Fornits

Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => Straight, Inc. and Derivatives => Topic started by: enough on October 13, 2002, 04:03:00 PM

Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: enough on October 13, 2002, 04:03:00 PM
This discussion is a series of posts that include my recollections of rules, structures, schedules, etc from the Atlanta program. Much of this was published as part of the stopsembler.org project from last year. After my converstation with anther Atlanta client I decided it needed to be posted here for all to read. Please post corrections, different memories etc, so that this becomes as accurate as possible.
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: enough on October 13, 2002, 04:05:00 PM
"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities." Voltaire

The steps, the signs, the criteria and the serenity prayer were the vaunted "tools of personal change" that I was coerced into adopting as my system of faith. The steps and other "tools" were supposed to provide me with everything I needed for the process of living a full happy life. These were the "simple answers for complex problems" that made up the dogma of this treatment cult. The lingo is a growing collection of the clichéd phrases that I learned to use to communicate within Straight Inc.

The Steps

The Signs

The 5 Criteria

The Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

The Lingo


[ This Message was edited by: James on 2002-10-13 14:22 ]
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: enough on October 13, 2002, 04:10:00 PM
The Intake is the process of getting someone into the program. Most often the client is an adolescent. In Georgia that meant that the parents could simply sign the kid into the program until the age of 18. But the kid still went through the intake. An intake was more of an intelligence gathering process than anything else. Intakes were performed by phasers. Typically an intake was done by two people, some especially violent cases required group intimidation even restraint. During an intake the phasers would attempt to elicit admissions of drug usage and sexual misconduct as well as any criminal misconduct. This information was recorded by hand, and became a part of the clients records in the program. The parents were not informed of all the revelations, but selective ones, with the intent of impressing the severity of the drug problem. Parents were not informed of crimes or sexual crimes committed by or on their children, despite the fact that the programs clinicians were well aware of these crimes.

There was a form to follow in doing an intake, a list of leading questions. The kid was asked to review the intake form for accuracy and then sign it. These forms became the basis for threats of legal action once in the group and aggressive confrontation repeatedly throughout the program. Some people report intakes going on as long as twelve hours. I can remember people being introduced to the group in Atlanta as late as 1 AM on Friday nights, often as we were lined up and ready to leave the building. My own intake was about three or four hours, it was done by a fourth and a fifth phaser and it was full of me boasting of wild fantastic drug usage and bizarre sexual activity in an attempt to be "bad enough" for this program of last resort. As it turns out this was not uncommon, teenagers in any situation will boast. Yet these boastings were used against me in sadistic fashion. And I became unable to discern my boasts from what had really happened in my past. The intake was the first step in the process.

My intake, like all others included a strip search, a "squat and cough" style ordeal with at least two witnesses. Some survivors have reported being penetrated in searches for drugs during these events. After being humiliated, I was stripped of anything that made me an individual, no money, no ID, no belt, no jewelry, no make up, no anything of the outside world. Not even polo shirts could be worn. The logo was a sign of elitism and a druggie tie for some people. Then one of the guys grabbed me by the beltloop and led me into the main group. I was introduced, a litany of my intake confessions was read aloud, everyone yelled that they loved me, and I was seated in the front row of a group of lunatics.

There were very few intakes that did not lead to admissions. Generally if a kid would admit to using pot a few times his parents would think he was on the road to hell. I remember people in the Atlanta program that had only smoked pot once or twice and had used alcohol a few times, some as young as 13 years old. The child would be committed by a parent with no knowledge of how the program worked internally. While the kid was being interrogated by the phasers, the parents were being indoctrinated by the clinicians. They were presented with the disease model and relieved of all responsibility for their children's actions. Parents were lead to believe that without Straight Inc. the kid will die in jail or from dirty needles.
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: enough on October 13, 2002, 04:11:00 PM
First Phase-A first phaser can not read a book( not even the bible), make a phone call, see a television program, read a newspaper, discuss current affairs or engage anyone outside the program in conversation. A first phaser could not go anywhere alone, not to the bathroom or to bed. A first phaser could not be trusted with a butter knife. First phasers have one purpose and one purpose only, to think about the problems they had caused in the past, get in touch with the feelings of guilt associated with their actions, and share that pain and guilt with the group. The more confessional and open a person becomes the more likely that person is to move forward. Compliance is a big part of being on first phase. Giving up all control over what you eat, when you eat, and when you go to the bathroom. No stimulus is allowed outside the constant pressure to reveal deep dark secreted feelings and thoughts, no matter how disturbing. First phase lasts a minimum of 14 days. First phasers may then start to ask for Talk, and for T&R. These are levels of privilege for a first phaser that is progressing. Talk is a five minute talk with parents on a Friday or Monday night (open meetings), T&R is the talk plus the responsibility of guarding a door or moving other newcomers around during group. Someone with T&R might end up helping with dinner preparations or cleaning bathrooms. As a first phaser I had the sole responsibility of thinking and talking about myself and my drug problem. Here are the specific requirements for earning newcomer privileges, as I recall them.

Second Phase-A second phaser has earned the chance to live in his own home again. Out of town kids simply become oldcomers in the homes of in-town families. A second phaser is expected to focus on redeveloping the family relationship. Second phasers can not watch TV, may only use phones to call other phasers for "dime therapy" and may not read any book other than the bible. Second phasers must spend full days in group just like a newcomer. A second phaser gets to close the door when he goes to the bathroom, and a second phaser may be trusted with a butter knife. A second phaser will most likely not have newcomers for at least a week. Second phase lasts a minimum of one week, and was expected to be finished within two weeks. Staying on second phase for too long was indicative of a problem.

Third Phase-A third phaser was expected to manage themselves and their family relationships, as well as the added responsibility of going back to school or work. This required getting a permission form completed and signed by staff to go to school and register, or look for a job. Out of town kids had to make arrangements to live in a host home with other kids going to school. Some kids went to work, adults most often went to work. Third phase was a minimum of 21 days. Often it would last more than a month, but no more than 45-50 days before it would turn into a setback or refresher of some sort.

Fourth Phase-Fourth phasers sat in the rows opposite the main group. They were the first level of examples. Most fourth phasers spent the day hours in school or in work, coming into group in waves in the afternoon. Fourth phasers were expected to be more motivated, more involved, more proactive- just more more. Fourth phasers had their own rap session at least once a week apart from the rest of the group. Fourth phase was the longest phase lasting a minimum of 90 days. Some fourth phases went as long 120 days before a setback or startover. Fourth phasers went through a "RSC" or "RSA" course. Rational Self Awareness or Rational Self Counseling was a set of tools like "The Self Acceptance Script" and other self help processes from that genre. Fourth Phasers were also eligible for "Staff Training" a course of twice a week classes for six to eight weeks. These classes included video taped role-play sessions and were based around a set of skills for manipulating people. These skills had names like "focusing", "directing" and "leading" and were taught as methods of eliciting the strongest possible emotional responses within the group situation. Fourth phasers also had the job of completing "Permissions". A complex, deliberately frustrating process for getting a chance to go to the mall or some such normal activity.

Fifth Phase-A fifth phaser wields a considerable amount of power over the lower phasers. The fifth phaser is the only client with permission to freely move about the room during group. A fifth phaser is the only client free to move up and down the rows within the group. Doing intakes, making speaking engagements and speaking with parents of prospective clients were among the duties of a fifth phaser. Fifth phase was a minimum of 60 days. Fifth phasers collected and passed on the chain of command requests of all lower phasers. Fifth phasers collected and passed on the permission requests of all lower phasers. Fifth phasers wrote in a book of observations (obs) about the lower phasers each day. I saw people sit on fifth phase for 3-5 months on average.

Seven Stepping- Always a dramatic event full of emotional outpourings, this was the exit ceremony. It was always a surprise to the group, was never discussed in advance. It was the height of arrogance to suggest in group that one might be expecting to seven step this week. Seven stepping was a very public event that was generally a surprise to the client.

Startover- It means what it sounds like. Your days reset to zero, you are on first phase. There is variety in the number days until you can relate and ask for anything in homes rap, 3 to relate and 14 for homes was common. But it ranged from 0/14 to 7/21 . It can happen anytime from any phase at any point. This was obviously the most draconian solution. A startover was devastating, often doled out in a very aggressive fashion and always preceded by some kind of traumatic event.

Refresher- This means a period of time on newcomer status acting as if you were on first phase, then asking in homes rap for the privilege of returning to your prior phase. Generally the time you spend on newcomer status is lost and you go back to where you left off on the original phase. 3, 7 and 14 days were common refresher lengths. Typically, if you failed to regain your prior phase within the given time period you could expect to be started over or have your phase dropped to get you in group more hours of the day. Refreshers were often doled out along with a phase drop. This insured that the phaser would be under supervision and control during the volatile period that follows a phase drop.

Phase Drop- You can be dropped from any phase at anytime by virtually any member of Junior Staff or higher. A phase drop was rare without a refresher, but did happen at times to test people.
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: enough on October 13, 2002, 04:12:00 PM
The Moral inventory was a daily ritual. After the full day of group, then traveling home, then eating and doing chores and before getting to sleep we had to write a "searching and fearless moral inventory". This inventory consisted of three parts, The Challenge, The Goals and the Three Good Things ( three things I had achieved based on my prior nights goals, or three good things I had done, or related to the group about or whatever I could get my hands on). Some oldcomers encouraged us to include the prayer as well, some did not. Some ridiculed and verbally assaulted any newcomer who did not include a prayer. Some newcomers who failed to include a prayer were denied food or sleep.

After writing this thing out ( generally the front and back of a piece of paper) we had to review it with our oldcomers for ten minutes or more, in some homes this was hours of amateur analysis with parents and other newcomers involved. In some homes this took the form of a group at home, with everyone having to motivate to speak etc, with the parents and oldcomers as the staff members and the newcomers their hapless pawns.

At the top of my moral inventory I was to keep track of the number of days I was in the program. This starts from day 1. I keep a chart on this piece of paper each and everyday of exactly how long I had been in the program and on what phases I had spent this time. However, if I was started over, I was not to keep track of that old program any longer and just forget that time spent in the program.

