On some points I do know of what you speak. While on my later phases we had a good number of girls come in from straight with terrible stories. I however nerver saw anyone in restraints, forced to clean toilets with a tooth brush, hit, or abused in any way. Perhaps I should explain as folks don't know my experience. I was very intraverted, almost to the point of being backwards. I had been horribly picked on most of my entire school life. I was raised by gradparents, so I had target painted on me for being different, being poorer, and I made the cardinal mistake of going about like someone who is an easy target for bully's, nervous,ackward,overly quiet. So I did drugs in an attempt to be accepted and popular, but it backfired, just gave the jerks more reasons to pick at me and threaten to beat me up. So I never let anyone see me cry. Now, in life I was confronted. I hated it. But I soon realised they used that same peer pressure to shake me out of my shell. Now here is the part everyone seems to have a hard time with. I was rarely called on to talk. Be it about my past, the current, or my future hopes. I guess they figured it was not my thing, (still ins't, I shake like a leaf in a hurrincane when in front of an audiance). However I did go through 2 over nighters with Ms. Pete. In small groups, while I didn't bawl my head off, I could talk much better. Guess that was staff's why of seeing where I was at. I did learn to stop blaming others for my choices. I did learn how to look at a situation and think it through instead of just reacting to it. I did learn how to stick up for myself and stop being a target. I learned how to accept myself and not place all my value in what others saw when they looked at me. They told me I could do anything I put my mind to and had value for who I was. Did I still make mistakes? Sha! Going in the Army was one. Ft. Dix New Jersy in December was cold! That place made life look like a cake walk. I got hurt and sent home before I even finished basic! My first husband was a mistake. He would tell me I was stupid, and that no one else would want me. That and the physical violence I call abuse. I gave him 7 years and filed for divorce, finally, on my 7th wedding annaversary. (Vindictive me, nah)seemed appropriate somehow. Do I always apply what I learned, no. Did I do drugs again after life, yup. But I realised due to what I had learned I was just repeating old patterns that never got me anywhere and stopped. Geez, even now I make mistakes. I hate my house, bought while under construction. Should have listened to the husband and waited. But now I own my mistakes and do what I can to try to fix them. I also clean up after myself and if I have hurt others try to apologise and not only help them feel better, but not repeat actions that hurt them. I may not write m.i.s or say I just made ammends and step number whatever, but the basic ideas are there. Now, if these other places are still doing what straight did, close them. But should we stop trying to help kids who are doing drugs, confussed and not getting any help from their folks who are just as clueless? No one is born with an instruction book, we learn through what we experience. But untill people are shown a different way of doing things, a good deal just keep doing the same old stuff. Whould I like to save the world? Sure, if it meant I could live in a better place and didn't have to put up with others crap. I'm gonna tell it like it is. Most of us do stuff for our own reasons, not because we want to be Mother Teresa the second. But if you watch the news you see cops being arrested for child molestation. Shit is not limited to these programs. Recall the big Catholic preist scandals? Preists doing kids, geez, in an instution older than a lot of countries, the Catholic church! America is supposed to be the most powerful country in the world, yet we have homeless people wandering the streets, people that can't afford life saving medication, sadistic assholes teaching third grade. Sitting here bitching about how hard my past, that can't be changed was, ain't fixing didley. But I did offer what the bitchers swear they did not have, a choice, to go to an alternative site, one that encourages people to think and exchange ideas for fixing what sucks. I have yet to read one sentence about how to change these bad places into places where kids like I was at 16,-- not a hard core drug addict by any means, just a kid who needed to be taught a different way of doing things,something my folks did not know how to do because they were not shown -- into such a place as that. I did pick up some bad stuff from the program too. I cuss horribly, say fu-- way too much. Probably will the rest of omy life. Still detest public speaking, which may have started before the program, dunno, but having to talk there just stands out. And can we talk? I mean for those of you now parents of a teen, do they admit they are wrong or made a mistake. At that age we all thought we knew more than the adults, and were indestructable. Just wait till you are a parent of a teen. All parents I know have gloried in regaling me in tales of trying to raise a teen. I have been through a lot,much more than writing for a couple days here could began to cover, and I think if it were not for the program I would have given up years ago. But now, that strikes me as such a waste and I have a stubborn drive to keep going. Go figure. I'll climb down off my soapbox now. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to say it!
