Vodka thoughts

[Jimmy Cusick]

I can hardly imagine how Libby would respond to my drinking a tall glass of Vodka and writing a pretentious letter to Art Barker. Imagine that. Once again, The seed saved my bacon. The sign on the wall next to the big fan said "Your not alone anymore". I found that to be very true. I was surrounded by teenagers that had experimented with pot, maybe L.S.D, speed and downs, very few had used harder drugs. We all had the same short haircuts , we were all hungry for acceptance by both the group and especially the staff memebers. We all felt those hormones overwhelming our sexuality. We were also very much alike in that we didnt like our parents and family. The Seed was a utopia in a sea of fire. All I had to do was stand up and repeat what I had heard from well liked, well accepted kids that were oohhed and aahhed by staff memebers. Home free.
The rap groups were about The 7 steps, honesty, drug use, principals, values, freedom, peace, seperating ourselves from other drug users, loving others and creating a world where we expanded our love and acceptance to embrace all of society. uuuummm, do you believe this. Yea, right
 anyway that is what I loved about the seed, we kick ass and take names. In 1974 we went to the orange bowl in our blue jeans and t-shirtsand sang "America" in the stadium. Th at was a wild ride. As we walked off field we were boooooooed and put down by everyone in the seats.
Keep in mind that we stood in the seed surrrounded by fifty or one hundred others so you can be sure we said all the right stuff
 I did pot, hash, THC, ups downs speed acid , mescaline, codiene, cocaine, morphine, demerol. Yea  right, I never did most of those but I wanted to be liked and accepted so I would speak it out like nothing.
 Okay folks, someone else tell me about yourself, when the seed took control of your heart and made you feel like a part.
 If I could find a place now-a-days where I could feel like a part of , that was decent, I would join them . So the vodka glass is getting empty and I have talked about my appreciation of the seed. Peace and Love to all of you.

Jimmy

[Antigen]

I always found that particular sign ironic as hell. "You're Not Alone Anymore." Yeah, no shit! I havn't had a moment's privacy since we hooked up w/ this joint and won't till I drop a postcard in the mail on the way out of town on my 18th birthday.

That's what I used to daydream about in Open Meetings. And in school. I was very much a bullied kid in school. I think by the time I hit 13, most of the bullies didn't even have a clue how I had come to be the designated target. The nice kids who knew were kind enough not to ever mention it and the yearbook staff also excercised a sympathetic censorship of some (at the time) well known facts. But it really started w/ my family becoming Seedlings and my mother known as an evangelical Seed parent all over town.

So when those hormones you mention kicked in and made my honorary Seedling status (chicklet) unbearably painful, I packed a back pack and, for the first time in my life, I skipped school! I tried to withdraw my $137 from the credit union, but my mom had frozen the account (imagine!). So I left a BOU (bitch owes you) in my dad's coin collection and started hitchhiking the fuck out of Florida. I was 15 then.

Within about 2 months, I was on front row at Straight, Inc. I think I was told that Art wouldn't accept me at The Seed because I'd been around enough that they had nothing left to teach me. Not so sure that was the entire truth, though. If anybody knows, please tell me.

But I remember looking at that same sign on the wall and seeing it quite differently. At least I knew how to navigate in Group. I knew how to win. I'd grown up on the perifery, after all, so I knew it as well as any farm kid knows how to milk a cow.

And my stomach turned as I heard my own mind read it "You're Not Alone Anymore". Yeah, at least here, they have to pretend they love me. It was like finding a familiar stranger in my own head, along w/ the other take on it.

Then I was really scared.

He who laughs lasts
--Crazy Mac

[Anonymous]

Ya know, I never really felt like I was a part of the Seed family.  I never sensed any kind of "family" trust.. Unless being terrified all the time counts as some sort of comsic connection or family.  Seemed to me that the dilemma was this:  I din't do enough drus to justify any kind of addiction treatment, yet I lied when I was there to fit and get out.  Hmmm... I don;t think that makes me a bad person by any means.  Confused ? Yes.  Conflicted ? Oh Yeah.

As for having some sense of belonging, that went out the door when my folks put me in there.  Since then, I've never really felt like I was really part of my own biological family, let alone anything else.  I think in some ways it turned me into an "auto-ma-tron" since then.   As for those lifelong friends I made at the Seed ...well some I've lost touch with and I'm okay with that.

Actually, putting the most positive spin on it I can, maybe this journey is the "bigger thing" you seem to want to find.  What I mean is, by posing these questions and pondering your life, just like other ex/post-seedlings, we are in this solo journey together.  I think what we're all on is a very singular, personal journey to find out what inside our brains is us and what is "The Seed."  It even sounds grosss, when you think of it inside your brain, doesn't it?  The Seed... Frankly, I'm kind of excited about this process.

  No, none of us will go to the football stadium and sing the national anthem as a result of asking these questions. And we probably won't sell key chains or hats or hold bake sales or car washes to pay for the cost of the journey, either.  But there are others who are in this world, day in and day out, struggling with this stuff just like you.

Jimmy, who cares what that ass-face Art Barker or Libby think of you? Who cares what someone who thinks The Sees saved their life thinks of you or how you are making your way through life ?  I don't see their opinions as being relevantin my life at all.  They don't pay my  bills; they don't sign my pay check and they surely don't call to ask me how the heck I am doing.    

Enjoy this journey and find solace here.  It might just be a website, but at least the folks here let you be who you are and don't expect you to tell lies and denounce your common sense just to be heard....

[Robin Martin]

On 2004-11-12 16:08:00, Jimmy Cusick wrote:

"
The rap groups were about The 7 steps, honesty, drug use, principals, values, freedom, peace, separating ourselves from other drug users, loving others and creating a world where we expanded our love and acceptance to embrace all of society. uuuummm, do you believe this.

 I did pot, hash, THC, ups downs speed acid, mescaline, codeine, cocaine, morphine, Demerol. Yea  right, I never did most of those but I wanted to be liked and accepted so I would speak it out like nothing.

 Okay folks, someone else tell me about yourself, when the seed took control of your heart and made you feel like a part.

 If I could find a place now-a-days where I could feel like a part of, that was decent, I would join them .

OK, Jimmy, the 7 steps; honesty, drug use, principals, values, freedom, peace and separating myself from other drug users - yeah, that seemed to have worked for me! I didn't have a clue where morals, principals, values, freedom and peace began - I had lost it!!!  However, I DID smoke pot, hash, opium, dropped and shot THC, LSD, wine, heroine, cocaine, Demerol, MDA, PCP, STP, uppers, downers, Quaaludes, mescaline and pretty much anything in between that would melt down and fit in a syringe...  . I could only "get it" after being "torn down" and work from scratch to provide the building blocks that I needed to step up and into a responsible world.  Not one created by the Seed, Art, Suzy or Mrs. P, but one, I felt a part of wanting to belong to.  MY CHOICE...No one else's, thanks you very much.  We ALL want to be liked and respected - who doesn?t??  And, for the record - I STILL don't feel I "belong".  Is that because of my Seed 'washing'?  No, I don't think so - it started long before that - but that's another story...

[Anonymous]

well, if you were really "melting down anything that fit in a syringe" at 15 years old, maybe you are the rare individual that was indeed worthless, hopeless and gonna die.

For most people that was just cultic mantra.

Perhaps the Seed should have been you and the four other addicts it treated over its 30 year lifespan.

You just dont understand Robin, that most of us  were just fine before we got mind fucked in the Seed, that the Seed caused much more problems than it ever proposed to solve.

[Anonymous]

Honesty and Freedom?

In the Seed?

 :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

[Anonymous]

I would say that is not true in my experiences.  I knew lots of people on my program that abused drugs for many years including myself.  I was also 15 at the time.

[ccgar61]

Do me a favor Anon I resent very deeply what you posted. I had a very bad Coke problem about $ 200.00 a day in which I would bring myself down with a daily consumption of several Quaaludes or valium depending what I could get my hands on.
I make it a point to speak only for myself when I post allowing others with respect to post their opinions and ideas while never attacking or belittling anyone even if we have an opposing point of view.
 
You will never get an argument from me that the Seed had some negative aspects but at the same time I attribute the Seed with much of my successes. I was a member of the Seed for about 6 years, these years are filled with good memories and of course some regrets.
 
I guess according to you I was one of the four people the Seed actually helped.

?If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;?

Rudyard Kipling

[cleveland]

Here's the thing for me: there really were people who came in with drug problems when I was there -one one guy who had lost a couple of his fingers from shooting up, in particular. These people really supported the argument at the time that the Seed was the alternative to death, jail or insanity...

There were also a lot of lightweights like me who had gotten high, and drank, but also came from unhappy families or had problems in school.
 
I wasn't stupid. I could see people being helped, and that was part of the reason I stuck around because I believed I was helping people, just by being there, going to raps and paying bills at the house where I lived. I eventually left, and I do have big problems with the model the Seed used and how it all ended up, but I would never argue with anyone who says they got help there. Nor would I argue with someone who said it was terrible for them. Each person will have to answer that for themselves.

The Seed was using peer pressure and a family model to change behavior. Maybe some of this is valuable, maybe not. We'll learn by reading these posts here, if we're all willing to be honest.

[Antigen]

Argue? Sometimes, in my more intemperate moments. But question someone who says The Seed saved their life? Yeah, I don't think that's a bad idea. Here's why. I've met so many people over the last few years who spent years or decades wearing a hair shirt over the implanted beliefs about their past before the Program. It's hard to live with, whether it's true or not, ya' know? And if it's not true (as in most cases, maybe yours, maybe not) it's just a damned shame. Years of needless mental torment.

So yeah, I question anyone who starts rattling off an oldcomer introduction to me and some folks have said they're glad I did.

India Indicas, Mr. Peabody?
-- Sherman

[Anonymous]

No, I think Art was the only ONE that was helped by the SEED.  It helped him financially.  Although abusing children wont help him to get into heaven.

[GregFL]

Sorry I havent been around much, I am out of the country and not near a computer.

Antigen and Cleveland make good points in this thread, and Robin, I am sorry but it is a bit hard to swallow that at fifteen, in St Pete, in 1973, you were "shooting up anything that fit in a needle". That is truly an unusual circumstance. I grew up in St Pete in that era and I remember no one that was fifteen in your circumstance.

Now, it could be true.  I certainly know some people from that era that died from drugs, and I even knew a bonafide Heroin addict that went in under coercsion and is now a lawyer. Was he helped? I guess if you ask him he would say yes. Was Robin helped? If her memory is accurate, yes.

The problem is for most people that is a ruse, and embellishing drug use was not only expected but required. Pretty soon most people started believing their own stories about how they were dying. I even remember 12 year olds giving that speech.

So Robin, please forgive those that question your story. It is squarely pegged in within thousands of embellished stories. Yours may be true but the Seed culture of bullshitting about your past colores peoples perceptions about it, especially when you are so squarely in the Seed camp.

Sorry if that is offensive but it is honest.

On the bigger point being made, certainly people with drug problems went to the seed. It was supposedly a drug rehab after all. Many many more went because they smoked a few joints, shoplifted and got caught, stole the family car for a joyride, because they used some drugs in junior or high school.

Very very few were addicts and needed radical experimental behavior modification. Most needed a family that wasnt disfunctional, and trading their disfunctional family for arts nuthouse was often more destructive than just staying home and taking your chances.

It was for me.

[cleveland]

I don't know Ginger, something about the way you put things...I like the combatitiveness of it sometimes. You always engage with people here, even when you disagree, and I respect that. Challenge away!

[Anonymous]

I just returned from a trip back to where I was living the summer before I went into the seed. like most things in the past they look/present so differently when you see them w/ time. I passed places I spoke about on the front row and years after to people on their front row. I don't have as many issues w/ my time in the program as I do with my time after i 'graduated' in the 80's that really didn't mean as much - I didn't graduate for a 1 1/2 yrs. [my parents had dough] and i stayed for another year and half because everyone else stayed.
Many people I grew up with are dead, the first guy I ever had sex with was shot during a stupid coke deal [are there any smart ones???] he thought a hand gun was a cigarette lighter...Another friend was murdered in the woods they never found the killer/s.
The truth is none of us will ever no where we would have ended up if we had not entered the seed. Some of us were there for 'true drug probelms-whatever' I was fucked up, I was spoiled, full of shit and you know what  I learned alot, I wish things had been different at SR84, that we could have been able to be let go of and allowed to have healthy relationships, that everyone outside of the seed was not viewed as being an asshole. I am rambling -

[Anonymous]

I agree good post I feel the same way. Not all has been lost my friend I guess were still growing