This was in essence an extreme form of a journal, and it was not in any way private. Anything I wrote might be read aloud in the home or torn out of my notebook and turned into staff. Some MI's just disappeared.

Moral inventories that were not searching enough would hold you back in the program, but revealing deep dark secrets and the darkest sides of the human soul within these confessions would lead to advancement.
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: enough on October 13, 2002, 04:17:00 PM
According to Straight Inc. drug use is a disease. Straight claimed that all drug use by adolescents, no matter how trivial, was evidence of a diseased child. Straight claimed that is was an inevitable fact that any child who tried any drug even once, had this disease. They claimed that any drug use in adolescence would produce a predictable and unavoidable decline in physical, mental, emotional and behavioral health. Straight claimed that after the initial free choice to use drugs is made, all future choices are driven by the diseased mind, body and spirit. We were taught that this disease was a genetic predisposition that needed some kind of trigger to become active. The trigger was almost always said to be peer pressure, hence the so called "reverse peer pressure" solution.

The disease is said to have four aspects-

Primary - When drug use is present in any quantity, it is the primary problem. Drug use is not the symptom or result of any "deeper psychological problem". Drug use is the primary problem that causes the symptoms of criminal behavior, family strife, immoral sexual conduct or any other problematic behavior.

Chronic - Like diabetes, drug use is claimed to be chronic and incurable. It is a disease that we had to live with for the rest of our lives. Drug addicts could maintain a "relatively healthy normal life" if we began to live by the Straight Inc. approved system of belief and faith in higher powers.

Progressive- Any teenager who uses drugs even once is on unavoidable path to self destruction. Teenagers will always develop a tolerance for any drug they use and be forced to use more and more to get high. Teenagers by their own nature can not avoid this pattern.

Terminal - Drug use causes death either by traumatic event or general deterioration of body systems. Teenagers who use even once become at risk of this kind of death for the rest of their lives. Straight Inc. led us to believe that most teenager deaths in the country were drug related. This aspect of the disease theory led to the popular " I would have died either in jail or with a needle in my arm" phrase from kids who had smoked pot once and sniffed some model airplane glue.
 
There were said to be four stages to the disease for the chemically dependant person. In group we all learned to label ourselves as an "X-stage druggie". This is how I remember them being explained.

First Stage - Kids who had smoked pot or consumed alcohol only a few times, only on weekends, and always in groups. These kids were not yet into druggie music or clothes.

Second Stage - Kids who had ever used alone, listened to rock music, wore druggie clothing or talked in druggie slang. Second stage also included kids who bought their own drugs, or stole money to get drugs. Kids who slammed their doors and turned up their stereo's were likely to be second stage users. Kids who started making new friends were likely second stage users. Kids who grades fell or who lost interest in school activities were labeled as second stage users. Of course these symptoms are also true of most kids who are sexually or physically abused by their families. These symptoms could also point to depression or lack of self esteem or some other basic self image problem. It was also the case that some of these kids were borderline schizoid, paranoid, and multiple personality disorders- and should never have been admitted. But in Straight Inc.'s opinion these conditions were always a result of the primary drug use problem and never the cause of it.

Third Stage - Kids who consider suicide, display delusional thinking, rationalize behavior, stay out overnight or runaway, quit a job, get fired or are truant repeatedly. Kids who get in trouble with the law are likely to be third stage druggies.

Fourth Stage - Originally in my program the key element to being fourth stage was shooting up. So most older clients were fourth stage druggies simply because they had shot up a couple of times. Rarely did a younger client have time to develop the network for obtaining these drugs. Later on during my program, fourth phase was redefined as simply a dramatic worsening of any unapproved behavior. There were fewer and fewer kids who shot up, and so we had to have a wider definition for it. Fourth stagers were considered the worst cases. These people were so out of control that they were supposedly just weeks or days from death due to their drug use. This could include teenagers who were deeply depressed, or had volcanic mood swings. Teenagers who felt ashamed or insecure about their appearance. The fourth stage druggie was using drugs daily at first, but later we said they were simply "acting druggie daily".

The Chemically dependent family was a model that was designed to fit just about any family in existence. Each member of a clients family was fit into one of the family roles. Once the label was assigned it would be used constantly by Straight Inc. staffers & by the individual self-referentially. Everyone came to understand their role and then learned to "feel the feelings" associated with that role. Parents and phasers alike were constantly confronting themselves and each other about these roles and their perceptions that each other were reverting to a "druggie role".

The Chemically Dependent Person - Whoever was the person enrolled in Straight Inc was by default the chemically dependent person. We were often told during early confrontations that we would not have been admitted unless we were chemically dependent, and in a wonder of circular logic, since we were admitted, we must be chemically dependent. Other members of the family were supposed to perceive this person as a "Hall of Mirrors" or "trap of Delusion". This person was supposed to have confused the entire family about who was to blame and who was really the problem, or what the problem was.

The Enabler- The enabler label was almost exclusively reserved for the mothers in the families. People who are super responsible, who make other peoples lives easier, are labeled as enablers. In Straight Inc. mothers were made to feel shame and guilt about this behavior of compassion. They were taught to refer to their own behaviors as enabling. To avoid this label everyone in the program avoiding doing favors or asking them of their friends or family.

The Hero - Older siblings were most often labeled as the hero. These people were supposedly trying to solve the entire families problems by over achieving at school. We all know how dangerous it can be to have a child who is diligent and an achiever in school.

The Scape-Goat - This kid gets blamed for lots of troublesome behaviors. Copies the CD person, gets negative attention and enjoys it. Families blamed this person for their troubles.

The Lost Child or Passive Adult - Almost always the younger child or the male adult. Straight labeled men who worked more than 40 hours a week as passive adults. Straight suggested that these people were possible drug users, or suicide risks.

The Mascot - Very young siblings that attempt to avoid conflicts with cute or clown-like behavior.

These roles each surrounded a central emotion. Pain, anger, hurt, guilt, insecurity, fear and rage. Each role had character descriptions surrounding the core emotion. Each role provided some aspect to the "diseased family" like focus, self-worth or a parents helper. The whole thing was generalized enough that it could be applied to any family. It was ritualized enough that all clients and families had internalized these character attributes and emotional states by the time they were on second or third phase.

There were plenty of exceptions to that rule, many families pulled their children out after 9 months without any progress by the child, or shortly after the child was placed on second phase. The thing was, if the parents were not ready for the child to go home, then the poor child would be kept on newcomer status until his family had acquired the appropriate belief system. There were plenty of parents who found it ludicrous, these people who had the courage to leave early did their children the greatest service.

This is a disease with no empirical test. There is simply no way to physically define this disease. Doctors can not take a sample or run a test to determine if a person is dependent. In the medical realm there is very little agreement on what is the best treatment model outside of a common agreement that not consuming drugs is clearly the most effective remedy.

If I accept (just for the moment) that this really is a disease, then I must also accept that people who smoke cigarettes are suffering the same disease. The solution to this problem is a patch (harm reduction) along with a voluntary education program. We do not throw people into private prisons for this disease, but Straight Inc. did.

I do not accept that it is a disease. It is a choice each and every time a person uses drugs, or eats, or drinks, or consumes any substance. I do accept that there are people who become physically dependent on some drugs, such as heroin addicts. Detoxification works, and then those people have to learn to make good decisions again. In this point Straight Inc. was correct. Most of us needed to learn some good decision making criteria, but none of us ever needed to be mentally torn down to a zero-sum-being prior to learning these new tools.
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: enough on October 13, 2002, 04:19:00 PM
Monday & Friday - Open Meetings
08:45- In group and ready (Progress Reports Turned In)
09:00- Basics Rap
10:00- Homes Rap
12:00- Lunch bathrooms and medications
13:00- Guys & Girls Raps
15:00- Executive Rap
17:00- Exercise Rap (Staff Meeting Begins)
17:30- Dinner bathrooms and medications (Rules Rap until Books starts)
18:30- (Staff Meeting Ends)
18:45- Books
19:00- Open Meeting
22:00- Talks with Parents- The talks were five minutes but the process of doing them took a half an hour.
22:30- Line up and Get Ready
23:00- Leave the building on Monday nights if we are lucky.
Friday nights ran much later. Sometimes we did not leave the building until 1 am or later. We were delayed by intakes or other complications. The process of lining up after an open meeting was always complex. People had to be moved from one home to another to accommodate changes in phase or setbacks. There was always the rush to get clothing and food donated by out of town parents distributed properly. New dime therapy lists must be assembled by fresh oldcomers. It was a hectic time every week.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays
08:45- In group and ready
09:00- Basics Rap
10:00- Morning Rap
12:00- Lunch bathrooms and medications
13:00- Guys & Girls Raps
15:00- Exercise Rap
15:30- Afternoon Rap
17:30- Dinner bathrooms and medications
18:00- Rules Rap
18:30- Evening Rap
20:30- Line up and Get Ready
21:00- Typical leave time

Saturday
09:45 In group and ready
10:00 Basics Rap
10:30 Morning Rap
12:30 Lunch bathrooms and medications
13:30 Guys and Girls Rap
15:30 Exercise Rap
16:00 Afternoon Rap
18:00 Dinner bathrooms and medications
19:00 Rules Rap
19:30 Evening Rap
21:30 Line up and Get Ready
22:00 Typical leave time

Sunday
13:45 In group and ready
14:00 Basics Rap
15:00 Afternoon Rap
17:00 Dinner bathrooms and medications
18:00 Rules Rap
18:30 Evening Rap
20:30 Line up and Get Ready
21:00 Typical leave time


[ This Message was edited by: James on 2002-10-13 13:21 ]
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: enough on October 13, 2002, 04:26:00 PM
Types of Raps

Past/Present/Future- This was the most common of the therapeutic raps. There would be a basic theme or concept. For instance, staff might come in to the front of the group and ask someone to relate about a time in their past when they failed to do what they had said they would do. Everyone would start to motivate, a noisy proposition, and staff would call on a oldcomer to set a good tone for the rap. Then staff would relate a little to what they said, and then a couple more oldcomers. Eventually once the idea was established staff would start calling on newcomers. People who did not relate with specific personal and heartfelt information would be confronted. Staff would call on someone else in the group to carry out the confrontation. Staff would lead the group into relating about the present. This might provide them a window to ask a person who had failed in a commitment the prior day- just why did it happened ? This kind of planned confrontation was daily. The Rap would end on positive note, with staff leading the group to discuss goals or dreams about fulfilling commitments in the future.

