who is still sober

[kpickle39]

not who is sober or not; the real question is "does the ends justify the means" And I'm gonna take the first stab at that question.  NO is the answer.   Whether or not you got sober doesn't justify the child abuse that we all endured.   And I also believe that if you are sober it has nothing to do w/straight and the "program" that they put us through.  It has to do with that you don't drink or do drugs, and nothing more.

[str8isabuse]

i'm not "sober" in the sense you mean.  i'm not drunk, but i don't use the word "sober" to describe myself because I'M NOT AN ALCOHOLIC!  Thanks a lot, Straight, for trying to brainwash me on this one!  

i have been enjoying occasional drinks in romantic or social settings for the past 19 years, and am perfectly fine with this.  i also drink a cup of coffee every morning, tea sometimes in the afternoon, and i do like dark chocolate!  that's it for me!

[ladyjerrico]

Actually scientists and doctors have proven in a recent study (not to make this sound like spam.. sorry if it does), but if you drink 1 glass of wine per day (didn't say if it was white or red). It helps you with your heart and stuff.
For myself, last time I drank my heart was racing and I didn't feel like myself. I just don't like drinking anymore

[Sophie]

Chris, if you get this, email me.

Kecia

 [ This Message was edited by: Sophie on 2005-09-09 19:45 ]

[dreammagician]

Remember John Buluchi in that movie when he was in college and he partied like an animal. I was in straight when that movie came out. I was in straight when alot of movies came out and alot of events. I missed out on 3 and a half years of news and partying. When I got out i played the straght and narrow kissing ass to the old parents. Doesn't matter sooner or later your busted and then you are a druggie, you know that, and also a scumbag druggie. Well, straight sucked so now I party. Only the best and I enjoy the hell out of it, sure some let downs, but that is the deal with anything in life. Party on

[ladyjerrico]

Since Straight my partying days are over, I have 'been there done that' and it's no big deal to me now.. call it my age, but I find happiness in working hard and reaping the rewards.
I 'treat' myself to an expensive dinner on occassion or just going out shopping, I know that might sound boring, but for me I know after a long weeks work, I deserve a something better than what I used to do in the past.

[85 Day Jerk]

Shortly before going into the Army, I decided I would drink mostly for social reasons.  Halfway between the 14 week long Armor Training at Ft. Knox Ky, we were given PX privilages and we all got sloppy drunk.  One huge Jamaican from New Orleans did the coolest thing I ever saw.  He would rip the tabs off one side of a six-pack, pick it up in both hands and run it back and forth across his lips like a giant harmonica hardly spilling a drop, slam it back down on the table and give a deep laugh like the voodoo guy in "Live and Let Die!!"  

While I am not condoning drinking, this is how even the straightest of the straight got back into it.  Once I got out, my drinking increased to the point where I would drink say 10 kamikase's on 2-4-1 night along with several beers and have to sleep on a bench by a park because I got lost from seeing double and could not read the street signs, or find a phone booth to call a cab.  By the time I was 23, alchohol did not affect me as much as it used to.  I slid into a terrible depression and ended up homeless and working out of day labor.  My family blamed it on alchohol, but it was really deep seated mental illness that had been with me since childhood.  All the alchohol use had been was a last ditch effort to try and change my brain chemistry so that I could feel 'normal.'  My grandfather, a man I love dearly, with only a third grade education, saw through all the bullshit Straight had taught and helped me pull myself together. He built me a crude apartment in the attic on a house across the way, that he owned and charged me a very affordable rent and aside from having to shoot an occasion citrus rat with a pellet gun, it was a damn good living.

    I got it together enough that I was driving a 6 year old Firebird just 8 months later.  It got to the point where I had outgrown the apartment, so I found a nice garage apt in Old Northeast.  I still drank, but it was moderate, with a little pot smoking thrown in.  A 28 gram baggie would last me about 10 days.  The pot actually helped me to drink less.  I was working at a very dangerous tool & die plant at the time.

The owners had converted a bunch of machinery for stamping car parts and they had not been properly set up by qualified workmen.  Pressbrakes were failing every day and I almost got my hands smashed on several occasions.  There was an employee there that was fighting to start a union, a big article in the St. Pete Times, and all my neighbors were suggesting that I quit.  With all the stress going on, my long dormant mental illness flared up once again, only this time, after nearly 26 years, I finally got the help I deserved.  I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and began Lithium Treatment immediatly.  I responded so well that I returned to work so whacked on Haldol, that all I did was destroy parts for 3 days until it wore off!!  I still drink occasionally, but I am very responsible with it, and I don't want to go back to working day labor and the hellish existence of my early 20's.

STRESS is what led me to drinks and drugs, as

a teenager, and as an adult.  STRESS is what makes people drive like maniacs, abuse their children, hate their jobs, and head for the bar after work.  STRESS is the american way.

I will close with the "Jerk National Anthem."



"Undermine their pompous authority, reject their moral standards.  Make anarchy and chaos your trade-mark.  Cause as much confusion and disorder as possible..........

........and never let them take you alive!!"

[RTP2003]

I smoked pot one week after getting out of Straight, and never looked back.  I think I have not smoked a total combined time of four or five weeks since getting out of Straight, and two weeks of that was on a bet with a girl I was dating.  (But you went TWO WEEKS without it!!!  Why are you starting again?!!!  "Because that was the bet we made, and the two weeks are over.  Leave me alone while I smoke this".)

I still use hard drugs on occasion (sometimes the occasion is 'breakfast'), something I had never gotten into before Straight.  I don't "blame" Straight for my involvement with hard drugs,  although I do kind of doubt that I would have gotten involved with them to the extent that I was had I never been in Straight.

I think of marijuana as medicine, in addition to it's recreational properties, and I intend to continue smoking it whenever I feel like it.

[Anonymous]

Hello

[NAILBOMB]

I was sober for 12 minutes this morning  :lol:

[Anonymous]

I was sober for 12 minutes this morning  :lol:

sorry to hear that

rtp2k3

[Sam Kinison]

Considering the fact that I am not,nor never have been, a drug addict nor alcoholic,who cares?Straight's greatest crime,in my eyes,was orienting their clients/victims/patients to believe that they were hooked on drugs and/or alcohol when it was a known lie for 90% of said people.I said known lie because Straight's directors knew this to be true.How can any form of therapy be positive when it's based on a lie?Let me explain it's damage, instead.
                 When my mother signed me into Straight,I was almost seventeen years old(almost 30 years ago).I had just ran off for the first and last time.I was definitely a teen with serious issues.My drug use was moderate and decreasing by this time.By slamming this  "you're a druggie,that's the problem"warehoused bullshit in my head,they literally forced me to ignore the real issues in my life.They totally took away my periphery to confront my true demons by planting this artificial one in me,crippling my chances of coming to terms with them at a later date.Many of those issues that were haunting that sixteen-year old thirty years ago are just being dealt with recently,many with the help of these forums.Most of the credit goes to my commitment to being a loving a caring father which these demons were impairing that.Maybe love won't conquer all,but at least it's giving me a fighting chance.
                  I refuse to villify any former victims/clients/patients who became staff members later on because they only reacted to the same abuse that we did in a different way.While Wanda Minton was indeed a vicious bitch as a staff member,I remember when staff forced her to hot box a pack of Kools for stealing one of her mother's cigarettes.Reading 85DJ's post started me to wonder why my program took so long,now I realize,they might have needed my stepfather to supply the trucks to help them change buildings one more time free of charge(I was in three of them)and of course,he was always there to lend a hand,especially if it kept me away.
                   I don't carry any grudges.I'm just grateful to have the chance to clear this stuff up.Some people die never facing this stuff.I easily could have.Now it's time to fix this old machine for real,as best as I can.

[starry-eyed pirate]

:tup:

[NAILBOMB]

I was sober for 12 minutes this morning  :lol:

sorry to hear that

rtp2k3

Tis ok man , just takes a few for it to jump from bag to spoon and cross the blood brain barrier ya know, then its all gravy  8-)

[Woof-a-Doof]

Considering the fact that I am not,nor never have been, a drug addict nor alcoholic,who cares?Straight's greatest crime,in my eyes,was orienting their clients/victims/patients to believe that they were hooked on drugs and/or alcohol when it was a known lie for 90% of said people.I said known lie because Straight's directors knew this to be true.How can any form of therapy be positive when it's based on a lie?Let me explain it's damage, instead.
                 When my mother signed me into Straight,I was almost seventeen years old(almost 30 years ago).I had just ran off for the first and last time.I was definitely a teen with serious issues.My drug use was moderate and decreasing by this time.By slamming this  "you're a druggie,that's the problem"warehoused bullshit in my head,they literally forced me to ignore the real issues in my life.They totally took away my periphery to confront my true demons by planting this artificial one in me,crippling my chances of coming to terms with them at a later date.Many of those issues that were haunting that sixteen-year old thirty years ago are just being dealt with recently,many with the help of these forums.Most of the credit goes to my commitment to being a loving a caring father which these demons were impairing that.Maybe love won't conquer all,but at least it's giving me a fighting chance.
                  I refuse to villify any former victims/clients/patients who became staff members later on because they only reacted to the same abuse that we did in a different way.While Wanda Minton was indeed a vicious bitch as a staff member,I remember when staff forced her to hot box a pack of Kools for stealing one of her mother's cigarettes.Reading 85DJ's post started me to wonder why my program took so long,now I realize,they might have needed my stepfather to supply the trucks to help them change buildings one more time free of charge(I was in three of them)and of course,he was always there to lend a hand,especially if it kept me away.
                   I don't carry any grudges.I'm just grateful to have the chance to clear this stuff up.Some people die never facing this stuff.I easily could have.Now it's time to fix this old machine for real,as best as I can.

