Author Topic: Huffington Post on Straight share your comments  (Read 1538 times)

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Offline Anonymous

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Huffington Post on Straight share your comments
« on: January 17, 2009, 08:14:53 PM »
Maia SzalavitzPosted January 16, 2009 | 01:16 PM (EST) BIO Become a Fan Get Email Alerts Bloggers' Index
DEA, Florida 'Honor' Abusive Rehab Founder, Wife of Republican Financier
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 Share Print CommentsImagine if Wall Street were to honor Bernie Madoff for his skills as an investor ten years from now. The equivalent just happened in Florida, where Betty Sembler--co-founder of the abusive Straight, Inc. rehab chain--has been named by Governor Charlie Crist to its "Women's Hall of Fame" for her work fighting drugs. Last year, the DEA gave her a lifetime achievement award.

You may know Betty Sembler as wife of mall magnate Mel Sembler (another co-founder of Straight). He's the guy who headed the Scooter Libby Defense Fund, chaired finances for the Republicans during the first election of the second Bush, and served as ambassador to Italy, naming a building he acquired for the embassy for himself, in the process.

Straight--which at its peak had centers in seven states and claims to have treated 50,000 teens--has long been discredited for not only being ineffective, but harmful. Its policy of using confrontation, humiliation and physical punishment led to dozens of lawsuits, with plaintiffs winning hundreds of thousands of dollars for kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment and emotional abuse.

Some of the more notorious cases involved kids being gagged with Kotex, being restrained by fellow students until they wet or even soiled themselves, and frequent use of sexually degrading and homophobic slurs. Many survivors have since been diagnosed with PTSD; there have also been numerous suicides.

Research conducted on confrontation has found that the more it is used, the more likely patients are to drink or take drugs and drop out of treatment.

"With all the available evidence-based treatments with proven effects, it's hard to understand a desire to support things that fly in the face of evidence," says addiction expert Tom McLellan, PhD, who is CEO of the Treatment Research Institute and a professor of psychology in psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania.

Regarding Straight's tactics, McLellan says, "They're counterproductive. It's hard to even conceive of a therapeutic relationship based on confrontation, bullying and frankly, meanness."

Says William Miller, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of New Mexico and one of the leading experts on addiction treatment evaluation, "Obviously this recognition was not founded on evidence-based effectiveness in helping troubled teens."

If Straight was simply a historical relic, the refusal to accept its tarnished place in the history of addiction treatment might be tolerable. However, programs based on Straight like the Pathway Family Center in Detroit and AARC in Canada are still operating. While the worst physical excesses seem to have declined in some places, the emotional abuse of being constantly forced to focus on your flaws and bad behavior, remains.

And most teens who have been through these programs say that the psychological abuse is the worst part. Imagine being attacked every day as a "druggie" who needs to "surrender" and "admit powerlessness" and "character defects." Consider what it feels like to be told when you do discuss your actual drug use that you are lying, that you must have done more than that, that you are not telling the whole story. If you admit excessive use, you are attacked and further identified as an addict-- if you don't, you are bullied for being a liar.

Meanwhile, imagine having every aspect of your daily life under a microscope, with no privacy, even at night or in the bathroom. Everything you do or say is picked over by other teenagers whose only chance of going home and getting free is to pick up on your weaknesses and attack them, to prove that they are "working the program." And you have to attack others, too, if you want to "advance."

Consider, too, that your sex life is included in this examination--and that any desire for anyone else will be attacked as "fake" or "addictive," rather than seen as human and normal. Any relationships that you have had in the past will be tarred as "druggy"-- and you will be told that your first love never really cared for you, that anything that happened while you were "using" was about drugs and nothing more.

If you confess to being a virgin, you'll be ridiculed for that--but if you admit sexual activity, you'll be reviled as a slut. And if program staff make inappropriate advances, you'll be blamed for leading them on!

I wish I was making this stuff up--but unfortunately, I've personally listened to and read hundreds of accounts of similar and even worse treatment at Straight, Inc. and its descendants. And sadly, it's not limited to them: other "troubled teen" programs like the Family Foundation School, the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools and the Elan School are similarly based on "breaking" teenagers to fix them.

Honoring anyone involved with this kind of treatment who still fails to recognize its harms is a dishonor to us all.