Confrontation- The "volcano" was a favorite confrontation rap. There were many similar concepts. The basic idea is to get one or two people to describe exploding, or the things that a volcano does, then start to call on the people targeted for confrontation. These were people who were anything short of 100% compliant and enthusiastic about the program. These raps often led to extensive verbal assault and physical battery. Confrontation raps were almost always with a couple of Sr. Staff or higher in the room, or possibly leading the group. They might also participate from the back of the group.

Review- There were only a couple of review raps as I remember it. One was rules rap, a daily recitation of the entire litany of rules including memorization of all the names and positions on the chain of command. The other common review rap was after the open meetings on Friday and Monday nights.

Off The Wall- If the group was in a good place we would at times be treated to an off the wall rap. This might include breaking up into groups and working on role playing projects.

Core Idea- This rap was "grown from a core statement or central thought". Avoiding chronological development staff would lead the group in the process of taking "the pearl" and add layer after layer of insight and perception to it before the rap draws to a close.

Work Groups- Splitting into triads or larger groups to allow each small group work as a team to build a project or skit. This is more of a technique than a kind of rap as it can be integrated in many rap-types.

Instructional- Some review raps are instructional, often morning rap is instructional, the point of the rap is to educate. Virtually all basics raps were instructional. RSC or RSA raps were instructional. Kind of self-explanatory.

Introduction- Staff could choose to do their own introduction to the group as the basis for a rap. They could answer questions about their own lives and pasts as a way to build trust with the group.

Basics- A basics rap was about the seven steps and the other *tools* of change that the program offered. They avoided confrontation and personal issues. Staff would keep the pace fast and the relating brief. However, it should be noted that any rap about "honesty" could start off as basics and end up confrontational. It was the staff members call, it could change directions in the time it took for a fifth phaser to hand in a Chain of Command report.

Love Rap- Generally every night rap was some variety of love rap. Confrontation was avoided; focus was on changes of the day, setting goals and other positive concepts. Misbehavers were often carried out to the intake rooms for these positive raps. Love raps were mushy tear filled events where people who had been carving in their own arms all day would stand up and cry from the stress. These emotionally battered children would promise to change the following day and start the whole process over again in the morning.
 
Daily Rap Structure

Basics-The object is warming up the group & getting them to start thinking about the steps again. Focus them, get them started motivating, do an early assessment for the mood of the group. Label trouble points and correct seating arrangements. Rap solely focused on basics of the program. Avoid confrontation or personal issues.

Morning Rap- A quick paced shallow rap about the past habits ties and friends. A fast paced process of demonizing anything that was part of the clients life prior to the program. Clothing, foods, behaviors, thoughts and every other aspect of the "past" was demeaned repeatedly. Morning rap was to set the mood for the day - compulsive confession. On open meeting days this slot was filled with Homes Rap.

Guys & Girls Rap- Much more personal rap, with one staff member typically of the same gender as the group. These raps involved intense pressure to discuss sexual topics. Confession of the most horrific sexual thoughts was encouraged. Guys talked about their natural random homo-erotic thoughts as if they were demons that were part of the druggie world coming to drag them into relapse. Girls talked about how they were sluts in their pasts and confessed to having sluttish desires towards the guys in the group, again, as part of the drug problem. Guys talked about being "losers" in their pasts, and "losers" in their current school/work environments outside the program.. These raps were often highly confrontational, and regularly degraded into physical violence for both sexes.

Exercise Rap- Staff Trainees typically led this rap, though at times it was a fifth or fourth phaser. The exercises were always performed with no warm up or cool down process. We were always on a hard floor. We often did exercises that were really damaging to our bodies. The worst were the forced leg lifts, often mixed with aggressive verbal assault and physical battery. I remember people jogging in place barefoot, or in otherwise poor footwear for such high-impact exercise. I have little doubt that this practice caused physical damage to many of clients. If you think about it for a minute, prisons can't do this to people, and schools have to have a licensed instructor, and even then it has to be voluntary. This was daily forced exercise without regard for the potential damage. The objective was simple- get the group worked up before confrontation rap of the day.

Afternoon Rap- The most confrontational rap slot of the day. This was often a period of two solid hours of loud aggressive verbal assaults along with physical battery. Afternoon rap was a sweaty inferno in the Georgia summer. These raps would attract senior staff and the group staff supervisor. These were people who were highly skilled at verbal assault and manipulation. Afternoon rap was the tear down point of the day for the newcomers. They were faced with the waves of oldcomers arriving from school and work, flaunting their freedom. These so called examples would then spend the late afternoon and evening hours relating to the group, confronting newcomers and doing the grunt work of operating the program. Newcomers were brought to understand over time that if they simply confessed to being a drug addict, and learned to believe it, they too could be a part of this elite group & free from the hell of being a newcomer. On open meeting days this slot was filled with Executive Rap.

Night Rap- Almost always a love rap of some sort, the idea was to send everyone home thinking about themselves and how lucky they were to be alive and in straight. Night rap often included turning the lights down low, staff members telling their own stories, lots of tears, slow songs etc. Bring the kids down from being abused each night before you send them home.

What is a Rap ?

For my own part a rap was a period of two hours or longer, in a group of 100-300 people, getting motivated and if called upon, standing up and trying to relate to the rap topic in a way that would win me group approval. Once I got into staff training I learned more about how the raps were structured and what their purposes were as I have written above, but that still does not seem to answer the question, what is a rap ?

It is nearly impossible to explain the level of emotional pressure developed within the group. A rap was always focused on addiction and recovery, even an off the wall rap would end with a serious note about addiction and the risk of ending up dead or in jail. Raps are about the entire group changing, not just individuals. An individual revelation in a rap can be therapeutic or traumatic for everyone in the room. Raps were a chance for staff and upper phasers to use information they had about newcomers against them, with the goal of changing these peoples minds.

Raps are very structured group conversations. Staff would pick and choose who they called on in group based on knowledge of how that person will relate to a rap topic. Trusted higher phasers, especially fourth and fifth phasers were exected to set the example of relating in a manner that obtained group approval. Group approval was only offered for people who had come to accept themselves as insane, and in need of God. The deceptive and generic term higher powers is often put forth as a denial of the religious nature of the program. It is merely smoke and mirrors. Newcomers are coerced through intense group pressures into relating in the same way. Relating in anyway that is off the topic or focus of the rap will result in prompt verbal assault and potentially physical battery. The process of confession and conformity was central to the program and raps were planned to elicit as many confessions as possible from group memebers. The ultimate goal was to elicit complete self disclosure, the sharing of ones innermost thoughts, darkest ideas and deepest fears. Revelation of these normally hidden but natural human emotions and fears in such a traumatic and stressful manner left the kid in a state best described as an emotional sponge. If you truly want to find out how this feels, go to work tommorrow, stand up in the middle of the cubicle farm, and profess loudly and tearfully your most deeply hidden secret or fear, that one thing that you would really rather no one ever knew - like having sex with a relative, touching your dogs genitals when you were 8 years old etc. Everyone has them, we all grew up on the same planet. Try it, see if you like it. To get the full effect be sure there are at least 100 people around, and get them all to yell "we love you" at you when you are done. Complete the process by sitting down and flailing your arms and upper body around wildly for the next 12 hours without speaking again all day. Please let me know how it goes via E-mail.


Kids, don't try this at home and all standard disclaimers for this kind of example apply
Raps were the only way that a newcomer was allowed to communicate for twelve hours a day. A newcomer who did not get motivated would not be called on and could go the entire day without being permitted to speak. A newcomer who spoke out in group, without the permission of the staff, would quickly be battered, at the hands of those around them, If the surrounding clients were not agressive enough in enforcement, a staff member would incite them to physically assault a newcomer who was not motivating and relating appropiately in a rap. Someone would put their hand over the newcomers mouth and try to gag the person. If there was any resistance to this battery, the newcomer would then be further battered, restrained, and perhaps thrown to the ground and sat upon- all for the act of speaking. There was no avenue of recourse for the newcomer. Most often in a few weeks or months the same newcomer would be apologizing for "forcing the group to restrain me for my own good, to protect me from my twisted drug habit of speaking out without permission", or some such programmed lingo-drivel.

Raps were the core control feature, raps were the entire day, even dinner and lunch were referred to as raps. During meals we would be objects of ridicule if we did not put our food down to get motivated to speak each time we had the chance. Raps were constant, they were woven together with the Straight Inc. songs, they never seemed to end. There was no "recess".
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: enough on October 13, 2002, 04:27:00 PM
The name changed from Foster Homes to Host Homes in 1984. I can remember Sr. Staff coming out during line up one night and making a very explicit announcement. We were clearly instructed to never use the term foster home again. It was made clear to us that this term threatened the program and therefore our sobriety.

Foster homes came in a full spectrum of styles and belief systems. Some foster parents forced me to listen to scripture reading, others prohibited it. Virtually every foster home I ever occupied kept us locked in a bedroom at night. In some of these homes the key was kept in the underwear of the oldcomer, in others the parents locked us into the room at night, then went off and locked their other kids and finally themselves into their rooms. In more than one home I was forced to urinate in a milk jug at night and prohibited from movement of the bowels for the entire night. Often the urine jug was already partially filled with other peoples urine, it splattered and we were not afforded any hand wash facilities. This of course presents all kinds of disease vectors for Hepatitis and other urine born infections.

Foster homes were not required to feed us at night, but were encouraged to provide a snack. Some homes had full meals available each night, and those parents were verbally assaulted by staff members for alleged "enabling". Foster homes were responsible for providing a brown bag lunch and breakfast for each phaser in the home. At times there were 5-7 phasers in some foster homes. Most often the foster homes provided us with a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, an apple or orange and if we were lucky a cookie. Some foster homes provided cold cut sandwiches. Most foster homes prohibited sodas for phasers. Foster homes were required to have no alcohol on the premises. Foster homes were required to have all knives and other sharp objects, household chemicals and other dangerous items under lock and key at all times.

