Wow! I didn't get that this was directed at me. It's not responsive to what I was talking about, but I'm happy to answer anyway.
On 2005-01-28 14:01:00, DC wrote:
"What, do you think these kids are innocent when they go to a place like GT??? Consequences for drug use, behavioral, etc...
Drug use and bad behavior do have consequences. Health consequences, legal ones and social ones. Some of those are enjoyable (or no one would do it) and others, not so much. However, the Program is not a natural consequence of drug use or bad behavior. The Program is a system of
contrived and often outlandishly harsh consequences that the kid is supposed to accept as their own doing. Do they still respond to each and every complaint with "You did the necessary things...."? And these artificial consequences are imposed by you by proxy.
Now, if you're qualified to be a host parent, then ask yourself what the heck you're paying for. What is it that the Program is doing that you couldn't, or wouldn't, do yourself?
Are you honestly going to sit there and say that these kids have not put their own and other lives in jepordy because of their actions??
There are consequences to those actions. GT offers help and solutions to those kinds of problems. So does AA & NA.
In many cases, they have not. I don't know you or your daughter. For all I know she really was in some deep trouble and needed some kind of help. But that is, by no means, a common denominator among program clients.
What I am going to sit here and tell you is that, regardless of the risk to your daughter w/o this particular program, you must consider the risk to her from the program. There are other options. Would you get come down on in parent group if you asked staff to explain a few of those "odd, to say the least" practices and policies? Are you allowed to do that and remain in good standing?
My daughter was going to kill herself using,
How do you know that? Do you understand that more than half of American teens have used illegal drugs by the 12th grade, going back to the `70's? Where are all the dead bodies and skidrow junkies? Are half of the people you know from highschool deadinsaneorinjail right now? No, me neither.
so excuse me if I don't see the peril in not letting her make a phone call, watch tv or shave her legs.
I'm trying to explain it to you. Have you got any idea how many former clients have offed themselves? Did you know that the teen suicide rate went up in WPB when GT moved in? It's documented. You can look it up. There's something about it at
http://thestraights.com/ or you can just look up stats on suicide rates and compare w/ GT's history.
In the end it is all about recovery, I would suggest you let it go and let the healing begin, for your own sake.
"
I'm healed, thank you. Just trying to save you the same trouble.
Infidel: In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.
--Ambrose Bierce