Well said!

I must admit I have not followed this post. However, I know "Sam Kinison", and so that sparked an interest. Saying, "How can any form of therapy be positive when it's based on a lie?" echoes one of my pet ponderings. Which is, how can a student learn from a teacher whom they are affraid of? It's absurd...Then have the gall to attach the word "theraphy" to the moronic premise. Confrontive theraphy (abuse) which we all endured, undoubtably left scares in scores of other people...I am not immune from them. Think of those ya see on the Discovery Channel, with a huge ass chunk taken out of thier leg...(by a shark or sumpin). They are usually very humble folks, they will say they have tremendious respect for the shark....blah blah blah...Point being I have no  respect for the "treatment/theraphy".

The scares (sp...spell and feel like an idiot....hate when I can't remember how to spell the simple words) are as real as those of the flesh and just as disfiguring. Ya seem to have picked up  on that there Sam! Ya learned skills or I should say a "skill set", we cant kid ourselves here. I think it takes big balls to aquire new skills and to abide in that. Those "skill sets" are, unfortunaitly(sp, errrr), are most damaging to those we hold near and dear...they can catch the brunt of it. I think other relationships suffer, as does employment and many other facets of our lives. I applaud ya there "Sam"....Welcome to hell....ya know what I mean.

They totally took away my periphery to confront my true demons by planting this artificial one in me,crippling my chances of coming to terms with them at a later date.

Yup...me to

I refuse to villify any former victims/clients/patients who became staff members later on because they only reacted to the same abuse that we did in a different way.

In my experience, that has waxed and wained...it comes and goes. I suppose the operative word being "villify". I am a peacefull sorta guy, I like to engage in discussion and generally not affraid to get my nose bloody and I am not affraid to be wrong, and admit when I am in the wrong. So, that in mind I am going about scanning the board here at fornits and the name, Les*i*le Pet*ro flashed on screen....I was suddenly, unabashedly enraged an lashed out. I was pissed off all day. I wasnt upset that she "became staff members later on because they only reacted to the same abuse that we did in a different way"....No!, I was pissed for the person she was, who exploited thier "power" without encouragment from an adoring staff of the same caliber. Her particular venimous manner set the tone for sooo many girls....to succed, hate and  scream.

Really, there is no justifacation for that rationale....scores of people were afraid.....terrrified...of her in no small degree....and this was theapeutic how? Trembling patients/clients infront of a raving staff member is wrong...no wiggle room here...it's just plain wrong to encourage and promote  this treatment of people. Sure, it can be argured that she was a pawn, as so many  others were. But that argument doesnt hold water when examined on a personal level. And yes, this is rage/anger towards one person and is specific to her. I have other levels of emotion directed at others, but few bring the blood pressure up like the mention of her name.

don't carry any grudges.I'm just grateful to have the chance to clear this stuff up.Some people die never facing this stuff.I easily could have.Now it's time to fix this old machine for real,as best as I can.

By default, I think thats good...not to cary grudges. And yezzzz we are becoming old machines....modifacations need be made, no doubt... It ain't gonna happen over night. I suspect, ya want  change and y want it now...yet, truth be told, this shit about Straight Inc comes out in drips and  drabs....sometimes it seems worse before it gets better.....and then there are times when it seems no ground has been covered at all....I attribute this to the lingering affects of Straight Inc.

In responce to the guestion of sobriety...eh... By definition, the word "sober" is defined by Websters as:

1 a : sparing in the use of food and drink : ABSTEMIOUS b : not addicted to intoxicating drink c : not drunk
2 : marked by sedate or gravely or earnestly thoughtful character or demeanor
3 : UNHURRIED, CALM
4 : marked by temperance, moderation, or seriousness
5 : subdued in tone or color
6 : showing no excessive or extreme qualities of fancy, emotion, or prejudice

By that definition, yes...I am "sober".  So what? I am "sober" by definition, not becuse of Straight Inc. I am "sober" not because of  any wish-craft or 12step gimmics. I am "sober" cuz I don't drink, pretty simple really.

All in all a moot question...had the question been phrased differently....


In Peace
woof