Personal hygiene was strictly enforced in all foster homes. Most homes had a limit on shower length- usually 1-3 minutes of water time. Some oldcomers required newcomers to shower in cold water only. In more than one home I was forced to ask for permission for each time I wiped myself after a movement of the bowels. I had to ask for permission to perform every single process of my personal hygiene every day for months at a time. Every newcomer went through this process of depersonalization.

In one of my foster homes I was told by the father that if I tried to escape from his house he would shoot me in the leg and blame me for trying to kill myself. He assured me that I would be put in an insane asylum for the rest of my life if this happened.

People in general do not do well with imprisonment, and teenagers generally do worse than the average person. I remember at least three people who jumped out of second floor windows to escape the program. Some people were lacerated badly in these attempts. On at least one occasion I know of a foster family and the phasers chasing down the naked cop-out in the neighborhood and dragging them back to the foster home.

These so called foster homes were private prisons with authoritarian parents as the wardens and teenage thug enforcers as guards. People were verbally assaulted by whole families well into the wee hours and then expected to get up at six am and go spend twelve hours in group and come home and do it again ...sometimes for more than a year at a time.
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: enough on October 13, 2002, 04:35:00 PM
Homes Rap

Homes raps took place each open meeting day in the morning rap slot. Homes was gender specific and the seating arrangement was phase differential. Newcomers were seated Indian style on the floor while oldcomers sat in chairs that formed a ring around the tightly packed newcomers. Staff sat at a table at the head of the group and fifth phasers if any were around stood around the chair barrier. If there was no fifth phaser in group a fourth phaser may be pressed into acting as a fifth phaser .People still guarded all the doors in the room too, but were drawn in closer to the group.

Staff had the homes book and the stack of progress reports written by the oldcomers. They started with the people with the fewest accumulated days on first phase who were eligible for advancement. The newcomer stands up and talks to the group about the changes they have made since the last homes rap. They are expected to be able to list off some specific concrete examples of their progress. Then the other newcomers and some of the oldcomers are called on by staff to express their support for the person. Also if this person is believed to be "FOS" then they are free to confront them. It is often clear who will get what they ask for and who will not. However, staff always managed to toss a few surprises into the loop.

After the phasers have had a shot at this person then staff gets a shot, it is usually short and too the point and almost always confrontive. Though there were times that compassion came about in homes, homes was most often a confrontive situation. Then the group votes on this person across the range of options- Talk, T&R or Home.

People who are on refreshers and setbacks are required to go through this process again in order to regain their prior phase levels.

Homes had no topic, there was nothing to relate to, no tales of the past no tearjerker stories. Homes was a business meeting, the board of directors determining who moves on. Homes votes were supposed to carry weight with the executives. Though it seems to me now that this was not really the case.

Executive Rap

Executive rap took the afternoon slot on open meeting days. This was the time we were actually in the room with the clinicians. The executive rap was something sacred and high. Sometimes it was fun, mostly it was truly aggressive and abusive. Full grown adults screaming and yelling at 13 year olds, calling them sluts and whores and threatening them with court orders and prison rapes. Boys were not immune to the prison rape threat either.

In theory this was the executives chance to assess our progress and confront us with information acquired from the parents. It was a scary thing. I did not like executive raps. There was always a large contingent of the group staff in the room. The group staff supervisor was around and was confronting people. There was a special tension built up- intentionally. We were expected to be on our best behavior and if we so much as started to play eye games or stop motivating we would be immediately verbally assaulted and immediately physically battered.

We were told how we were privileged to have the executives working on our behalf. Executives were beyond questioning, absolute gods and wielded the power to have someone carried away on a hand signal. It was way too much power for any one person to hold over a group of 300.

Open Meetings

Just prior to an open meeting two staff members would come out and read the books. They would go through the males and females separately. The staff member would call out the name of the newcomers who had applied for something and call out what they got. People who got nothing had to stand up and hear the staff member say NOTHING. They received no clapping. People who earned talk were afforded a single unified clap from the group. People who earned T&R were afforded two unified claps. People who earned second phase, going home, were afforded a short period of applause and hugs from the people around them. The phasers who advanced were announced at this time also. If you put in for fourth phase but didn't make it you simply heard nothing. This was a uncomfortable position, it meant you were obligated to talk after the open meeting about why you had failed to progress.

The open meeting happened twice a week, every Monday and Friday night. This was the parents chance to see the group. It was a chance for the program to have guests see the group. And it was the time for prospective parents to see what the group was like. The open meeting starts with the group singing loudly. We sing only straight approved songs of course, all about the program and walking down that "straight road". The guests are escorted in and seated in the front rows. Then the parents are escorted in and seated. At times in Atlanta these Friday night meetings held 600 people or more.

An executive or a Sr. Staff introduces the group and makes some opening comments. Then there are 3-5 "introductions" from newcomers on each side of the group (boys and girls). These are generally a listing of the drugs consumed, and a short story about some specific horrible thing that the newcomer had done in the past on drugs. A public confession of criminal behavior. Then there is an oldcomer "introduction" ( Pic ) from someone on fourth or fifth phase. This perky child will recant a horrible tale of drug use and cry about it then talk about how the program had saved them from drugs and list some of the fantastic pure aspects of the new life.

A Staff member will give speaking engagement style story of their own experiences as well, then an executive will talk for a bit. Eventually the guests are escorted out of the room and the microphone is passed around from parent to parent as they stand up their first phase kids who had not earned any talk and confront them. This usually took the form of "John, we're real sad that you have not decided to work the program. We all love you and want you to come home soon." Then the mother would break down in tears from the stress of seeing her child out of her custody and being unable to hug or touch her child at all.

Finally we sing more songs as the parents leave. Then the fifth phasers rearrange the chairs in the room to accommodate the talk sessions. The phasers who earned talk are lined up with oldcomers holding onto them. The parents of those kids, if present, come in and sit down. The kids go and sit with their parents and the oldcomer assigned to them. They get five minutes to talk to the parents. There are staff members hovering around. Talks were supposed to be about making amends, we were discouraged from discussing heavy topics with our parents. Discussing anything that happened in group, or expressing any negative attitude towards the program would result the immediate termination of your talk privilege. It meant that you could look forward to extensive confrontation in the later review rap. Meanwhile the rest of the group gets to sit in silence, or relate quietly for about fifteen minutes.

After the talks are done and the parents are out of the room the group reforms and we sing a couple of quiet songs (so we do not disturb the parent raps). The group then had a short review-rap that allowed us all to relate to what happened in the open meeting. Some people were confronted for their misbehavior, like playing eye games with guests etc. Some people gush tears about seeing their parents looking so sad. Guilt is flying through the room and the staff are helping to pile on the guilt trips. During this rap those who failed to progress were confronted and verbally assaulted. This was the time for setbacks as well. Higher phasers who had failed to progress were often set back on refreshers during this time period.

After all the business was done, and the parents were all out of the building, we were lined up, we did all our drop-offs and stop-offs and re-arranging of foster homes. We would leave the building as late as 1 or 2 AM on Friday nights. Mondays we would typically get out sooner, perhaps 11:30 or 12:00.

Open Meeting Rules

Introductions -First name only, age, state that you are a drug addict, how long you have been doing drugs, how long you have been in Straight Inc. past- some specific drug using incident and how I felt, present- what I have learned about myself since being in Straight Inc. Future- two short term goals and one long term goal.

Apply Honesty to my introduction - Since honesty meant full self-disclosure, this rule meant that I should freely admit to my flawed nature and behavior during my introduction. I should be fully self disclosing, but not disclose anything about how the program works. Of course I should not be forthright about not liking the place, and if I were expected to do so, then I would not be allowed to give my introduction. No one gave an introduction until they could be trusted to do so without screaming their desire to leave out loud.

No slang or profanity during my introduction - I was not to use any kind of druggie slang, or any profanity during my introduction. During group we used profanity constantly, but during our introductions to the outside world, not even one word of it. And if we did, we could expect to be verbally assaulted later that night for "using fucking curse words". I need not point out this irony.

I stand up when my parents stand up - This was when the parents were passing the microphone to talk to their newcomer children each open meeting. A kid who failed to stand up would be pushed up by other kids and this could lead to a fight. the offending child would be dragged from the room kicking and screaming in front of their parents and the rest of the parents. To this day I amazed at how we all just stood still during these scenes of abuse. I know there were officers of the court present during these scenarios, and they stood by without taking action. These events were public unprovoked battery of non violent passive resisters with hundreds of witnesses.

In open meetings phasers say only "I love you" -  No other talking out is permitted. When the mike is being passed, parents whose children earned talk or are on higher phases simply say I love you, the parents who stand up and confront their newcomer child get to speak for a couple of minutes. the child may only respond with a single I love you at the end of the confrontation. Failure to say it would lead to confrontation both during and after an open meeting. Attempting to say any more would result in immediate battery as other clients around the child would clamp their hands over their mouth and physically restrain and remove the child from the room.  

No wearing the same clothes to 2 open meetings in a row - This was to prevent anyone from manipulating their parents emotions by appearing to have to wear the same clothing all the time. This was despite the fact that often we had only one set of clothes as our possessions were being moved from one foster home to another, there were countless incidents of staff making a client put on a shirt from a bag of 'mystery' clothes in the bulding, to insure that the truth did not get out.

Birthdays and anniversaries are for second phase and higher - When B&A's are announced second phase and higher clients may stand up for recognition.

Report anyone breaking confidentiality - Anyone in the audience that is using a tape recorder, or camera, or writing down notes is a threat and should be reported immediately.

Talk is for Practicing my Amends Step, not for discussing "wants" - During my five minute parent talks as a newcomer I am expected to spend the time making apologies or "changes". I am prohibited from discussing issues such as food or clothing. I can expect to face rigorous confrontation and assault later in the night if I do not conform to this expectation. If I were to start to say I wanted to leave and suggest that we were being abused inside the program, the oldcomer would grab my beltloop and yank me away from my parents.

Oldcomers supervise first phaser parent talks - Oldcomers insure that newcomers maintain the focus of the discussion on his or her own faulty nature and failures. The oldcomer can raise their hand to get staff support if they feel that the talk is over their heads or out of control.

Oldcomers respect that the talk is for the newcomer - Oldcomers are expected to listen closely and pay attention but to avoid being involved in the talk.
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: enough on October 13, 2002, 04:37:00 PM

 
The chain of command dealt with everyday items such as a request for an aspirin or for time in a sick room. The chain of command included all reports of other people and of our own individual pasts and druggie ties etc. Chain of command was the way to request a change of foster homes, or to see a doctor. In short the chain of command was the way that things got done.

Breaking chain of command required extraordinary circumstances. Breaking chain of command could invite retribution or punishment even if it was with the best of intentions.

Fifth phasers wrote down chain of command requests by hand in little spiral ring notebooks. The most serious COC was the request to leave, either Self or Family withdrawal. These C.O.C's were to go through to staff immediately. Sometimes staff would come out of the office and confront the person. The COC would at times be torn up in front of group to make the point clear - we were not leaving. Because many of us were signed in by our parents, we were subject to their agreement with Straight Inc. One of the things that Straight Inc. asked of the parents up-front was a commitment not to pull the kid out of the program in the first several months. Straight Inc. takes this commitment from the parents to be blanket denial of a request to leave from the kid. So these kids who would put in request after request to leave never got the message to their families that they were being abused.

Adults who asked to leave via COC in Georgia could be held for 72 hours, usually based on the clients own compulsive confession of suicidal thoughts. Thoughts that might have never occurred without the suggestion from Straight Inc. that we were all suicide risks all the time.

Looking back I realize that this is simply unacceptable. There are six or seven layers of insulation between a clinician and the newcomer client. As a child and a recent victim of sexual abuse I accepted and complied with this rigid structure and lack of proper treatment. As an adult I can say with all clarity - this was not a valid model for treating adolescents. Is it any wonder that Straight Inc. promoted itself as affordable- there were at times only four clinicians for a group of 250 clients and the corresponding 500 parents. That is a patient to clinician ratio of 750/1 . Adding in the siblings involved and that raises to more like 850/1. I do not know of many medical professionals that would call that an effective clinical environment.
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: enough on October 13, 2002, 04:38:00 PM
There were advantages and disadvantages to both classes. I was an out of town kid. My hometown was about 250 miles from the facility. My parents drove that four hour trip each way one or two times a week for about 18 months. My parents had to stay in hotels often, though sometimes my Mom would stay in a host home in a solo visit to Atlanta.

Out of town kids lived in foster homes all the time. So for us the idea of "coming home" to second phase was a little blunted by the fact that we had to go home with some other family. Of course by the time anyone was allowed to "go home" they should have been well programmed enough to be calling all the parents Mom and Dad anyway. Being an out of town oldcomer meant that talking to your parents was mostly on the phone. In town kids would try to shirk all responsibilities with newcomers to out of town oldcomers. Of course we could report them for that and get them in trouble.

On fourth phase out of town kids have to make a trip home with another fourth phaser along. On Fifth Phase out of town kids have to spend their vacation at their home, in-town kids can go somewhere else for a vacation with their families. Out of town kids spend the weekend nights in hotel rooms with their families. Some hotels were pre-approved for taking newcomers, others were not. Out of town kids had to make an effort to take newcomers or they may be reported for avoiding their responsibilities to the group.

There was always a certain tension between the in-town families and the out of town families. The staff tried to keep it out of the group as much as possible. Parents were prohibited from discussing these kinds of issues with the phasers. Things like costs of food and housing so many people, these were never for our ears. Families would leave the program, and those of us housed with them would find out at the end of the night- we were not going home to the same family we had the night before. We never heard from these people again, after living in their homes and forming bonds with them. Out of town kids would often have possessions including MI books and other intensely personal things left behind in an old foster home. The family would leave the program and not return the items or throw them away, despite rules to the contrary. Sometimes we got all our stuff back, most times we just let it go. In any case we would never presume to make an issue out of it, after all we had been losers and sluts in our pasts and deserved to taste the pain of having something taken from us now.

I think that the grass was always greener on the other side of the fence for many of these folks. No one was in a comfortable position, imagine having total strangers living in your house, after being told by so-called doctors that these people were capable of committing suicide or homicide at anytime. Imagine having a 26 year felon living in your home, treating him like an invalid, and having him restrain, assault and batter 13 years old kids. Imagine listening to children talk about how they felt evil and twisted for thinking of masturbation last night and it not even phasing you. Imagine the cost of having five to six extra children living in your home ? And finally, imagine leaving your child in the care of who knows which parent ? Remember, all parents were uninformed as to the location of their own children as long as the child was on newcomer status. Not even a death in the family would justify revealing the location of a newcomer to their own parents. The anonymity of the foster family was vital. New parents might go over for a visit and find out their kids were being tortured, can't have that.
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: enough on October 13, 2002, 04:40:00 PM
Getting Motivated

Getting motivated was a daily torture, pure and simple. The act of getting motivated involves throwing ones arms into the air in a frantic flailing fashion. In my group in Atlanta, we became so involved in this that we began to throw ourselves out of our chairs. On Wes Fager's website there is a picture of kids getting motivated. You can see one young man who clearly has his own leg locked around the leg of his chair. That was a common habit, we would get in trouble if we were standing up while motivating. If my ass rose too high in the air some oldcomer behind me would likely grab my beltloop and pull me down to the chair violently. Of course I was expected to continue to get motivated. Getting motivated took place constantly, if someone was not talking, or we were not singing. There was always some poor sap ready to relate to the group, and that meant he/she would start getting motivated. That would get everyone else into it, for fear of looking like slackers. We were expected to get motivated to gain the privilege of speaking. We often had to spend long hours sitting Indian style, cramped close together on purpose, and getting motivated. We would hit each other with our elbows constantly during these sessions, kid of a mutual group beating. I flailed my arms so hard, my ass would fly off the ground and slam back down hundreds of times an hour, for hours at a time, over the course of 18 months.

Getting motivated was about the expression on your face as well. For many people it included snapping our fingers. We would throw our hands into the air so hard that our index and middle fingers would slap against each other making a snapping noise, and bruising up our fingers. In time it was outlawed as disrespectful to the staff and group. Snapping at people was labeled a druggie habit.

Some host homes required us to get motivated to talk in the house. Some required people to get motivated to eat food. It was a constant issue. "How's your motivation?" oldcommers would ask on the ride home. "He's copping out" another newcomer would say, in hopes of gaining acceptance. the newcomer might be forced to get motivated in the home while everyone else ate, only to be fed a smaller portion or not at all..

Some staff members really liked to let the group get motivated for extended periods. Staff would regularly yell that we were motivating like "losers" or worse. The whole point was to get us worked up and get adrenaline pumping through our veins, this made it easier to elicit emotional confessions.

Exercise Rap>

Exercise rap was a daily half hour to forty five minutes of so called exercises. They were really tortures, and in no way resemble any of the good exercise postures I have learned in the past year.

We were regularly forced to jog in place, often without proper footwear for high impact activity. We were regularly forced to do leg lifts, often we would be forced to get motivated to talk or sing while doing leg lifts. No mats, no stretching out first, no certified health specialist around, often not even an adult in the room other than the newcomers.

Exercise rap was mostly the job of staff trainees, but could be run by a fourth phaser or fifth phaser if necessary. Often a trainee would leave two fifth phasers in charge of the exercises while doing paperwork. Staff would tell the group to hassle and physically attack the people who refused to participate in exercises. I can clearly recall people being flopped around like scarecrows, in passive resistance situations. There would be four or five phasers around manipulating the arms and legs of the non-compliant client. It was surreal, like a puppet show, and all along someone- either staff or phaser- would be screaming about how this nuke needed to "fake it till you make it" or some other piece of the lingo..

Exercise rap was dreaded. Some staff were more intense with it than others. Exercise rap was always in the afternoon, and we were required to work out and get really sweaty. Guys and Girls would be soaked after some of these exercises. We would line up for the chance to go to the bathroom, and get a sip of water out of a fountain.

Exercise rap was meant to help us burn off steam, and to keep out emotional level high. It sometimes degraded into a big fight. Some kid would refuse to cooperate, he would try to remain passive, but as the torture got more and more intense, bending the fingers back till they are near snapping, the client would freak out. They would often be tackled by five or six people. There were times that guys had to restrain and tackle girls, and vice versa. Adults attacked children and children attacked adults without hesitation.

Physical Abuse

Non-compliance of any kind, would invite battery. Someone would start to poke or jab at the non-compliant client until it provoked a response. This response was used as an excuse to restrain or further batter the client. A newcomer practicing passive resistance techniques led the group members around the non-compliant client to move their arms and legs and keep their back stiff and straight- forcibly. This entailed constant battery and assault.

I witnessed this kind of assault and battery on a daily basis for the entire time I was in straight. In foster homes, people who were non-compliant were at the mercy of the oldcomers & parents in the home. Some oldcomers were sadistic in their abuse of newcomers. Some oldcomers sexually abused their newcomers. Some host parents would participate in the abuse of children in their homes. People were sometimes taken out of group, and abused either in bathrooms or intake rooms. People were expected to poke and prod the non-compliant client, failure to do so would invite the wrath of the group.

At one point during my time in Straight Inc. Staff came out and taught us the "proper" restraint techniques. This took about twenty minutes or a half hour. There was a Sr. Staff female and an Executive Staff female involved in this demonstration to the group. Let me make that perfectly clear, a clinician at Straight Inc. instructed all of the clients about the proper way to physically restrain each other. This person told 200 or more people to commit crimes against each other in very specific ways. Ostensibly this was to prevent injury while holding someone down in a chair or on the floor against their will. But why were teenagers restraining each other in the first place ?

[ This Message was edited by: James on 2002-10-13 13:42 ]
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: enough on October 13, 2002, 04:44:00 PM
In our group in Atlanta there were five bathrooms, two in the carpet room, two in the main group room and one in the intake hallway near the kitchen door.The intake strip searches went on in the single bathroom in the intake hallway as I remember it. For the most part the group used the two bathrooms in the main group room. The stalls had no doors on them, I think there were two toilets and three or four urinals. I can not recall details of the girls restrooms.

In the guys bathroom we stood in a tightly packed group while being belt-looped by oldcomers waiting to relieve ourselves. People who needed to move their bowels had to do so in a crowed bathroom with no privacy. We were  required to wash our hands before returning to group, at least they had the good sense to require cleanliness. Of course, in the thought reform world even washing your hands becomes a point for agressive confrontation. Newcomers who were in "denial" were "ridden" about even this detail. Take too long- get yelled at. Go to slow- same answer. Too much soap, how can you waste that soap, do you know what your parents and the group goes through to get you that soap ? The verbal agression, for a non conforming client, simply did not end. Pee too slow and you might even be yanked away from the urinal midstream.

In the Atlanta program people were taken into the bathrooms, as well as the two sick rooms,  for confrontations. These  closed door group confrontations were regularly overheard in group and were loud & vulgar. I witnessed some of these sessions myself and they are traumatic and potentially damaging for the stress susceptible. People had their heads dunked in toilets, people were struck by staff members, people were completely denigrated by gangs of oldcomers- all in the bathroom. I believed for eighteen years that the events I witnessed were unique. After conversations and the July 2001 conference I have come to believe that thousands may share my experience.

Use of the bathroom provided a powerful location association, something the victims & aggressors  will do every day for the rest of their lives. The mere act of using the bathroom begins to reinforce the "approved" faith system as the clients are coerced into reliving these traumatic sessions in the group. Aggression itself, a natural result of these traumatic events, becomes "part of your drug problem", like any other aspect of ones life that the program deems unacceptable.  Without some form of support, this trauma often becomes permanent. It is impossible to put into words the level of emotional intensity that was reached in the bathroom confrontations. Once you have this level of intense emotional association, it really never leaves. The best we can hope for is to learn to live with it.
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: enough on October 13, 2002, 04:45:00 PM
First and foremost the message in group and at all times was

"there is no way out, except to work the program"

Short of this idealistic illusion there were in fact four ways out:

Copping Out- Far and away the most common method of leaving the program without clinical advice. This involved trying to escape from the control of your oldcomer, foster family and the group itself. One could cop-out more easily from a higher phase, and it happened often. Most commonly it was from school or work and often by fourth phasers. In my experience first and fourth phasers were most likely to cop-out. Cop-outs were often tracked down, either by foster families, real families or mercenary graduates and associates of the program. Cop-outs were often battered and bruised upon their return to group.

Self Withdrawal- This could be either with or without clinical advice. Of course it was never with and was always without. We were told that at the age of 18 we could self-withdraw, and we could. Of course if the program could find a way to get a court order, they would. People who attempted a self withdrawal were always put through a 72 hour hold. This was allowed under state law as a precautionary tool for persons who had expressed suicidal ideations etc. it is a pretty common thing, but straight abused it. Some kids were held for 72 hours with no real cause, just to try and torture them into compliance, and it worked quite often.

Family Withdrawal- This again could be with or without clinical advice and was rarely with. Family withdrawals generally had to be initiated by the parents or the executive staff. There were times that families pulled kids who did not want to leave. Sometimes these children were forced to break all their social networks on a moments notice, and many of us who were close friends at the time, never heard from each other again.

Termination-This was dismissal from the program permanently, generally at the staff's wishes. This was rare, and generally if it did happen most of us never knew about it. The kid would just disappear into the intake hallway doors- and never return to group. This of course was true of most withdrawals as well. There was no drama to these processes, and no one was allowed to talk about these people after they had left the program.
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: enough on October 13, 2002, 04:48:00 PM
The Staff training I received consisted of approximately 15 sessions that ran one or two hours each. The following list is as best I can remember it.

Introduction - A basic introduction to the life of a staff member at Straight Inc. Late nights, high stress, limited sleep and responsibility for other peoples lives were the burdens of staff members. We had to maintain a image in front of the group of the absolute highest moral standards, and we were expected to live up to this standard in our own lives as well.

What is a Helper - A rationalization of the techniques used at Straight Inc., why it was helping someone to belt-loop them or verbally assault them. As usual it was a simple answer for a complex question, we were saving their lives, they had this terminal disease and if we did not get them to confess that and then become compliant, then we were failing in our own applications of the principles in the steps.

Helping Skills X2 sessions - A pair of sessions where we were introduced to a series of skills for manipulating people in group. Focusing, Leading, Reflecting and Relating or something along those lines. Mostly through the use of leading questions, but also through skills in acquiring trust, the relating side of it. Looking back now I realize that I took these skills with me and continued to manipulate people for fifteen years after leaving Straight Inc.

Dyads X3 sessions - Dyads were practice sessions for our skills. We split in to groups of two, and would spend time counseling each other on made up issues. We gave each other feedback verbally and accepted feedback from upper staff and executive staff.

Drug Use as A Disease - We were given a number of handouts that explained the drug disease in teenagers. This theory is described in detail here. we learned about it in more detail than most of the phasers and we were expected to keep this knowledge to ourselves. Straight Inc. officials were constantly harping on how we did not have any secrets in staff training, but we still never talked about the process or contents thereof.

The Chemically Dependent Family - Likewise described in detail here. This was also clearer labels of things we already had in our heads in raw form- the compulsive confession system, the need to self-disclose, etc.

Rap Group Skills - A session to help us understand the different types of raps and their basic structures, as described here. We  then were scheduled to do our first rap during one of the following two sessions.

Rap Groups w/ Feedback X2 Sessions - We had to come up with the rap theme and structure. The group was divided into three smaller groups and we were allowed to do a rap with this small group solo for a short period of time. This was the final evaluation of the staff training process. This fifteen or twenty minute session, after just a few weeks of classes, with no formal education or testing process, was the way that Straight Inc. chose their staff trainees. After this short period of training, and the generally year or more that we had already spent learning the group routine, we were somehow more skilled and able to help these other kids and adults than people with years of professional training  and even doctorates in human psychology. we were told that we now were some of the best educated and skilled peer counselors in the world.
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: enough on October 13, 2002, 04:49:00 PM
This was one of the most convoluted bizarre things that this cult taught me. It was then  and remains today a load of buffalo-chips- in my humble opinion. It is confusing and hard to read about even after I had the opportunity to review some actual RSC documentation. The whole thing was portrayed to lower phasers as a panacea once they achieved fourth phase, when they would be allowed in on the special knowledge of RSC. Fourth phasers were prohibited from discussing the contents of their RSC teachings with lower phasers. I can remember newcomers standing up in group and confessing to reading some of an oldcomers RSC stuff over their shoulder or something, and being heavily confronted for such an infraction. But worst of all, the oldcomer would be assaulted for allowing it to happen, this was considered putting a newcomers sobriety at risk, through exposing them to specialized information the were "not ready to deal with".  

Rational self counseling was a series of raps that were required for all fourth phasers in Straight Inc. It was sometimes called Rational Self Analysis, but that was actually a process taught within the self counseling raps. The classes focused on the relationship between our perceptions, the thoughts that resulted from them, and the feelings and behaviors that occurred due to these perceptions.

The first assumption involved in all of these teachings is that we have flawed systems for dealing with our perceptions as drug addicts. We are taught to assume that we do not have any control over our self talk. Self talk was explained to us as something similar to a news ticker on a TV. We were taught that this flow of self talk for us drug addicts would always include desires to use drugs. We had to learn focus in on this self talk, and begin to write down these thoughts as they happened as part of our homework. So we all went off to school and work and we began for the week to write down all the little fleeting thoughts we might have had that were inconsistent with the system of faith approved by Straight Inc.

When we returned for the next rap we began to learn to use this thing called a "RSA worksheet". It had five columns: Perceptions (events), Self Talk (thoughts), Emotions (feelings), Behaviors (reactions). We were first to have all the "problem perceptions" written down in column A ( example: I perceived that someone at school today wanted me to smoke a cigarette with them), then write down the problem thoughts that were related to that perception in column B. This was called "Camera Checking". Then we were taught to go to column D in write in the behavior that this problem perception causes ( example: thinking about this possible cigarette makes me want to smoke, which will make me die as a drug addict). We are then taught to go back and work through Column B "thoughts" to find the one or two "key thoughts" that cause our feelings, working down till we reach the "bottom line thought" This is the core problem-thought that causes the self destructive behavior in Column C. This chain of thoughts is called the "inference chain".

We are then taught that the key to changing our behaviors and all of our problems in life could be simply learning to change those "bottom line thoughts". we were told that we were powerless over the first thoughts, that was a part of our disease, and would be a part of us for our entire lives, but we could learn to use this process to change the ending thoughts just prior to our behaviors, and therefore our behaviors.

So we have to write now in the lower part of column D, the new desired behaviors, i.e.  not doing drugs. Then we have to determine what "feelings" will lead to that behavior, we write that feeling down in the lower part of Column C.

In order to feel these desired feelings, and to act the desired behavior, we must change the bottom line thoughts in Column B.

This involves developing new thoughts about the situation in column A, that produce the new feelings in column C and then to the new actions in Column D. We are taught to test our inference chain, and verify that all of our bottom line thoughts really are bottom line by cross checking them against the previously determined feelings in column C ( Another wonder of Straight Inc.'s circular logic department of circular logic)

We learn that we get to make two kinds of changes here: we can make a negative experience positive, or we can made a truly awful feeling into a mildly unpleasant one. This is when we got the feeling intensity chart.

Next we learn about the five criteria. We use the three out of five rule to see if these newly developed thoughts will be appropriate. The five Criteria are listed back on The Steps if you need to review them. If three of  them applied to my new thoughts then I was to accept these new thoughts as ok. We are asked to spend the week "thinking our new thoughts".

We are asked how we felt thinking these new thoughts. We all report feeling fake, as expected, and are told about "cognitive dissonance" which is supposed to be the gap between "head-learnin'" and "gut-learnin'". We learn that this is why we had to "fake it till we make it" back on the earlier phases, because we were changing ourselves and out thought processes, we had to learn to expect to feel uncomfortable with our new thoughts.

We spend several weeks on fourth phase doing these RSA worksheets, at school at home, anytime we can. We have been taught yet again to use simple solutions to complex problems. Thoughts about masturbation were considered just as self damaging as thoughts about suicide.

During my experience with RSC it was a regular thing for a kid to stand up and talk about how their RSA's had been about sexual perversions or about suicidal ideations and that was just regular stuff for us. Those kinds of perverted and twisted thoughts were all easily explained away as a result of our lifelong disease.

There may have been other catchphrases and keyword and lingo used here. In fact I am sure that I can not remember all of this stuff clearly. In summary I have to say that looking back on this is seems like such meaningless drivel. It was so meaningless and generalist that just trying to explain it is difficult.

Can you imagine, living your entire life questioning your own thought processes in painful detail, to the point of doing RSA worksheets for your dreams ? Have you ever tried to rationally explain your dreams ?

Have you ever had a fleeting thought of violence ? A fleeting incident of feeling  road-rage ? For many of us today those fleeting thoughts are something that we have to compulsively self-disclose, and analyze in detail, lest they might be the ugly head of our drug problem threatening our very lives. Can you imagine dealing with that kind of stress daily ?
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: enough on October 13, 2002, 04:50:00 PM
Here we arrive at what has to be the most fundamental problem with not only Straight Inc. but all of the businesses,  programs,  academies,  schools and treatment centers-- all of them. The  paraprofessional group staff modality.

Group staff was defined in Straight Inc. as anyone from the Group Staff Supervisor all the way down to the Fifth-Phase-Staff-Trainee. At Straight Inc. not only did this business fail to hire qualified licensed personnel to work as the group staff; Straight  required the group staff to be graduates of Straight Inc. I want this be perfectly clear- If you held dual degrees from major institutions and had a list of achievements in helping children a mile long, you would still not be eligible or considered "qualified" to work as a group staff member. The best you get would be a limited exposure to the clients as an executive. The so called clinicians at Straight Inc. believed that these paraprofessionals were vital to the therapy process- to reiterate - In Straight Inc it was vital to the therapeutic model to have untrained unlicensed recent graduates as staff members. The program was said to be non-functional if that could not be true.

Group Staff therefore by definition was made up completely of drug addicts. In General group staff were fairly recent graduates, staff tended not to stick around more than a couple of years on average. We were expected to make a commitment for at least one year I believe. There was on occasion a staff transfer from one group to another. a couple of staff people during my time in Straight, left for a while and came back later. Some Sr. Staff quit a couple of times, and some ofthese people later told me personally that they were  actually using drugs on a regular basis while in group leading raps and during open meetings.  

Group Staff were considered by Straight to be qualified simply by their experience in the program itself, and a period of training sessions as described in Staff Training. Persons like myself, I worked for a short time as a fifth phase trainee, were responsible for these clients, at the age of 18 or 19, with no high school diploma, or any collegiate training or education whatsoever.

The group staff were in general the most talented at manipulating people into participating in the "self-disclosure" process. Group staff were in charge of the group most of the time. Executives participated only in the open meeting days during the meeting and exec-rap. If you look at the schedule this means that we as teenagers were in the hands of other teenagers as staff members and under their complete control on the order of 77 hours a week compared to about 10 hours a week with an executive. If you do some simple math, there are about 600 minutes a week with an exec. present and there are about 200 clients- that gives us each about 3 minutes a week with a clinician, and an additional 23 minutes a week with a paraprofessional- and  virtually none of it in private.

 The only way to get private counseling outside of a unpredictable periodic 1on1 session with a primary counselor, was to ask to leave the program,  or in some other way attract negative attention of the executives or other staff. When we left the building we went home to be under the control of these other teenagers for the remainder of the hours in the week. Through  this horrific staffing situation, thousands of kids who were battered and sexually abused in the early eighties, were denied counseling, and medical attention, denied treatment for their stress syndromes, and were diagnosed and treated as "filthy drug addicted losers" who had "brought this all on ourselves". This was the core failure of Straight Inc. a failure to accept or understand, because of the crusade-like nature of the business, that there were in fact other primary causes involved in many of the clients lives, and that for a large number of clients, drugs were in fact a symptom of previous abuse situations.

[ This Message was edited by: James on 2002-10-13 13:52 ]
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: enough on October 13, 2002, 04:53:00 PM
Ok, we all know that it is perfectly normal for teenagers and adults to masturbate. And I feel certain that for some of you I have already mentioned masturbation one too many times.

In Straight Inc. we were all brought to believe that our previous sexual "immorality" or "misconduct" was solely a result of our drug addiction disease. We were taught that our disease made us desire "instant gratification" and that one of the most insidious pathways to our souls, for this drug disease, was our desire for sexual gratification.

Some of my foster parents told me that my homosexual and bisexual desires were the voice of the Devil in my head and that I had to accept Jesus as my savior to escape this Satanic possession. In other foster homes I was teased and ridiculed constantly and called faggot and queer as a matter of course.

Straight did this to all the clients. Girls were not immune to this kind of sexual labeling. I can remember girls standing up in group and talking about how their fathers had raped them in the past, and then referring to that behavior as a part of their drug problem's. It was suggested that these girls brought this upon themselves through their  sluttish manner of dress and deportment. They were told that although their  fathers were acting out of  their own illness as well, the Fathers illness was a part of the family disease concept, which directed all responsibility for the sick family squarely back at the child-client.

I witnessed several hundred separate admissions of sexual abuse while in the program, and I witnessed just as many kids standing up and compulsively self-disclosing their thoughts of self gratification. Kids would be brought to tears while making these admissions out of the guilt they felt for failing in the application of the steps. This was a pervasive aspect of the program. It really seemed that no child could advance to second phase without delving into deeply help sexual fantasies, or revealing or claiming to reveal some deep dark sexual secret. It seemed to be a focus especially in the guys and girls raps, when we would be prodded to self disclose our most "twisted" or "druggie" sexual misconducts. For guys this often meant admitting to either real or imagined rapes both as the aggressor and the victim. We boys were also prodded to discuss sex with animals, and with our families. Discussing ones own sexual past in the appropriate light, as a twisted result of being a drug addict, was a sure fire method of gaining both group and staff acceptance.  

Masturbation was said to be used as a distraction from dealing with my drug problem. I was taught that masturbation was unnatural and self abusive.

Masturbation was no easy thing to carry out while living as a newcomer. I know that I perfected the fine art of laying in bed an waiting for all the oldcomers to fall asleep and then masturbating in complete silence. I can remember when I could hear other newcomers in the room at the same time, and how we both were separately trying not to wake up an oldcomer. A couple of times my oldcomer woke up and I became the subject of intense verbal and physical assault in the middle of the night, in the middle of that process. It was traumatic in ways that I frankly can not yet describe.

I know that even today if I am not aware of my silence during orgasm, and then make a specific effort to make noise, then I will by nature orgasm in silence, and that I did so for 18 years without even being aware of why it happened.

When I realize the damage this did to my affect systems - that is the systems by which I perceive, accept and express affection to others - on top of the previous trauma of years of sexual abuse, I am today amazed and privileged to be alive.

Masturbation is not a part of a drug problem, and the mere fact alone that Straight Inc. would profess such a thing, ought to scare every American parent into action regarding this kind of mental abuse taking place even today in these programs around the country and the World.
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: enough on October 13, 2002, 04:54:00 PM
In group there was only the steps and signs and serenity prayer on the wall to read. These words hung up high on the wall directly in front of the group on large posters printed clearly. We were of course expected to have memorized these "tools" also known as "the program" within the first 14 days of entering the program.

If you need any evidence beyond the serenity prayer, to define this process as "acquiring a system of generic faith", then you may never see my point of view. It is a prayer, it is called a prayer, and it is a prayer to God. It is prayer to God that is well known and regularly used amongst mainstream systems of faith.

Beyond the Serenity Prayer the word God is mentioned three more times in the Seven Steps.

In the Second Step I must turn "my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand Him"
In the Fourth Step I have to "Admit to God...the exact nature of my wrongs immediately"
And then the Big Daddy of them all, in the sixth step I must seek through prayer to improve my contact with God, "praying only for knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out"
Now I have to interject here as a sidebar- if this does not constitute faith in your mind yet, then I really want you to email me and explain why this alone is not a system of faith.

In addition the first step involves me determining that I can not live a successful life ever again without the support of some nebulous higher power, as well as accepting that I am insane and must be returned to sanity by this higher power. If you can imagine having to come to believe these things about yourself, at the risk of physical abuse for failure, because you had been raped by adults and used some pot or alcohol to self medicate: Well then,  you can start to understand what some of us survivors are living with each day, and what other kids are going through right now in similar programs all over the country.
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: enough on October 13, 2002, 04:57:00 PM
The basic chain of logic with which I was confronted from day one went something like this:

 
I absorbed these ideas while I was in Straight Inc. I must have, because I certainly did not carry them with me prior to my involvement in this treatment cult. These ideas became ingrained during my first four months in the program and led to my taking exactly the right steps to make them come true after I left.

Straight made it clear in every way that people who choose to leave the program, are not allowed to return. This does not apply to cop-outs whose families find them and bring them back (kidnap them). Self-withdrawals and family withdrawals are permanent, and there is no offer of after care or support. People who leave this way must break all contact with any person still involved with the program.]

Parents whose children leave the program are expected to cease all attempts at contact with current clients and their families immediately. The contact cut off is like a light switch. The clinicians would turn people who were recently turned 18 out onto Austell Road with no more than the clothes that they wore. I will write about this special feeling in the section about my first program.

How many people reading this have lost all of their possessions, all of their money, all of their identity, all of their family & all of their friends at the age of 18 ? How many had this done to them by a clinician ? How many of you could survive it ? How many of you would ever be able to have a healthy relationship with a clinician again ? How many kids are being put through this today ?
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: enough on October 13, 2002, 05:09:00 PM
Straight Inc. was structured to reform my thoughts. In assuming that addiction was my primary diagnosis at the time, Straight Inc. labeled me as a compulsive human being unable to control myself without a specific system of faith. The structure of the program was designed to take a compulsive person and give them a new compulsion. Since I was not compulsive prior to my enrollment, I had to learn to become compulsive first. Only then did I acquire the approved compulsion. I think this proved true for many of the children admitted at the age of 12-13, who were marijuana experimentors. They would typically cop-out after becoming an oldcomer at least once, and generally would use more drugs than they did prior to enrollment. This was what they were conditioned to believe would happen, and therefore it did. Thought reform as practiced by the Chinese and North Korean armies has worked effectively in the same fashion for generations.

It has been nearly 19 years since I was enrolled in Straight Inc. During that time I have been unable or unwilling to think at this level of detail about the structure of what I went through. Yesterday,  I gave four hours of video testimony to a young man working on a documentary about these kinds of abusive treatment programs. It was exhausting and intense, much like writing this first section of my story. But throughout both of these events, as well as attending the conference in July of 2001, I have grown.  

In my opinion, there are four fundamental flaws with Straight Inc. as I experienced it. These flaws are shared by some programs in operation today.

 
Today, I am learning  how happy I  am that I did leave the program early. Recently, I tried to imagine what I would be like if I had gradutated and continued to be a staff member. I suspect I would have risen to upper ranks and become a heavy advocate for Straight Inc. I was well on my way to being one of the best little fascist in the new army of drug free kids that Straight was building.  . It was a close call with closed minded loony's who intended  to save me from myself.
 
The overwhelming questions that many of us live with- what happened to all the rest of us ? Where are we now ? I could list a hundred names right now of people whom I would just like to see once, to say  how are you, where are you ? what happened to you ? How many are dead ? Too many I think. It is my hope of course to move us all to come forward and make our personal experiences public. Right now, we are risking an entire generation on these "Therapeutic Community" modalities. There are no hard numbers on success because the company is out of business. All records of clients are most likely destroyed by now. Only those of us who were there can  any longer say what really happened, and only if we all speak out can we gain any insight into the real long term efficacy realities involved.

      It is my opinion that Straight Inc. existed in a Newtonian world, a world before Einstein, before everything became relative. In this world life is at best understood via a set of absolute beliefs. The core absolute beliefs are:

      All of these things combined (there are more I am sure) are the core values of the cult. The cult is based very much on the life experiences of old, bigoted, stuck up, anal retentive, sexually repressed, religious zealots who feel that they have a superior manner of living, and that it is vital to spread, through any means, the absolutist faiths that guide that lifestyle. These people thought that it was morally wrong to "feel too good". They lived through their own horrific tortures and, as is often the case, went on to torture others. They consider spiritual dependence to be the only acceptable dependence.

      It is human nature to desire an alteration of ones conscious. Throughout history < href="http://www.csp.org/society/docs/csp951010.html">mystics, saints and others have sought out these altered states. Children spin for just this reason. They get dizzy, the world looks funny and they get giddy -all fall down. People snowboard down large mountains, sometimes putting themselves at risk of life and limb, for the rush it provides- again an alteration of their conscious. People go to church, have sex, run marathons, create artwork, eat chocolate & ice-cream and do myriad other things for the same reasons. Have you ever tried prayer in the Muslim style? You touch your head to the ground that many times, at that speed and see if you don?t get dizzy.

      In the end we all have to ask ourselves, not a higher power, what we believe. I believe that the risks of damaging my body in marathon running are too high, so I do not run the marathon. It is a decision, like any other in life, based on risk vs. reward. My perception of the reward is simply not worth my perceived risk.

      In my opinion there are three kinds of people in the world. Those who feel it is necessary to determine risk/reward decisions for others. Those who feel it remains exclusively the job of individuals. And then there is the majority of people, who think there is room in this debate for relativity.

 This is the overwhelming silent majority who think some behaviors may be wrong and self destructive, but not necessarily deserving of criminal status. The first group, by their very nature, tend to end up in positions of authority and power, for they seek it out. They see their actions as altruistic in all cases and refuse to accept that they could be deceived or mistaken in their convictions. The second group, by their very nature, fail to aquire the power or influence necessary to affect opinion. The rest of us, the majority, tend to behave like church mice. We think that if we just eat around the edge of the cheese, the trap might not get us.

      The advancement of socialistic ideals, for instance the ideal that you can go to a hospital and get treatment for a emergent condition no matter what your ability to pay, leads to a belief that drug use puts the community at risk financially. We have all heard it, the cost of drug use in the workplace and so forth. This same argument was made for prohibition of alcohol last century. Sensationalists spread rampant fear with reports of the dangers of not just extreme but even moderate alcohol use. The risks incurred during prohibiton proved far greater, bathtub gin was effective and deadly; as likely to blind you as get you drunk. Science today is discovering that in fact the French paradox of high fat diets and low rates in heart diease can be directly attributed to the daily consumption of red wine.

      This altrustic-for-your-own-good-risk-limitation school of thought does not apply to snowboarding, water skiing, or backpacking all of which clearly put the paticipants at risk of harm, potentially death. These behaviors add costs to society as well, through rescue operations and cost of insured injuries.

      Another example is insurance, we all want it, we all pay for it. Thus we create a situation where anyone who participates in a behavior that raises "risks" in life may cause everyone to pay more in rates. This is often the argument for drug testing, coerced treatment etc. By that logic, we should outlaw the automobile immediately. It creates an undue level of risk in our society, but we accept it for the reward of getting there faster than walking. I would think the solution is not prohibiting the behavior that raises risks, but accurately raising the cost to join the pool relative to the risk behaviors. Certainly it is unreasonable to expect to successfully cut the undesirable's out of society. this strategy always ends up in class warfare and has never succeeded in the long term. The vision of a world where there is no crime and no unemployment is only possible when half the people are prisoners and the other half are prison guards.

      People who don't use drugs see little reward for doing so. People who use drugs see little risk in doing so. Both camps argue the point endlessly.

      In my opinion, the founding fathers were well aware of this situation. They felt that the answer was states rights. Their ideal solution was that the states and the local communities would be able to make their own judgments about risk/reward situations and pass laws on a local basis that fit the community ethos. You can see this today with the definition of obscene with regard to porn. One city has it and the next one doesn't, even in Alabama. The decisions are made locally. However, this does not apply with risk/reward decisions about drug use- that is something that the federal government ought to force down the throats of the states. And so we have situations like Gen. Ashcroft breaking up the medical marijuana clinics in LA based on the concept that the federal supreme court makes that decision rather than the people in a local or state community. Even more egregious in this situation is the idea that the DEA should be making medical decisions instead of your doctor. Do you want them doing your surgery too? Do you want the most restrictive or the most liberal standards that exist in any one locality to govern all localities ?

      The first casualty of war is the truth. The war on drugs is no different. People who drank alcohol were once labeled as "feeble minded". Masturbation was once believed to lead to premature development of the genitals and again 'feeblemindedness". In our country there was once a movement to sterilize all "feeble minded" people to protect the gene pool. How many of us would not be here today had our grandparents been sterilized for jacking off? How many beautiful creative people won't be born because of the minimum mandatory sentences of non violent users of medical but unpatented drugs?

      How long before someone advances the idea of sterilizing all convicted drug users, to protect the gene pool? Indeed some women have already been put in this position with regard to crack use.

      I am not an advocate for drug use; I think that is a choice that people have to make for themselves. I am an advocate for their right, and the rights of local communities to make these decisions without heavy-handed federal manipulation and intervention.I would really prefer that the Federal Government work on job-one, protecting me from enemies of the state. As much as I want all junkies to get help and see them brought back into the fold of social engagement, I find it impossible to see them as such a threat to national security as to warrant incarceration. Obviously if a junkie breaks and enters there should be a punishment, but should it really be more severe if he is high when he does it? And how does it provide true deterrance, except for the fear of a gang-rape or victimization within an overburdened criminal justice system.

I can not accept the concept that all the junkies on the street are really terrorist sympathizers with poor grooming or language skills; who will drop their needles in a mass patriotic rejection of their "white angel".

  When I woke up last year I had to make a risk reward decision. Were the risks of being jailed or sued for my statements about what happened in my life greater than the reward of making it public information? I think you can all guess my choice. Treatment for addiction is a thing that will not go away. I don't even think it should go away, but what happened at Straight Inc. did not fit the conventions for good medical or clinical care in any way- then or now. This was known, to use the parlance of the group, and explains why we were coerced into keeping the secret.

No doubt, some would prefer that we continue to remain silent. "Be a good little addict, and sit in the corner". Except that many of us were not addicts then and are not addicts today. We were argumentative and difficult, or abused and in pain, but our treatment plans recognized no difference in these situations. We were all labeled as 'afflicted with a disease of our morality', and had to learn to think the "right" way. I am thrilled that some people were saved, but we can no longer afford to deny how many have been harmed.

      The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The people who ran Straight Inc. had the best of intentions. I hope they reached their destination.
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: kosmonaut on October 14, 2002, 03:32:00 PM
Thanks for posting this.  I had forgotten so much!
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: cram737 on October 19, 2002, 12:51:00 AM
I remember all the things you mentioned. I was there with you but I don't recall a James off the top of my head. What's your last name? Where are you from? My name is Marc Shelton....ring any bells?
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: Majiktrvls on October 20, 2002, 12:18:00 AM
Hi Marc..
I remember you, and your sister Kris. She was a newcomer of mine at one point, if my memory is correct. James was Jim, my brother,  in group days.
I cannot for the life of me remember Billy and Jeff's last name. Billy and I shared an apartment with Patti Johnson for a while after we had all left the program. Billy ended up in the Tennessee prison for drug related charges and knocking a little old lady over for her purse. Jeff, he had a lung collapse while he was in group. Anyone remember them? Their mom was named Martha.
Cecile
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: enough on October 20, 2002, 01:14:00 AM
Hiya Marc,

While I recall your names, your faces elude me, as is so often the case. I was Jim Lloyd while in the program. I entered in Dec 83 and self withdrew once in March of 84, then returned and made it to fifth phase trainee before self withdrawing again in the spring of 1985.
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: Anonymous on February 04, 2006, 05:49:00 PM
:scared:  :eek:
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: Anonymous on February 05, 2006, 07:51:00 PM
A well written account of Millers youth camps. I was an inmate in St.Pete 80-82.
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: dragonfly on February 06, 2006, 02:16:00 PM
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: Anonymous on February 06, 2006, 03:02:00 PM
you talk too fucking much.
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: dragonfly on February 07, 2006, 10:25:00 AM
Title: A variety of writings - based on The Atlanta Structure
Post by: Anonymous on February 07, 2006, 10:29:00 AM
Quote
On 2006-02-07 07:25:00, dragonfly wrote:

"you don't masterbate enough"

 :nworthy: