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Antigen:
I've never found that druggie culture of conformity to exist. There's a school clique thing. If you think the straight edge jocks an cheerleaders are any less cruel than any other crowd you're trippin'. Not only are they about the meanest, but some of them revel in their ability to call down force of law on their rivals and enemies.

The pot heads I've knowd down through the years have all been pretty easy going about things like musical taste and fashion. So I just don't know where you guys found these controling, exclusive drug culture cells.
In war, the stronger overcomes the weaker. In business, the stronger imparts strength to the weaker.
--Frederic Bastiat
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Anonymous:

--- Quote ---On 2005-11-24 07:15:00, Antigen wrote:

"I've never found that druggie culture of conformity to exist. There's a school clique thing. If you think the straight edge jocks an cheerleaders are any less cruel than any other crowd you're trippin'. Not only are they about the meanest, but some of them revel in their ability to call down force of law on their rivals and enemies.



The pot heads I've knowd down through the years have all been pretty easy going about things like musical taste and fashion. So I just don't know where you guys found these controling, exclusive drug culture cells.
In war, the stronger overcomes the weaker. In business, the stronger imparts strength to the weaker.
--Frederic Bastiat
--- End quote ---

"

--- End quote ---


I was shunned by the jocks and the cheerleader clique because I was a druggy. If you are saying those groups are cult like too I never got to know enough about them to find out. I think a culture is more pervasive than a clique and if you are saying the drug culture was just a big clique I think that is incorrect.  Remember I ran with a somewhat  more coercive group than most can relate to. I can only speak from my point of experience and am willing to agree that yours could have been different. On the other hand I got into drugs in a time that using was only part of it. Hippy  culture which espoused individualism was just another group of clones. My group all wore the same elephant bell jeans, colored pocket t's, we were wearing our pants half off way before any rapper came along, You needed holes in the knees, dingo boots, patches, we espoused individualism, peace, love and happiness but in truth you had to fit in, leave or change the way you were to belong.  And while we espoused thosed ideals we were all a bunch of backstabbing thieves and liers. In fact the early seed was the first time I ever saw anything that resembled the ideals we talked about. I could let down my guard for the first time ever in my life and talk about things like fear which I could never show with my druggie friends.  Then somebody would share and say you know underneath it all I was just a scared little kid myself and I felt bad about turning away from the love of my family too. All my toughness was just a front. That was real acceptance to me to find out I could reveal what I felt inside and not only still be liked but but find out that I wasn't alone anymore. My friends were too "tough" to care about each other. I knew what it felt like to be enslaved to a group of habits that I knew were hurting me yet not be able to stop. SO I found some freedom for a time in the program too. I wish you could have been there in the beginning so you could understand how different things were. Because I agree that the seed I went to the second time was not the seed I went to the first time. But even going there helped in the sense that it go me to the place that I could fit in with some of the more "normal" kids at school. Did some of them drink or smoke a little pot? Sure but on the whole they were half way decent kids with some principles for the most part. Maybe more like the kids you knew? I wouldn't have got there without the seed because I couldn't see the world beyond what I had already experienced. Now my group was not maybe the norm. The percentage of pyschopathic monsters was astoninshingly high among them. You know that from my posts but I really want to talk from experience and not some study on what constitutes a cult. Before the seed I was decieving myself about what and who I was and when I got there they didn't tell me I was wrong they just said to look at it a little deeper see if there was something common in my deeper feelings with those of others in the group. There was a common thread and I could relate. All my drug use had done was expose me to the experience of violence and hate which I hadn't known before. Then I trapped myself in that life and tried to be more like them so I could survive. Singin zippity do da was good for me it what I should have been doing in the first place. For Gods sake I was a baby trying to put on a front that I was a man. The seed let me be a kid again for real inso far as I could go back. I often think if I could have been totally honest about what was really going on I might even have gotten better then. When you have buried rage though and you try to carry it off to the side it's bound to erupt every once in a while. Ginger I wonder why it is I like you so much even when we disagree. Maybe because your willing to listen but not take things at face value. Wonder where you got that from.:wink: Some might say  the seed just had me kidding myself in a different way. But they sent me inside myself for answers not outside so I don't think so. They didn't say we have the answers for you they said you have the answers inside of yourself if your willing to look there and look there hard. So now that I have wrapped my experience in pretty paper and tied it with a bow I have to say that my second time around wasn't quite right. They had given me the tools to see that, to recognize the rampant egotism of the newer staff, the forced and more coercive atmosphere. I am sure glad I went there the 1st time I wish you could have experienced it to. So I wouldn't have to type so much.   :wink:

Anonymous:

--- Quote ---On 2005-11-24 05:46:00, cleveland wrote:

"landy, i am glad to hear about you here. i agree with you about the idealism of the seed, i am sure in the early days (tho that toilet seat bothers me bad). i guess i was there for the 'middle period', 7 years and the sense of idealism was there. it inspired me. on the other hand, the conformity to the 'seed way' was stifling, and that was the ultimate reason i left.



i kind of look at things as you do - culture of conformity in the drug world too, after all, the standards were set by a bunch of kids, not written down. i was drawn to the 'counterculture' when i was a kid, because of the idealism, love, back to the land, the music, pretty girls, thinking i could be myself. then i found it to ne just as harsh a world as any, worse in some ways because i expected more. i was brutally disappointed and so i embraced the seed.



i don't go to AA, i have family that does. i take all in moderation, that is key for me. a glass of wine, great, but that's me. if my child was huffing lacquer thinner, what would i do?


Ditto brother except for that moderation sh*t. Whats that all about? I sure wish I knew.

w"

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:wink:

landyh:

--- Quote ---Ditto brother except for that moderation sh*t. Whats that all about? I sure wish I knew.

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:wink:"


That was me sorry[ This Message was edited by: landyh on 2005-11-24 09:08 ]

marshall:
quote----------
" In a very real way the life style of drugs was sort of a peer pressure cult too. It dictated how you dressed, what you listend to, how you acted, who you hung out with, pulled you away from family and there were rules and little special behaviors (hand shakes and peace signs). I always thought the point was that we were brainwashed to some extent by that culture to begin with."
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First, welcome to the forum. I've really enjoyed reading your posts too. What you're describing here as the drug culture also describes virtually every social group through-out history. The 20's flappers had their own music,lingo and styles, the 50's greasers and today's kids have their own lingo, music, body-piercing, etc. It isn't unique to the drug-culture and could even be applied to american culture itself.  It also very much describes the culture of the Seed while I was there.

 " It dictated how you dressed, what you listend to, how you acted, who you hung out with, pulled you away from family and there were rules and little special behaviors.." That also describes the Seed through and through. I understand the idea was to use  peer pressure to counteract peer pressure. This can produce marked outward changes in whatever direction the group chooses. The method of conditioned thought-reform can be used to achieve any end. It can create good, conforming communists, make homosexuals (outwardly) into straight people, achieve conformity of belief and behaviour in religious groups. It all amounts to substituting one form of conditioning for another..without honestly examining the reasons and motivations behind conditioning itself. I question the whole idea of using coercive peer-pressure to modify behaviour of any sort.

Many people have benefited from groups like Scientology, SGI buddism, Hare Krishna and even the most bizarre and controlling groups have some good points or ideals. I view the Seed in much the same way as I do many of these sects. Such groups usually not only claim to have 'an' answer....but 'the' answer. This results in the type of one-size-fits-all approach prevalent at the Seed and similar programs.

Finally, I note that once again someone (yourself) who has battled on-going and recurrent addiction issues since the seed program credits that program with saving your life and testifies to it's effectiveness. In my view, that belief and conclusion is itself likely a result of the program's conditioning...or 'brainwashing' if you prefer a stronger term. I too parroted this part of the party-line for years after graduating the program. I only suggest that you apply the self-inquiry / honesty that was touted by the program to the program itself. Can honest self-inquiry and examination actually result from peer-pressure and conditioning? It's sort of like threatening to torture someone unless they love you. You might be able to get them to show outward signs of affection or speak the words you want to hear, but geniune love can't be produced via threat or coercion. Neither can genuine awareness be the result of comparison and belief. Self knowledge is not a form of conditioning and can not arise from any conditioning, however idealistic or well-intentioned. It arises from understanding the nature of all conditioning itself. Not just druggie culture conditioning as opposed to straight-world or seed conditioning...but includes examining so-called patriotism or nationalistic conditioning and various forms of religious conditioning and belief as well. Take care.

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