Last Door Youth Program

[karate man]

Hi guys, Karate Man here. This is the place where i was - The Last Door Youth Program.

http://www.lastdoor.org/

also on facebook - http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=last+ ... 6319183..1

I'm wondering if anyone has ever heard of this place? It is in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada.
Google them and you will get 5 pages of glowing reviews in the media and political endorsements, lol .

i'll give you the breakdown of what they do.

- program is 8 months to a year.
- male youth age 14-18.
- uses the twelve steps of narcotics annonymous as part of their treatment modality. we progress through the steps as we progress through the program.
- group therapy for an hour or two 5 days a week, one narcotics annonymous meeting 7 nights a week.
- group therapy is 'confrontational'. we were made to relate everything sad or bad we have ever gone through to 'break us down' emotionally.
- after being broken down we were 'rebuilt' in group with the twelve steps of NA as our new worldview.
- the people doing the breaking down and building up were graduates of the program. none of them had any medical training. i remember one staff hadnt even graduated from highschool.
- we were pressured into believing we had a disease, that we would die if we ever did drugs, our old friends were dangerous, be wary of people outside of the program, etc.
- not allowed to use the phone at first. phonecalls were allowed later but were monitered (we had a door seperating the listener but they could still hear).
- they promote a 'theraputic community' which basically means that when you finish the program you are pressured to get an apartment near the center and go to NA meetings in the neighborhood.

it reminds me a lot of AARC but there are some differences.

1) there are less kids, there were 9 i believe in our group.
2) the group therapy sessions are insane! screaming, blubbering, barfing, fighting, drolling. really crazy.
3   you would not believe what some of the staff admited to in group therapy. one staff told us when he was 'in his addiction' he met an old man who was lonely and he became the man's sexual companion
to get money for drugs on a regular basis! this same guy used to tell us we could get addicted to orgasms and wanted to know how we felt during orgasm. another staff used to break down over how when he was 'in his addiction' he tried to kill his girlfriend by driving his car into a telephone pole at high speed. and they would always tell us about this stuff and try to pull stories out of us about rape and murder!
4) this is the main difference from AARC - they have a mens program as well, and some of these men are ex-cons or are on parole. when they finish the program at the men's house they get jobs mowing lawns or whatever and they move into apartments close to the center and become part of the 'theraputic community'. what they do after graduating is they go to all of the same NA meetings as the kids in the youth house and the men in the mens house. and the NA meetings are in churches and in every meeting the church is packed with people who have gone through the program. so looking around the church you see all these scumbags and ex-cons and they share these stories about all the horrible things theyve done!  

all of this sounds commical, and it is, but the thing is - this program has got thought reform perfected. major peer pressure, major intimidation, major coercion. strong arm style.

and this place did a number on me. i found it impossible to relate to my peers when i got out. all of the thoughts in my head were 'expectations are pre-mediatated resentments' and that sort of stuff for years. i was convinced that i had a disease. it took me years to come to terms with the fact that i had been brainwashed and more years to deprogram myself into a normal person. i could not understand what had been done to me by the last door and why i was thinking the way i was. i didn't know if i had to spend my life fighting my 'disease' or if i should focus on having a normal life with my peers, who i was trained not to socialize with because they were 'normies' and not addicts. i thought i would never get over it, but i did, and here i am!

So, LD youth program. anyone heard of it?

[wdtony]

Hey karate man,

where did you sleep at night while in the Last Door program? Was it in a host home/recovery home or did you get to go home to your own home at night? Did you sleep at the actual program building?

[starry-eyed pirate]

That all sounds real familiar.  British Columbia is a long way from where I been, most of this time.  That sucks that you had that dealt to ya Karate man.  I was in $tr8 in the 80s.  I haven't heard of the Last Door Youth Program until now.  What a foreboding and ominous name for a program.

[Anonymous]

thanks for sharing your story. i am a survivor of a treatment center in bc that im going to make a thread on so i understand how hard it is to relate your experience to others. its a very confusing experience. what really stuck out for me is how you said that you still catch yourself thinking/speaking aarcisms.

im from vancouver as well. mais, j'abite en montreal maintant. i couldnt swallow paying 700$ a month in rent to live in a slum anymore and i wasnt so much into paying 800k for a run down bungalow in burnaby. and whatever gordo says, vancouver isnt new york city.

seriously though, thanks for sharing. it takes a lot of courage and i know it really takes it out of you.

PM me if you want to talk about BC stuff .  i'm also organizing an action group that is focused on former aarc clients telling their stories to the right people in alberta.

that is, as soon as i find out who the right people are. if anyone has any insight about that i would appreciate a pm on that as well.

thanks guys.

i sent my older brother an email, and we barely exchange emails. in the subject i put 'i need to talk to someone'

i wrote everything to him. trauma, abuse, manipulation, intimidation. how it made me feel, how it strained our
relationship. how it was the reason i was fucked up for all those years. i read what i wrote and it was horrifying,
but i sent it and he told me to call him the reply.

i called him and he said "thats quite a story. i believe every word of it."

he told me that no matter how strained my relationship to my familly was that there was love there that would never go away.
he is actually a class action lawyer for native residential school victims in canada and he told me that some of his clients
do better forgetting it and others do better talking about it with others. i told him i had met other survivors and had read
what their experiences and found them to be simmilar to mine.

i told him that i had always thought i was the only one who had ever gone through this! for all those years.

but since i started meeting other poeple who have gone through the same thing i have felt stronger. i feel more like
myself, which is a concept which for me is problematic to begin with. i feel lighter, more confident, and looser. i would
have never have been able to contact my brother like that if it wasnt for all the people out there sharing. i feel like
i`ve been wearing an iron mask for years  and now with a little bit of work it will begin to come off.

good night everyone, thanks again.

PM me if you are interested in joining an organization for aarc activism. we need: canadian university students, people with knowledge of the alberta political structure (so we know who to write to) a media relations officer and straight veterans.

one thing i believe will be a good part of the stratagy will be having straight survivors write letters to coachs and alberta politicians detailing their life experiences post-straight,
the relationship of dr. vausee to straight and their reasoning for why aarc should end. but, dont send anything out yet because they should all be sent out in a wave at the same
time.

everybody who is in please send me a pm saying so
 

What is the name of your “organization”?
Your brother the “class action lawyer for native residential school victims in Canada” probably has a knowledge base worth tapping….if.
 Got any plans for this organization beyond collecting survivor stories and passing them around?
Will the “normies” get it?

[ajax13]

karateman, why are you claiming to represent an organization dedicated to stopping AARC, rather than say, oh I don't know, the Last Door?  If your brother is among the lawyers who have represented victims of the Residential Schools, and you have a beef with the Last Door, why is it that you're not suing the Last Door?  It's funny that there's such an interest from folks claiming to be from British Columbia, who now reside in Montreal, who don't like the Last Door, and who don't have any connnection to AARC, who are really interested in getting in contact with people who were in AARC.  But hey, that's why I like to get up in the morning.  The world is so very unpredictable.

[Anonymous]

I did some research on the place that i went through, the Last Door in British Columbia, Canada. I wrote a letter to the local health authority about my concerns. here is an excerpt.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the Last Door’s treatment philosophy is the use of a ‘therapeutic community’. Youth endure up to eight months in an incredibly stressful and strange environment where they are, over time, violently changed into new people who believe that their survival depends on a lifetime of sobriety. They become the perfect candidates for the last door’s therapeutic community, which is a group of graduates from the last door adult and youth programs who shun outsiders and are united by the common principle of lifelong abstinence from drugs and alcohol.

For youth who agree to put down roots in the therapeutic community after graduation, their primary social relationships consist of other program graduates. In the event of a drug relapse, these youth, who are 16 and 17 years old, are completely ostracized by the therapeutic community. Members of the therapeutic community accept the practice of not speaking or associating with youth who relapse, unless the youth are at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. Because the therapeutic community is united by the practice of lifelong abstinence, youth who relapse are treated with suspicion and contempt. i remember on high-risk youth who had gone on to live in the theraputic community be thrown out of their foster homes and shunned by their former associates. i later saw this youth wandering around downtown vancouver high on heroin and without a shirt. he wanted to know if i was still in touch with anyone from the last door.

They often find themselves socially isolated and experiencing mental health difficulties. Although the concept of a ‘therapeutic community’ implies that these youth experience ongoing supervision and support after treatment is concluded, this is not the case for those who relapse. They are completely shunned and have no access to any support network at all, having been pressured to cut off ties with old associates and in some case their families as well. I find the resulting isolation that these youth experience, and the mental health implications, to be of great concern.

Only a troll could write such a tepid review of a program they allege to be based on Synanon model and “uses the most extreme form.”

basically people are brainwashed into treatment and then they live in fear of being ostracized by the theraputic community.

This was troll’s after thought attempt to punch it up a little?

[Inculcated]

Well, maybe he needs some time to mull the details over…

At the very least, he brought The Last Door Youth Program (Which is as Starry-eyed pirate put it,a “foreboding and ominously named” program) to the attention of Fornits and created a thread for people who were there to find, and they'll surely be welcomed.

The strange turns of KarateMan’s tale aside, people who were there should be pleased to know the door here is open …just probably not a good idea to solicit survivor stories from unrelated (maybe tangentially by similarities) programs in your first posts, while insisting your story is private and what have you…

http://www.lastdoor.org/

[Anonymous]

what happend to this guy. did he turn out to be legit?

[Anonymous]

He dropped “contact me with your straight stories” from his Login. You could try pming him and asking.  Ask him if the brother he mentioned (who was an attorney who sued TBS’) ever helped sort out the “government contact” who told him LDY program directors flew out to Syananon every year.

[Inculcated]

^While you’re at it, ask about the space time continuum and string theory and dark matter.

I saw this spellbinding NOVA documentary on oscillating ghost particles, once. The language of physics can be almost poetic.
“Anti-matter is the mirror image of matter. So, you study one, you study the other”. If anyone wants to contact me by pm
to discuss atmospheric neutrino anomalies, “missing particles” and other Quantum Phenomena… sure.

I digress. I think it was AARC survivor accounts that karateman was looking into.

[Anonymous]

^While you’re at it, ask about the space time continuum and string theory and dark matter.

I saw this spellbinding NOVA documentary on oscillating ghost particles, once. The language of physics can be almost poetic.
“Anti-matter is the mirror image of matter. So, you study one, you study the other”. If anyone wants to contact me by pm
to discuss atmospheric neutrino anomalies, “missing particles” and other Quantum Phenomena… sure.

I digress. I think it was AARC survivor accounts that karateman was looking into.

So you guys mean that you think he was an interloper for the AARC?
 :-  :eek:  :suicide:

[Anonymous]

^While you’re at it, ask about the space time continuum and string theory and dark matter.

I saw this spellbinding NOVA documentary on oscillating ghost particles, once. The language of physics can be almost poetic.
“Anti-matter is the mirror image of matter. So, you study one, you study the other”. If anyone wants to contact me by pm
to discuss atmospheric neutrino anomalies, “missing particles” and other Quantum Phenomena… sure.

I digress. I think it was AARC survivor accounts that karateman was looking into.

So you guys mean that you think he was an interloper for the AARC?
 :-  :eek:  :suicide:

Dunno
Someone thought it was "contact me with your straight stories" that he deleted from his posts.It was "contact me about AARC".

[Anonymous]

and some shit about Synanon.