse charge. Scroll down a bit over halfway down and look for the heading "Sex abuse and rights of children in Florida rehab programs", there are 5 further links concerning that police report. I hope that tells you something about Growing Together that the ones running it didn't want you to know. I would implore you to MAKE yourself find other options for your troubled kid. These people are not the answer, don't let them sucker you in anymore saying to you they are it, the only ones that can "help" you kid. The methods they use to "fix" your kid require extreme mental abuse him leaving him shell shocked with lifetime nightmares and perinea, and falsely guilt-ridden for life, you will take what ever problem there was with him before and only add more to his already long list.

http://fornits.com/straight/headlinenews/index.htm'>fornits.com/straight/head.../index.htm


Growing together is just a spin-off of Straight Inc., with a new name. Please read up on it at http://thestraights.com/straight/'>thestraights.com/straight/