I was a member in Operation Re-Entry from '72-'74. Later worked there as a Staff Trainee, went to school and returned to work as a staff member from about '77 until they closed. I can answer a lot of questions and clear up some misinformation. Overall I want to reach out to any previous members, whether your experience was good or bad, and help you resolve any confusion or perhaps pain that might still exist.
In the 1970's the Synanon based model was pretty much all there was for drug treatment programs. Synanon had success with alcoholics and drug addicts, and their well meaning graduates wanted to spread the word and help others. Pretty much like Alcoholics Annon. does today. And for the hard core drug abuser, these tactics probably worked very well. However the problem came when the clients entering the drug programs became younger and younger. The young confused insecure teenager who is experimenting with drug use, is not in the same category, and to use the same tactics was to me a little heavy handed. But like I said earlier, in those days, that was all there was and all we knew. For every client I think Re-Entry helped with their approach, three others were not.
Fortunately there developed by the late 70's other therapy's and methods of treatment that were less "humiliating" or "abusive". By the later half of the '70's several staff members had joined Re-Entry who were trained in other disciplines and tried to influence the way the program was run. It was not until the Synanon trained directors left the program that the program evolved. That is the time I believe Re-Entry had it's greatest positive influence in the lives of its teenager members. I am proud to have worked there during that time.
To those who feel they have been hurt by their experience in the program I would like to say, from every staff member who ever worked at Operation Re-Entry...please forgive us. Like early doctors who used primitive tools, we also were well intentioned, but lacked the proper "tools" and education.
If I can answer any questions that would help you come to terms with what you went through, I am happy to help. Let me hear your story.
Jorge Carabelli
I have to suggest that you might be mistaken, as per your contention that there were few or no other methodologies or role models to choose from other than a Synanon based one back in the 1970s...
Attempts to create a NA model, that is, one based more closely on the tenets and template of AA, were well underway by that time, having commenced at least as early as
1947 ("Addicts Anonymous") within the walls of the Lexington facility otherwise known as Narco Farm. Community efforts along those lines started shortly thereafter in the New York City region via one of the graduates who then called the association or organization "Narcotics Anonymous" (incorporated January 25, 1951). Shortly after that, other groups popped up in Ohio, Illinois and California, some with different names, but also with connections to/influence from the groups in Lexington and/or NYC.
See:
NARCOTICS ANONYMOUS: ITS HISTORY AND CULTURE, by William White, Chris Budnick, and Boyd Pickard (2011).
