On 2002-10-23 03:39:00, TheFACTS about DEANV wrote:
WEll, do you not know what an anecdote is??
Why, yes.
Main Entry: an·ec·dote
Pronunciation: 'a-nik-"dOt
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural anecdotes also an·ec·dota /"a-nik-'dO-t&/
Etymology: French, from Greek anekdota unpublished items, from neuter plural of anekdotos unpublished, from a- + ekdidonai to publish, from ex out + didonai to give -- more at EX-, DATE
Date: circa 1721
: a usually short narrative of an interesting, amusing, or biographical incident
YOUR opinion is created by the anecdotal information you laid out but that is all that is YOUR opinion
[/quote]
Essentially you're saying, then, that any of my own experience that contradicts your version of facts is anecdotal and, therefore, irrelavent? That's very interesting. Art and Straight always promoted the very same incorrect definition of the word. Now I'm curious. A good friend just attended an open meeting at SAFE last week. He was stunned to find that Group is still singing some of the very same nursery rhymes as he did 30 years ago in The Seed. So tell me, to AARC members also say things like "for all intensive purposes" and misspell the word "clique" as "click"?
i.e. You are basing your conclusion that programs like AARC etc. do not work or even, was it, cause more HARM!!! because of your, again- anecdotal evidence, that you know or have talked to so many people and that is what all of them have said.
Actually, no. As defined above, an anecdote is essentially one single story, not necessarily representative of common or usual experience. My opinion is based on 10 years of close affiliation with a cult very similar to AARC called The Seed in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Did you know that Dean actually got the basic model for the Program indirectly from Art Barker? It's true. Straight was established by a bunch of former Seedlings after Art shot off his mouth a few times too often and lost his federal funding. Fr. Cashing (back then, just plain old Rev. Dr. Virgil Miller Newton) took his "expertise" at adolescent drug treatment from Parents rap before going off to NJ under a cloud of controversy to establish the first KIDS program.
After that rather surreal decade of my life, I spent two years in Straight. Some of my opinion is based on what so many Program survivors have shared with me about our common experience. But the most compelling evidence that the Program does far more harm than good comes from those who haven't drawn breath to speak a word or for any other reason in some years. It gets to the point sometimes when I absolutely dread hearing from someone I knew from Sarasota because, invariably, they tell me of a common friend who's either no longer with us or who's in prison or who's seriously drug addicted or something. Funny, I haven't had that experience when contacting my "olddruggiefriends" from school. Most of the time, they talk about this one being a marketing specialist, that one married so-and-so and moved back home to Wisconsin and so forth. Oh, there's the occasional failure story of an old friend who is living out an undistinguished existance or something. But none of the horrors that seem to be so common among those of us who were "lucky" enough to recieve "treatment."
Do you understand how many people have gone through AARC and what goes into sampling? Also, do you understand how long it takes to do a valid, reliable evaluative study and how much it costs, esp to get one of the top evaluators in North America to do the evalutaion that everyone wants from AARC. As I said in a post to Anonymous re: the query that anonymous had about 'what does ADAAC think of AARC?' (I suggest ya read that post). ADAAC wouldn't provide any funding to AARC to do a valid evaluation and BECAUSE DEAN IS a pretty smart guy (despite what your opinion is) and the BOARD that runs AARC know that if they don't have a rigorous solid evaluation done everyone will spend all their time picking that apart and saying the evaluation was invalid. Hence, they now HAVE those funds thanks to someone in the Alberta legislature that took the time to spank the ADAAC people and funds were finally released after years of ADAAC screwing AARC and other agencies. As a result of those additional funds AND because AARC is the treatment facility that it is, they secured one of the best and most respected persons (globally) in the Evaluation Field to design and oversee the evaluation that was done. Do you understand that doing the analysis and the report takes just a bit of time? No, well, sorry charlie, it is not out because of that reason. But hell maybe I will just give that guy done in the States a call and tell him that YOU and your army are waiting for those results and he is not working fast enough. He might listen . . or he may not.
A graduate thesis on suicide, masters? - don't lie. Well hell, I should tell this guy about that, too. I'm sure he would be on pins and needles to see what that says. I'd love to see how that graduate student deals with the independent variables compared to the study being conducted for AARC. I am sure they have 1/100th of the operating grant that AARC needed to get. And that AARC would not have UNLESS the guy heading this study was the one doing it because they don't just give that amount of money to any Joe/Joanne off the street and certainly not to someone at the beginning of their career.
See, when your thesis requires collecting data and analysing it like the person you are talking about, graduate students get screwed compared to someone with 30 years in the area. Wrong and injust but, hey, I lived it and had to accept it when I did research for a thesis. You end up having to cut out a lot of variables which you know need to be in there but GD they just won't give you the kind of money ya need, the bastards . . .
jem
You don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows. Here's a very simple excercise, time honored and mother approved, for finding out who folks are doing. Try having a reunion. Just look up all the former AARC clients you can find from the past couple of decades and invite them to spend a weekend at their own expense somewhere nearby. Oh, that's right! That
can't happen becuase, just like The Seed, Straight, KIDS, KHK, SAFE, Growing Together, Pathway and other spin-offs of this B horror show, clients and former clients "in good standing" are
not allowed to associate with anyone who's not considered to be in good standing. (Luv ya! Now drop dead!)
But, getting back to the original issue, you seemed to indicate that there actually is a credible, scientific, peer reviewed, study on AARC tactics available somewhere. Is that so? Would you care to give a little solid information about that?
