Author Topic: St Pete Times forum  (Read 2329 times)

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Offline GregFL

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« on: June 11, 2002, 09:12:00 PM »
There has been an ongoing debate on the St Pete Times forum about the Seed/Straight survivors and the drug war in general. below is a response I made to a poster that works in addiction treatment, just thought you might be interested.

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I have been lurking in this thread since yesterday and decided to post.
I was in the Seed in 1973 at the age of 14. The Straight was nothing more than the Seed parents continuing the program when Art Barker left St Petersburg. Same torture, different torturor.
The thing that always surprises me when people whom weren't in the program discuss it is how so far off the mark they go. They talk about how these people needed "help" and how their addiction must be treated in some fashion, so I am just going to make this one point. The Program was never about treating addiction.

Thats right. Never about treating addiction. To take it one step further, the Seed/Straight program DID NOT ACCEPT DRUG ADDICTED CLIENTS. The program was about winning the drug war, and the kids/now adults sent to these places are victims of the drug war against american citizens.
Now, Soberman, I know this is hard for your self rightous, save the world mentality to take, but it is the truth. We, as children, were forced into coercive "treatment" as part of a plan to rid the planet of drugs, not to help us. This is why straight inc, is now DFAF (drug free america foundation) and makes statements like "you don't win a war by treating the casualties" when they try to defeat medicinal marijuana intitives.

Before you lash out at me for being a drug crazed or anger filled person, understand that I don't use drugs, don't smoke and rarely drink. I never was addicted to anything, but I was forced to sit in a warehouse for six months before I hit puberty, flap my arms around, go thru addiction treatment,eat a low calorie diet and get little sleep to 'condition me for treatment', and submit to brainwashing techniques and behavior modification formerly practiced on adult prisoners of war.
And it was no secret. In 1973, the St Pete times ran blistering reports almost daily on the brainwashing and denial of rights we were subjected to, but no one did anything. Instead, the police continued to kidnap kids without any trial, without any court order, and bring them to the seed. The courts routinely sentenced even NON DRUG USING JUVENILES to the Seed for having a "DRUGGIE ATTITUDE". And older kids sentenced to the Seed, routinely got up and chose jail over the Seed.
Soberman, do the world a favor. Stop trying to save us, because some of my friends were saved so effectively, they killed themselves after graduating the Seed.
The only reason I even allow myself to drag this childhood horror of mine up over and over is because, today, across this great land, children our being treated almost identically as I was 29 years ago and no one is doing anything except those of us whom were similarily tortured when we were kids. They are being told they are worthless, they are being sexually humiliated, locked in little rooms, and then told they were dying without the program, being convinced they are addicts and powerless over drugs, and the truth is, it is a lie,and it is a great american scandal that is finally coming to light.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Scott Free

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« Reply #1 on: June 12, 2002, 06:46:00 PM »
BRAVO GREG! I am following that thread with interest.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline GregFL

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« Reply #2 on: June 13, 2002, 12:54:00 AM »
Glad you guys enjoyed that. Here is more from the same thread.




"Everyone assumes that anyone going thru "treatment" is a drug addict and/or alcohol addict, and nothing could be further from the truth. In today's "free society", drink two beers, get pulled over, and the judge is likely to sentence you to mandatory twelve step addiction treatment. 14 and caught with a joint? how about three years at SAFE in Orlando, FL. This stuff is too outrageous to make up.

I suggest you go back, read my previous post, and then comment about that as everyone just seemed to ignore it. the problem with Dopeyman is that he spews language and thoughts very similar to the idiots whom held us captive in our respective cult treatment centers when we were children. The drug war against American Children/citizens is a farce, and the drug warriors are akin to modern day Nazi's. Just ask Betty Sembler. according to her, she has nothing to apologize for. This is after the Seed was run out of the adolescent treatment business for using methods "likened to Korean brainwashing techniques"* when investigated by the Senate of these great United States. While this was occurring, our great Drug warriors of the same government were throwing 1,000,000 dollars of 1970s money at Art Barker, a high school dropout and admitted alcoholic with a questionable past, and logging my bowel and urinary movements into a book to study the effects of a limited diet and brainwashing on adolescents. Betty and Mel just took St Pete Seed graduates, the St Pete Seed intake lady, Helen Peterman, a bunch of seed parents, and copied the Seed. They knew what they were doing, but the Drug war is too important to lose. Kind of like bombing Baghdad, I guess some children get hurt in every war..."



[ This Message was edited by: GregFL on 2002-06-12 21:57 ]
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Offline MommaDebi

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« Reply #3 on: June 14, 2002, 10:32:00 PM »
It is really amazing to me that these things are in fact still going on.





I remember my father telling me "if you want to smoke pot..just let me know and I'll get the good stuff and we will smoke it together". Yet when they caught me smoking a joint on a Sat night....one of my first few...





The very next morning we went for a Sunday drive and I ended up at the Seed.It had just moved in from Lauderdale, I had never even heard about it, nor had my friends...lucky me, I was the first.





There I began the nightmare, with nobody believing my tale of not doing drugs...of course I was a "liar". So I became one, listening to other peoples' drug list and made up my own, I needed to do that to survive!





It took me almost 10 months to complete a 3 month program. Starting over 3 times because of things my father did (ie stopping with newcomers at a liqour store to get his fix because he'd be "damned if they will tell me what to do" of course the newcomer went in the next day and told about the stop. I recieved the punishment)





I remember certain instances that occured, the heat, the chairs, the late night meetings, the moral inventories written and rewritten, the intolerable food, the cigarettes being lit on every hour (I did not even smoke cigarettes at the time, but learned to do so) and the emotional anguish of feeling not good enough.





But I do not remember the people, just the actions of the people. I guess my brain has decided to keep those things from me.





I do know that reading these posts, complete with the names helps to fill in some of those blanks for me. Thank you all for that.





I do know that this "incarceration" changed my life irrevocably.





My school years from 72-76 became a trial for me. I never fit in with my peers following my graduation from the Seed, which I think took place in spring '73.





 As I have said in other posts, I was still "straight" and going to Oldtimers meeting until I was snubbed for being with a person in a different rehab (He had left the Seed and went into PAR), but since he was not a fellow seedling, it was an issue.





Luckily I did start working, my father falsified my birth certificate so that it appeared I was 16 when I was 14 and I went to work. So much for honesty...he did like me paying him rent though!





My fellow workers were in their 20's and did not care about the Seed. So I managed to go to school, be spit on, cursed out,ostracized and called names because I was a Seedling; then went to work where I was accepted for myself. So I went to their keg parties with my six pack of root beer, smoked a few joints and learned to live a double life.





I am a mother of a teen (he just graduated and goes off to college in the Fall). It has been really interesting to me to see him doing basic teen stuff: bowling, skating, pool plating, movies with groups of teens, hangin out at the house with his friends.





My first high school football game occured when he was in the 9th grade band, of course I went to support him. It was so strange.The life he has been living is so totally different from the one I had...It is a happy thing and sad at the same time....






I was always so worried about what I would do should my son start to take a different path, one that included drugs and alcohol. I strove to make his life one that did not need to "medicate" to escape from. He has always known my life story,and so far he has chosen not to do the things I did! Of course he believes it is because he is "smarter than me"....what ever works!

 


My parents still do not understand what they did to my life. Nor did I ever expect them to. My father's alcoholism killed him several years ago, I do not speak with my stepmother. My real mother is in such denial about so many things, that this is truly beyopnd her ability to talk with me about.

But I must say that we never will have a close relationship, I do not trust her to this day....



I hope my son never feels this way about me.


 

[ This Message was edited by: MommaDebi on 2002-06-14 19:42 ]

[ This Message was edited by: MommaDebi on 2002-06-14 19:43 ]
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
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Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #4 on: June 15, 2002, 12:08:00 AM »
Having children of my own and experiencing their teen years with them has been so incredibly healing in my life. I loved all of the normal stuff, too. And my kids are very normal. They have shown me how it is that a yong person learns who he/she is without being thrown into a place where they are forced to change while being abused. When a young person experiments with things, and they all do, they stop when the action they are doing causes them pain or loss.

My kids are all over 18 now. They know all of my little horrifying secret of the Seed. I was so ashamed to tell them, but when I finally did their reactions each astonished me. They are so very understanding, and they hold nothing against me. They seemed to be able to pick up right away that the Seed was a very wrong and terrible place.

I completed the program (whatever that really means) in 1984 and have had a blessed life IN SPITE of it. I have had episodes of depression over the years and have battled being a real people pleaser, afraid to speak my mind for fear of rejection or ridicule.

It was almost 30 years ago, yet I find it good for me to take an occasional look back for the purpose of understanding what happened to me and my family. I talk about it to those I can and I refuse to lie or cover up what that place was about. I will not say it "probably saved my life" or any of that other rhetoric. And if that hurts anyone, oh well. I must be true to myself.
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Offline GregFL

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« Reply #5 on: June 15, 2002, 12:50:00 AM »
Both of the above posts ring so true to me. The experience was so unique, or at least I thought it was, that It was my own private hell. Since We started this thing a couple of years ago, I have come to know hundreds of survivors of various programs, and we all tell the same story, except the few still walking the program line. So sad for them.
Anonymous, what program were you in, Lauderdale or St Pete, and was it 74, not 84?  Lastly, email me at [email protected] if you want to let me know who you are. We may know each other.
So glad to have both of you here.
Greg
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Offline wesfager

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« Reply #6 on: July 30, 2003, 05:47:00 AM »
Thanks Gregg.  Well put.  Where is this St Pete times Forum?

Wes Fager
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es Fager
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