Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => Straight, Inc. and Derivatives => Topic started by: Anonymous on May 29, 2003, 01:01:00 AM
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i need help for my 16 year old son. he's been in 3 short term treatment centers and cannot stay off heroin, i need to get him help and all of you say pathway wont work. can any of you help me help my son. i'm afraid he will die if i don't get him help. iif not pathway, then where?
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What state are you in? There are several programs available to people nationwide that are not going to brainwash and abuse your child like Pathway. Please understand that the ultimate responsibility lies with him to make that decision to stop using. There should be a list of programs and support for heroin addicted teens listed on one of your state government websites. If you have a question as to if they are abusive, etc. feel free to email me. I can check to see if it is on the "list". I wish you luck and hope things work out for the best.
MG8 :smokin:
metalgod8@yahoo.com
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Pathway is not equipped to handle heroin addiction, especially not withdrawal symptoms. I doubt you want someone screaming at your son telling him what a piece of shit he is when he's writhing in pain do you? You can do a better job than they can. You just have to be willing to make sacrifices. I've been addicted to heroin. It's the hardest thing in the world to kick. I've been free from it for almost 6 years, no help from Straight. You will have to choose to completely change your and his environment to help him. It will have to be a permanent move away from where ever he is now living.(the two of you) Unless he can go live with a family member who does not mind taking him in. How long has he been doing it? How often? Is he suicidal or depressed? Where does he get it from? Does he shoot it? Does he have a habit or is he chipping?
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Dear Parent,
I strongly suggest you check out Pathway for yourself. There have been clients at Pathway who have used heroin and successfully graduated the program. This site is obviously filled with people who are anti-pathway because a large majority of them connect it with it's predecessor. Pathway is a non-abusive treatment center and I encourage you to make the phone call and visit the center to make your own determinations. Ask questions to the staff about any concerns you may have after reading the posts on this site, and make your own judgements. I do not work for Pathway, but have seen many clients build strong recovery programs and lead clean and sober lives with the help of Pathway.
Good Luck with your son...
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I doubt if you could back up your statement here at Fornits in a court of law, that "pathway is a non-abusive treatment center" when all of the evidence to date SMACKS OF ABUSE! How could you tell someone that? Have you not done any research? Are you a client or supporter? Let's hope that you learn the truth soon.
MG8 :smokin:
On 2003-05-29 07:01:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Dear Parent,
I strongly suggest you check out Pathway for yourself. There have been clients at Pathway who have used heroin and successfully graduated the program. This site is obviously filled with people who are anti-pathway because a large majority of them connect it with it's predecessor. Pathway is a non-abusive treatment center and I encourage you to make the phone call and visit the center to make your own determinations. Ask questions to the staff about any concerns you may have after reading the posts on this site, and make your own judgements. I do not work for Pathway, but have seen many clients build strong recovery programs and lead clean and sober lives with the help of Pathway.
Good Luck with your son..."
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On 2003-05-28 22:01:00, Anonymous wrote:
"i need help for my 16 year old son. he's been in 3 short term treatment centers and cannot stay off heroin, i need to get him help and all of you say pathway wont work. can any of you help me help my son. i'm afraid he will die if i don't get him help. iif not pathway, then where?"
Don't give up. Mo speaks from experience and I've never known a single person who was hooked on heroin to tell me any different from what she says.
There's good news, though. Almost everyone takes a few tries to finally quit for good. A couple of initial failures is no indication whatever of a permanent problem.
Here's an excellent site for people seeking help to deal with opiate addiction.
http://bitchandgripe.com/ (http://bitchandgripe.com/) This is an advocacy group for methadone patients and their families and friends. These folks can probably give you invaluable advice on finding a good methadone treatment facility near you.
Here's the website of a real doctor who's been involved in addiction treatment for many years http://peele.net/ (http://peele.net/) There's a lot of good info and good advice already in his site and you can ask him specific questions as well.
Now here's the kicker. There are a lot of myths about heroin. One is that addiction to it is a permanent, life long condition in most cases. This just isn't true. The fact is that most people who get severely hooked quit spontaniously (not easily, mind you) without any formal treatment when they reach their 30's.
The trick is to avoid bad drugs, overdose and violent dealers, prison and all the rest of the trappings of the black market until then if he can't withdraw entirely in the mean time. One of the best ways to do that is to simply substitute the street drug for a regent quality pharmaceutical version, administered under the care of a professional. Methadone, in other words. Avoid anyone who advocates forced, involuntary withdrawal. It's a recipe for disaster.