Imagine if Wall Street were to honor Bernie Madoff for his skills as an investor ten years from now. The equivalent just happened in Florida, where Betty Sembler--co-founder of the abusive Straight, ...
Imagine if Wall Street were to honor Bernie Madoff for his skills as an investor ten years from now. The equivalent just happened in Florida, where Betty Sembler--co-founder of the abusive Straight, ...
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline psy

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Re: Huffington Post on Straight share your comments
« Reply #1 on: January 17, 2009, 09:11:50 PM »
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
Benchmark Young Adult School - bad place [archive.org link]
Sue Scheff Truth - Blog on Sue Scheff
"Our services are free; we do not make a profit. Parents of troubled teens ourselves, PURE strives to create a safe haven of truth and reality." - Sue Scheff - August 13th, 2007 (fukkin surreal)

Offline Anonymous

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Re: Huffington Post on Straight share your comments
« Reply #2 on: January 18, 2009, 08:18:09 AM »
I bet someone could die on front row in pfc and they would "Let's have a song" everyone. Whatever, this is quite disturbing. Not only do these straight inc fanatics not apologize and go to prison for life or commit suicide themselves, they get honors and awards and all that jazz to rub salt in all the wounds. Unreal...

 ::unhappy::  ::unhappy::  ::unhappy::  ::unhappy::
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Froderik

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Re: Huffington Post on Straight share your comments
« Reply #3 on: January 18, 2009, 10:48:27 AM »
Quote from: "The Critic"
I bet someone could die on front row in pfc and they would "Let's have a song" everyone. Whatever, this is quite disturbing. Not only do these straight inc fanatics not apologize and go to prison for life or commit suicide themselves, they get honors and awards and all that jazz to rub salt in all the wounds. Unreal...

 ::unhappy::  ::unhappy::  ::unhappy::  ::unhappy::
I know, it's sick.  :poison:
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Anonymous

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Re: Huffington Post on Straight share your comments
« Reply #4 on: January 18, 2009, 11:15:52 AM »
sing this in slow motion...

 Trapped Under Ice by Metallica

I don't know how to live trough this hell
Woken up, I'm still locked in this shell
Frozen soul, frozen down to the core
Break the ice, I can't take anymore

Freezing
Can't move at all
Screaming
Can't hear my call
I am dying to live
Cry out
I'm trapped under the ice

Crystallized, as I lay here and rest
Eyes of glass stare directly at death
From deep sleep I have broken away
No one knows, no one hears what I say

Freezing
Can't move at all
Screaming
Can't hear my call
I am dying to live
Cry out
I'm trapped under the ice

Scream from my soul
Fate, mystified
Hell, forever more
No release from my cryonic state
What is this? I've been stricken by fate
Wrapped up tight, cannot move, can't break free
Hand of doom has a tight grip on me

Freezing
Can't move at all
Screaming
Can't hear my call
I am dying to live
Cry out
I'm trapped under the ice
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline starry-eyed pirate

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Re: Huffington Post on Straight share your comments
« Reply #5 on: January 18, 2009, 01:58:44 PM »
Man, that's some druggie stash shit there bro.

I wasn't allowed to listen to Metallica in the program, even after I made 3rd phase.  No heavy metal for me.

Love that F$@^&%*in song though.  Right On!

Fuck $tr8!
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
If you would have justice in this world, then begin to see that a human being is not a means to some end.  People are not commodities.  When human beings are just to one another government becomes obsolete and real freedom is born; SPIRITUAL ANARCHY.

Offline starry-eyed pirate

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Re: Huffington Post on Straight share your comments
« Reply #6 on: January 18, 2009, 02:17:54 PM »
...and Thank God for Maia.  She has really championed us.  I love her...oh, shit. ;D  :rofl:  You know, I mean, she's great.  Thankyou Maia!

...and Froderik.  I hope you'll be somewhere watchin the game tonight.  I went to the Steelers game at Heinz Field last week against SD.  Go Steelers!
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
If you would have justice in this world, then begin to see that a human being is not a means to some end.  People are not commodities.  When human beings are just to one another government becomes obsolete and real freedom is born; SPIRITUAL ANARCHY.

Offline starry-eyed pirate

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Re: Huffington Post on Straight share your comments
« Reply #7 on: January 18, 2009, 02:32:40 PM »
Sorry I cussed.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
If you would have justice in this world, then begin to see that a human being is not a means to some end.  People are not commodities.  When human beings are just to one another government becomes obsolete and real freedom is born; SPIRITUAL ANARCHY.

Offline Anonymous

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Re: Huffington Post on Straight share your comments
« Reply #8 on: January 18, 2009, 11:34:03 PM »
Thankyou Maia, Perhaps if I were more sifisticacated,...I would ask you to meet me somewhere...As it is I don' know...such is life.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Anonymous

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Re: Huffington Post on Straight share your comments
« Reply #9 on: January 19, 2009, 02:42:54 AM »
Goodnight.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »