Without hate

[Anonymous]

On 2005-12-28 18:51:00, Anonymous wrote:

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On 2005-12-28 17:59:00, Anonymous wrote:


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On 2005-12-28 09:13:00, Anonymous wrote:



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On 2005-12-27 21:42:00, Anonymous wrote:




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My stay was around 3K a month, and the fees were based on income.

My mother and I were talking about this today. My mom told me that she had to put $3,000 down and then paid another $3,000 or so in monthly payments plus $100 per month for food and then a couple of hundred to stay at the rez for a month.  My mother in law had a family member who went through the program shortly after I was there and his parents paid almost $10,000 for his stay.  At least that is what  my mother in law said.  "

 damn     I find that HARD to believe.  How long were you there?  How much did they shell out?  What kind of work did your mom do (that she cold afford $3000 a MONTH)?"

No I meant that she had to pay another $3000 in monthly payments.  I think she paid 12 installments to get to the $3,000. Not actually $3,000 per month.  Sorry that wasn't more clear."

  yes -  that's what I understood you to say and I say DAMN.  How long were you in the program?  At 6 months, that's 18,000 PLUS!  What did your mom do (career wise)??"

My mom says that she spent around $7,500 for everything while I was in the program.  She was a social worker at Venice Hospital.  I know that she could barely afford the $300+ monthly payments that kept me in the program and that she had to borrow money to pay for the down payment.  From start to finish, I was in the program from January 25, 1988 to May 5, 1989.  She has told me several times in the past 18 years that from the first Monday night parent rap, she knew that I was in the wrong place but she felt pressured from the doctors that she worked with to keep me there and that I would "probably" develop a drug problem if she took me out.  Eventually we just got caught up being part of the program and believed what they said.

[Anonymous]

So are you telling us that your were brainwashed to train for staff, then be on staff Cristin?   And brainwashed to go to all the 6 phase/7step functions, parties?

[Anonymous]

On 2005-12-29 15:09:00, Anonymous wrote:

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  So are you telling us that your were brainwashed to train for staff, then be on staff Cristin?   And brainwashed to go to all the 6 phase/7step functions, parties?"

I didn't say brainwash.  I said caught up.  I adapted.  I didn't cause trouble and I didn't bring attention to myself.  I did what I had to do to not ever get in trouble or stood up and confronted.  Before I knew it, I had adapted to the life. I developed friendships with the people that went through their phases at the same time I did so, of course, I went places with them.

[Anonymous]

I would think a social worker would be able to determine if a program was good or abusive for their child.

  so, do you think you're worse off for being in LIFE?

[Anonymous]

On 2005-12-29 18:53:00, Anonymous wrote:

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  I would think a social worker would be able to determine if a program was good or abusive for their child.



  so, do you think you're worse off for being in LIFE?"

One would think a social worke would be able to determine that but she didn't.  She trusted the doctors that told her that was the place for me.  Do I think the program helped me?  I don't know.  I know that I learned more about drugs there than anywhere on my own.  I did more drugs after the program than I did before.  I also know that when I had a chance to grow up, I did and was fine. I think I would have been absolutely fine without LIFE and probably would have saved myself some trouble had I never gone there in the first place.

[Antigen]

On 2005-12-29 18:53:00, Anonymous wrote:

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  I would think a social worker would be able to determine if a program was good or abusive for their child.

Ok, so you're an idiot.

All thinking men are atheists.
--Ernest Hemingway, American author

[Antigen]

On 2005-12-29 18:35:00, Anonymous wrote:

I didn't say brainwash. I said caught up. I adapted.

Same thing, really. Look, on some level, in some aspects of life, everybody's brainwashed. Life in this world is just too complex for anyone to carefully reason out every mood, opinion and plan. So we default to certain norms. Why do you think that some vast majority of new parents agree to let the medical people mame their newborn son's dicks? They're brainwashed; the doctors, the staff, the parents, all of us.

If I had a son after about 10 years ago or so, his little dick would be intact or some high falutin' doctor would be bleeding and screaming more than that, b'lieve it! But prior to that? Anybody's guess. I did, after all, send my first born to Broward County public schools. I just didn't know any better and didn't question authority or the status quo.

We all get caught up in whatever's around us and we all adapt. Read Sam Clemens' Corn Pone Opinions. I know the Gutenburg Project has it online cause I typed it in back in the stone ages of internet access, before everybody had an OCR scanner.

It's only when those customs and conventions prove extremely harmful that any human beings protest to entheusiastically or for too long to just fade away. I could be mistaken, I have been before. But I really think this is one of those instances. This is intolerable. It doesn't work. For WWASPies and LGA/Lifespring believers, these are non-working programs. The whole ideology of protracted childhood and abstinace freaks is off kilter with the hard and fast, imutable laws of the universe.

None of us have to do anything spectacular or heroic to fix this. We just all have to summarily reject the Program in totem, rais our own kids better than that and, most especially, refuse to keep their dirty little secrets.

Innocence implies the ability to restrain from the initiation of aggression, and to question those who don't.
http://www.MisesRomania.org' target='_new'>Sorin Cucerai

[xvipah]

I would call LIFE a drug rehab.  Honestly, like any "psychoanalytic" program/therapy, they tried to analyze what was underneath the "bad" actions.  

I'm not sure I see why that's some sort of controversy?  

sunday school: A prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.
--H. L. Mencken, American publisher

[Helena Handbasket]

On 2005-12-30 18:15:00, xvipah wrote:

"I would call LIFE a drug rehab.  Honestly, like any "psychoanalytic" program/therapy, they tried to analyze what was underneath the "bad" actions.  



I'm not sure I see why that's some sort of controversy?

The only "controversy" is brought on by ex-staff who want to call it anything but a "Drug Rehab".  I actually have an email from an former staffer that downplays "drug rehab" and claims it espoused "Self esteem (an audience for private body functions helps this alot), decision making (taught by having to ask to pick up a utensil to eat?) and communication (because flapping your arms like a spastic parrot comes in handy in real life, doesn't it?)"

XV, You tell it like it is.  You don't resort to personal attacks or sugarcoating the facts.  You're a breath of fresh air around here.

God is inconceivable, immortality is unbelievable, but duty is peremptory and absolute.
--George Eliot, author

[xvipah]

Ah I see now, I got a little confused  :smile:

If I'm understanding correctly, some say it was a drug rehab, and others say it wasn't because it was more about self esteem than "drugs".

I would say that both camps are correct.  Like I said in the last post, just about any place you go to get help for an addiction(whether that be drugs, sex, gambling, alcohol, or whatever), it eventually comes down to the things underneath it all.  Self-esteem, feelings, all of that play in to troubled kids(and adults)..

I think LIFE was advertised as a drug rehab, whether the things they taught and such could help even teens without drug/alcohol problems or not.  Sure, self esteem and such are important for anyone, drug addict or not, but a place like LIFE was there for people like me, who had real problems with substance abuse.  Honestly that's the only sort of kids who ever should have been there.

Regardless of the things they taught or did "therapy" on, the core teachings were about abuse.

India Indicas, Mr. Peabody?
-- Sherman

[Antigen]

...because flapping your arms like a spastic parrot comes in handy in real life, doesn't it?"--Helena Handbasket

Screening pre-school kids for anti-social behavior is about as useful as screening the Christian Coalition for sanctimonious behavior.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&q=sanho+tree&btnmeta%3Dsearch%3Dsearch=Search+the+Web' target='_new'>Sanho Tree

[xvipah]

On 2005-12-30 21:11:00, Antigen wrote:

...because flapping your arms like a spastic parrot comes in handy in real life, doesn't it?"--Helena Handbasket

Wait......

You guys don't use that at work?  Dammit, I was wondering why my boss kept lookin at me weird!

My view is that if there is no evidence for it, then forget about it. An agnostic is somebody who doesn't believe in something until there is evidence for it, so I'm agnostic.
--Carl Sagan, American astronomer and author

[Antigen]

xvipah, you're describing the austensible message. There was another, totally contradictory and more copelling message. "Respect yourself!" while I watch you take a shit. "Get Honest" and tell us what we want to hear, or else! "Respect your wonderful parents at all times!" unless they think they want to stop off for gas or a bathroom break on the way home without special permission from staff.

I laughed hard when, many years later, I read that cognitive dissonance is not a healthy sign of positive change, but just the feeling you get when things just don't add up.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use

--Galileo Galilei

[Nihilanthic]

AMEN, SISTAH!  :nworthy:

Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
--Edward Everett

[Helena Handbasket]

On 2005-12-30 21:17:00, xvipah wrote:

"

On 2005-12-30 21:11:00, Antigen wrote:

...because flapping your arms like a spastic parrot comes in handy in real life, doesn't it?"--Helena Handbasket

Wait......



You guys don't use that at work?  Dammit, I was wondering why my boss kept lookin at me weird!

Nah, I do get weird looks when I look around and say "So, who's got a song".  No?

So I zip-a-dee-doo-da all by myself :grin:

No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the sources of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679737898/circlofmiamithem' target='_new'>P. J. O'Rourke