Pathway absolutely, positively will NOT do anything helpful for your son. Odds are, the alleged heroin addict who graduated was lying about having been an addict. That's just one of many problems with the Program; they force the kids to confess underduress in order to advance. Most of us felt the need to exagerate quite a bit to satisfy Group.
God grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference.
Anonymity Anonymous (http://fornits.com/anonanon)
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On 2003-05-29 07:01:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Dear Parent,
I strongly suggest you check out Pathway for yourself. There have been clients at Pathway who have used heroin and successfully graduated the program. This site is obviously filled with people who are anti-pathway because a large majority of them connect it with it's predecessor. Pathway is a non-abusive treatment center and I encourage you to make the phone call and visit the center to make your own determinations. Ask questions to the staff about any concerns you may have after reading the posts on this site, and make your own judgements. I do not work for Pathway, but have seen many clients build strong recovery programs and lead clean and sober lives with the help of Pathway.
Good Luck with your son..."
Pathway doesn't have the proper experience. One of my good friends is an excellent psychiatrist. He also works as a counselor at a methadone clinic and would never recommend a program like Pathway, or any other "Behavior Modification Program." In the long run they have shown with hard evidence to be more harmful and damaging than good. Don't make a choice that could cost your son his sanity. Pathway and like programs hurt people.
Help your son. Don't pay for someone else to mess him up even worse. I am a mother myself. I would never send my child to Pathway knowing now how extensive the damage of that type of abusive coersive treatment is. (and yes, there is still abuse) There are other choices. Turning a life around is never easy. But it's much harder with out the love or protection of your parents. By sending your son to Pathway, you give up that right. (They will try and tell you otherwise) He's your son. You make the choices.
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maam i can not strees to you more than anything not to send your child to pathway whoever the pathway spokes person was that wrote failed to mention the probable mental damage that he/she incurred during their stay at pathway. any decision but this place i would support. i wish nothing but good luck to you and your son, things will get better one way or another----smith
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I find it hard to justify that mental damage occurs from Pathway Family Center. I was addicted to many substances prior to entering treatment at Pathway, which was my fourth treatment center. My relapses after each prior center were detrimental to me becuase I returned to more severe use after the treatment centers. Since Pathway, I have not used anything but cigarettes. By looking at my life in individual, group, and family sessions, I was able to find the core issue that contributed to my drug abuse. I was not forced to call myself an addict. I didn't call myself an addict until I started going to meetings on 4th level. I admitted that I had abused drugs, but hadn't seen my addiction as an addiction, and I was still able to move up the levels. I was never physically abused, and never forced to admit anything. I sat on first level becuase I didn't want to get honest. I got sick and tired of lying and sitting in my shit, so I told the truth about my past. This is when I started moving. I have been out of the program for a while, and don't see mental damage stemming from taking a sober honest look at myself.
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On 2003-05-29 14:56:00, Anonymous wrote:
"I find it hard to justify that mental damage occurs from Pathway Family Center.
I find it hard, impossible in fact, to justify the damage these people do too. That's how people who don't know the lingo would interpret your statement all by itself.
But I know what you mean and I also note that, your very next sentence, demonstrates the opposite.
I was addicted to many substances prior to entering treatment at Pathway, which was my fourth treatment center.
Here's the common clinical definition of addiction:
"compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance (as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol) characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal
It's almost impossible for someone to become seriously clinically addicted to even one substance in the short period of time a teenager has to accomplish that feat.
While I do think you're FOS, I have no intention of setting you back, starting you over, calling in your days or even blowing you away. I know you believe it because that's what you have been required to believe. But I doubt very seriously that you actually have been addicted to many substances.
My relapses after each prior center were detrimental to me becuase I returned to more severe use after the treatment centers. Since Pathway, I have not used anything but cigarettes. By looking at my life in individual, group, and family sessions, I was able to find the core issue that contributed to my drug abuse. I was not forced to call myself an addict. I didn't call myself an addict until I started going to meetings on 4th level. I admitted that I had abused drugs, but hadn't seen my addiction as an addiction, and I was still able to move up the levels. I was never physically abused, and never forced to admit anything. I sat on first level becuase I didn't want to get honest. I got sick and tired of lying and sitting in my shit, so I told the truth about my past. This is when I started moving. I have been out of the program for a while, and don't see mental damage stemming from taking a sober honest look at myself.
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If there's one thing about the Program I hope you'll carefully examin and totally reject, it is the idea that, without the Program, you're doomed to be some kind of skidrow junkie or something. That is such bunk. I know a lot of people, though, who believed it so strongly that, when they finally came around to the fact that, no matter how hard you try, you will never meet the Program's expectations, they acted asif the only other alternative was total immersion in hard drug use. It never was that way, but because they believed it, it may as well have been.
When you start having difficulty reconciling your need to live and act like a full fledged adult with the Program world view, please consider other options than the horrifying one they pretend is the only other.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use the Net and he won't bother you for weeks.
--Anonymous
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Ginger, maybe you should stick to the things you know about and not give advise to someone who really needs help. You are telling this mother to just let it run its course? Assuming the person talking about his/her experience at pathway is a liar. You sound like the one that is trying to do the brainwashing, maybe you have more in common with all these treatment centers that you despise so much. Encourage this mom to get help for her son.
God, grant this mother the wisdom to talk with someone who knows what they are talking about.
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Do you even know what you are talking about? Have you even been to pathway? If you haven't, quit talking about things you know nothing about. Pathway is not straight. I'm sorry you were in Straight.
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Well, Anonymous, were you in straight, inc? Well, quit talking about which things in life you have no clue. :smokin:
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Just because he's a teen doesn't mean he's not still YOUR responsability.
On 2003-05-29 18:41:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Ginger, maybe you should stick to the things you know about and not give advise to someone who really needs help. You are telling this mother to just let it run its course?
God, grant this mother the wisdom to talk with someone who knows what they are talking about.
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I don't think that was what was being stated with those remarks. She was simply explaining what she knows about heroin addiction. I personally doubt this kid has a "habit." He can't have the money to support it, it's expensive. Junkies need a daily fix or they get very, very sick. A very good point was that it is impossable for a child to have multiple addictions. It is. If the kid isn't an addict, why send him to treatment? (Because they want your money, that's why) If he is a junkie at 16, Mo's advice is the plan that works in the real world. Without long term forced treatment. If he has to go thruogh withdrawl, he should do that under medical supervision. Pathway does not have the qualifications. You want to save his life, not buy him time right?
By sending a kid to Pathway you're just $buying$ time for him. The average stay is 2 years. If a mother feels it necessary to 'incarcerate to cure' her child I'm sure there will be someone there to willingly take her money. It won't change the fact that when he's 18, he can go get it for himself anyway if he so chooses. Pathway is no cure. Pathway won't treat an addiction, they will try to change the personality of the child with behavior modification, thought reform and coersive methods. The long term success rate is very low. Most kids get out and within a years time, want to go try every drug they hadn't tried (or were forced to confess using) before Pathway. If knowing your child is important to you, Pathway is the wrong thing to do for him. If control is all you want, you may destroy him. There sounds to me like he has to have more problems than just using drugs. This mother needs to find herself a good doctor/psychiatrist, and spend the time needed to help her child.
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This site sure has a lot of experts on how to treat addiction. You should start your own facility(because from this site I see you seem to have the answer.) :???: I wonder how much of the talk here about Pathway is a proven fact (and not from someone who was in the program and did'nt complete it.)
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On 2003-05-30 08:40:00, Anonymous wrote:
"This site sure has a lot of experts on how to treat addiction. You should start your own facility(because from this site I see you seem to have the answer.) :???: I wonder how much of the talk here about Pathway is a proven fact (and not from someone who was in the program and did'nt complete it.)"
That is expert advice from an expert on mothering and battling with drug addiction. I'm not claiming to do anything except share my experience, and give advice based on that.
I've been there. He won't hate you for trying to protect him, but he might not forgive & forget being "put away" when other choices could have been made. Pathway is the easy way out for the parents, at the expense of the degradation of children.
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On 2003-05-29 18:41:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Ginger, maybe you should stick to the things you know about and not give advise to someone who really needs help. You are telling this mother to just let it run its course?
Actually, now... I told this mother to check with a well known professional psychologist and author who has dealt extensively with addiction and addiction treatment issues for decades. Stanton Peele is well known and well respected in his field. The only people who hate him, that I know of, are the fundie zealots (like PFC ppl) who take offence at the suggestion that their way is not the only way. And I gave her a link to an advocacy group that keeps an eye on abusive and poorly run methadone clinics.
Please remember, both of you (the mom who started this thread and our PFC pundit here) that PFC does NOT employ accepted, successful methods to treat addiction. The program they use is based on the methods developed by Chuck Dederich in the Synanon Church. That was before ol'e Chuck wound up doing prison time for conspiracy to murder after his followers placed a poisonous snake in the mail box of a lawyer who was suing on behalf of a woman who wanted to leave the cult.
Assuming the person talking about his/her experience at pathway is a liar. You sound like the one that is trying to do the brainwashing, maybe you have more in common with all these treatment centers that you despise so much. Encourage this mom to get help for her son.
I do assume that some of the people talking about their experience at PFC are lying. I don't see how any reasonable person could come to any other conclusion, seeing as how different people are telling completely contradictory stories.
Here's the thing, though. Ryan and those who agree with him are telling essentially the same story that I lived 20 years ago. This is not surprising, since I already knew that PFC used to be called Straight, Inc. until they were sued and investigated out of business over all the same complaints.
On the other side, we have Program supporters who are saying just about exactly the same things that Straight supporters used to say away back when and saying it all in the same mean, spiteful, hysterical words that has always characterized this cult.
Here's a good article lifted (by permission) from a book called Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism
by By Robert Jay Lifton, M.D.
Milieu Control
The most basic feature of the thought reform environment, the psychological current upon which all else depends, is the control of human communication. Through this milieu control the totalist environment seeks to establish domain over not only the individual's communication with the outside (all that he sees and hears, reads or writes, experiences, and expresses), but also - in its penetration of his inner life - over what we may speak of as his communication with himself. It creates an atmosphere uncomfortably reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984.
Full Article: http://www.rickross.com/reference/brain ... ing19.html (http://www.rickross.com/reference/brainwashing/brainwashing19.html)
You should read that. In fact, buy the book or see if they have it at the library. It may save you years of stumbling around figuring things out for yourself. And these are precious years, kid! More than any other time in your life, the choices you make now will set the stage for, not only your future, but that of your kids and grandkids and even the community in which you live.
God, grant this mother the wisdom to talk with someone who knows what they are talking about.
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Indeed!The last struggles of a great superstition are very frequently the worst.
--Andrew Dickson White (1832-1918)
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the first thing to do is call ISAC and talk to them. You could save over at least $40,000. by taking some time off work and following the kid around or pay some one to. Get him to a good Psychotherapist 4-5 times a week. Let him read this web-site. Does he know that some places out of the state will come and get him in the middle of the night? Don't let him go into Pathway and stay with HOST parents who were never given foster parent instruction. Dear God their kids are addicts and with their help. Sorry but its true. Hire a social worker to help you set up a contract with him. Geez its a lot of work but he needs to not have the added humiliation, shame, guilt, horrible anxiety that Pathway will give him.
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Going through a problem does not make one an expert. It makes one experienced with that particular problem in that individual case.
Giving advice is helpful, but billing oneself as an "expert" when one has only one's own personal experience or the experiences of those around them, rather than experience plus multiple degrees in the field of adolescent treatment or psychology, is being frighteningly similar to the program.
To think of oneself as an expert, is having the same mentality as the program when you say to yourself that you only want "to help" so you make yourself sound more credible and more important by alleging to have all the answers, and assistance when really, you don't.
You have your own personal experience to share.
It makes you experienced, willing to help, and concerned with others, but it doesn't make you an expert by any stretch of the imagination.
Lose sight of this and you could become the very thing you are fighting against.
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"Going through a problem does not make one an expert. It makes one experienced with that particular problem in that individual case."
Thanks, Anonymous #596, for putting it into words. I've never held myself to be an expert at anything but website development, and even at that, I'm self taught and only expert in a small niche.
Whatever advice I may give or opinions I may express, are just that, no more, no less. As far as I know, the 'expert' tag has always come as an accusation from people who don't like the advice that some of us give. But I don't think any of us are holding ourselves out as experts. At least, I've never taken it that way.
"Our friends and allies in the Middle East and Europe will soon be subject to forms of intimidation by an Iraqi government bent on dominating the Middle East and its oil reserves,"
Project for the New American Century (were they talking about themselves?)
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You misunderstand completely
On 2003-05-31 10:04:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Going through a problem does not make one an expert. It makes one experienced with that particular problem in that individual case.
Giving advice is helpful, but billing oneself as an "expert" when one has only one's own personal experience or the experiences of those around them, rather than experience plus multiple degrees in the field of adolescent treatment or psychology, is being frighteningly similar to the program.
To think of oneself as an expert, is having the same mentality as the program when you say to yourself that you only want "to help" so you make yourself sound more credible and more important by alleging to have all the answers, and assistance when really, you don't.
You have your own personal experience to share.
It makes you experienced, willing to help, and concerned with others, but it doesn't make you an expert by any stretch of the imagination.
Lose sight of this and you could become the very thing you are fighting against.
"That is *expert advice from an expert on mothering and battling with drug addiction. I'm not claiming to do anything except share my experience, and give advice based on that."
*MEANING: I have a lot of experience.
It's obvious why I used sarcasm there. If you don't know why or can't tell why, you yourself need to lighten up a bit. It's an exaggerated figure of speech.
I'm also an expert butt wiper.
Does this make me self centered as well?
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Me lighten up? What about you! What I said was not said in a hostile manner. Perhaps I misunderstood your "sarcasm." But do you blame me?
And Antigen I wasn't talking to you. Sorry for the confusion.
Man:exclaim: I'll just tuck my tail in and go now. :roll:
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On 2003-05-31 14:58:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Me lighten up? What about you! What I said was not said in a hostile manner. Perhaps I misunderstood your "sarcasm." But do you blame me?"
<
"Perhaps I misunderstood your "sarcasm." But do you blame me?" - Blame you for what?...lol
The comment was directed towards the author of:
"This site sure has a lot of experts on how to treat addiction. You should start your own facility(because from this site I see you seem to have the answer.) I wonder how much of the talk here about Pathway is a proven fact (and not from someone who was in the program and did'nt complete it."
Again, lighten up.
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This graduation thing is so ridiculous. What ?? do you put it on a resume? What good is it. You were forced to do it. Geeez
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I swear to God, until I started coming out from under the ether a bit, I thought it would have been impressive.
Here's the thing, though. In some places among some people (like law enforcement, for example) it WAS impressive.
When the government's boot is on your throat, whether it is a left boot or a right boot is of no consequence.
-- Gary Lloyd
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U see u still try to sound so smart. U only kidding yourself.
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On 2003-05-29 18:41:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Ginger, maybe you should stick to the things you know about and not give advise to someone who really needs help. You are telling this mother to just let it run its course? Assuming the person talking about his/her experience at pathway is a liar. You sound like the one that is trying to do the brainwashing, maybe you have more in common with all these treatment centers that you despise so much. Encourage this mom to get help for her son.
God, grant this mother the wisdom to talk with someone who knows what they are talking about.
"
You know, some people think there's something at least a little neurotic about talking to yourself. I wonder what Freud would make out of you're other personality being female?
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-- Robert Heinlein
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"I wonder how much of the talk here about Pathway is a proven fact (and not from someone who was in the program and did'nt complete it.)"
first of all i just want to say that no matter what this parent decides to do i hope that they get their child help regardless if for some fucked up reason it is pathway...which i also do believe that they are not qualified to help certain individuals with particular problems. there are several other places that will help this child, ultimately and unfortunately it is up to the child wheather he stops or not. ok now on to what i want to say. fuck you whoever wrote that because i did complete that fucken program and i ademately agree with a vast majoraty of what these people say about pathway. so it is not just the people not completing the program saying this shit. The most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of
knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised, for the preservation of freedom and happiness.
--Thomas Jefferson
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On 2003-06-04 23:42:00, nakid2003 wrote:
""I wonder how much of the talk here about Pathway is a proven fact (and not from someone who was in the program and did'nt complete it.)"
first of all i just want to say that no matter what this parent decides to do i hope that they get their child help regardless if for some fucked up reason it is pathway...which i also do believe that they are not qualified to help certain individuals with particular problems. there are several other places that will help this child, ultimately and unfortunately it is up to the child wheather he stops or not. ok now on to what i want to say. fuck you whoever wrote that because i did complete that fucken program and i ademately agree with a vast majoraty of what these people say about pathway. so it is not just the people not completing the program saying this shit. The most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of
knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised, for the preservation of freedom and happiness.
--Thomas Jefferson
"
Indykid,
You sure are right about that one! Your words are an inspiration.
Thanks,
Morli
36 months
(I was in a 'boot camp' before Straight Inc)