Surviving Straight Inc ®

Atlanta, GA Straight Survivor Stories

Name Withheld, Atlanta, GA Straight, 83-84

A 'drug rehab' huh?..........funny that term just never seems to gel with me in
context of speaking about Straight Inc......unless the idea was to
rehabilitate with the 'right' types of drugs.........or is it more fitting to
say foreign substances/chemical compounds/poisons?. This is where I must be
careful, I think, in not trying to come off as a 'know it all' or a budding
sleuth (I'm neither)....in fact, wouldn't my assertions that Straight may have
been one big blind clinical drug trial, sort of make me sound 'stupid', after
all, I did buy into it and eventually complete this program, thinking i had been
completely chemical free the whole time.............'heavily drugged at a drug
rehab, what a sap!' I just want to say that this whole idea of using certain
types of drugs to control someone, or get them to act/say whatever you want is
not a new idea at all. This notion, although unproven, now colors most all my
strong memories of the Straight Inc., so feel free to read ahead with your own
prejudices:
In January of 1983 I was driven to Atlanta GA from my home in Nashville to
attend a 'new' type of treatment center for troubled youths...............back
up, guess I should mention some of what might have given my parents concern
that I might need such a place. I had this friend that told me about some
neighbors of his that were gonna be gone for a while and said we could use their
place, hang out and drink their beer, etc.....'wow!...you got really cool
neighbors man!', I thought.............anyway, we were arrested and dude fessed
up to the idea being all his and some other questionable stuff he'd done, while
I just sort of looked on in disbelief (not true amazment mind you, 'cause I'd
always known guy was at least a little 'crazy', but a good friend forever I
thought)...........this was one of the instances that would make parents and
others in community think that this place might be a good fit.......
So, sometime in January of '83 I find myself sitting in one of these 'intake'
rooms being interviewed for my 1st day of 'processing' into this experimental
Straight Inc. deal....I must not have put up much resistance because I was
'accepted' into the place, introduced to 'the group' and was assigned to a very
relaxed oldcomer-this term, as you might know by now stood for another teen who
had been in Straight for a little while longer at least, and generally meant
that they had authority over 'newcomers'-............still feels kinda weird
using all this old Straight lingo................ after staying a couple of days
in group, I decided that this was not for me 'aw.....naw, I gotta go' the
juxtaposing of the laidbackness of my oldcomer (who I was housed with at nights)
and what I saw/heard in the 'group sessions' during the day....was just.....I
mean the guy just seemed like he literally could've have been one of my
brothers, but something had happened to him here and I knew it wasn't normal or
right, so I left in the morning (approx. 2:00 A.M.) and got some free coffee at
the Denny's nearby, mulling over my route and ride situation-there were no such
thing as a cell phone available to the general public...and if there had been,
who would've have believed me!!!...what friend or family member would've driven
400 plus miles to deliver me back home??? well maybe 1 or 2...but it wasn't an
option so I decided to hitch it....I took, at most, 4 seperate rides (with at
least 1 'character' in that mix) to get back to my hometown......I'm tempted at
this point to go into a little of the ppl. I met on the road that morning, but
not sure how much it had to do with Straight Inc.......only later, after being
brought back, do I now realise that the one ride-dude was SICK- had at least
something to do with how I was treated sometime during my 18 month stay.....I
would sometimes write in my nightly required journal or 'moral inventory' about
how I fooled him and misdirected him from continuing all this crazy shit-talk
admissions/suggestions and 'just give me a ride back to interstate, and I'll
pretend you never told me these things about urself' I might have even hinted
that I had relatives in the Chattanooga police force .....I would sometimes,
also, maybe laugh about the whole situation in one these 12 hour group sessions
at the Straight Inc.....somebod(ies) must not have liked my
'unserious attitude' when retelling this story to 'the group' for some
reason.........
Anyway, to make a long story longer I just want to say that my stay there there
can be charaterized by long stretches of oblivious boredom, punctuated by pure,
complete terror.........I don't, in fact, even remember graduating or
'7-Stepping'...the ceremony, anyway........although I've been assured that I did
(graduated Summer of '84)......don't really even remember the last 7 or 8 months
or so......
Sometime in my 9th month there I was told by a phaser friend about some
'wonder-drug' they had tried in their past.....I was on 3rd phase @ time and
trusted this person to a big extent, even though I felt the conversation was
going somewhere that it prolly shouldn't (look how hard I've worked just to get
the 'priveledge' of getting out of the Straight building and trying to be
'normal').....................
the only other memories I have of this time period involve some true
hallucinations.........by that I guess what I mean are actually seeing things
that aren't there......not traces or 'shape-shifting' objects or cartoon
characters......but seemingly real things and people that just simply are not
there...........drifting in and out of consciousness..............I once, after
being very hungry and fed small rationed portions of non-healthy food, I once
know I 'saw and consumed' a delicious plate of hearty breakfast food that was
pure air in actuality......
To me, all those little memories, or parts of Straight Inc. have become
the WHOLE ..................................One Big Mean Mirage

Brad Finger, Atlanta, GA Straight 82-84

I was fifteen when I was put in the program on February 19,1982 until September 4, 1984. After an all-day intake, I was stripped searched and introduced to the group. I did not want to be there but I soon found out I was court-ordered. My first attempt to leave was by taking the globe of the ceiling light fixture (while my oldcomer was sleeping) placing it under my mattress on the floor and snapping it into sharp knife-like pieces. For hours I cut into my wrist peeling back a thick layer of skin. My goal was to make them think I was crazy so they would send me to a mental ward. I thought that was better than this mad house I was in. Well after staff showed up and jumped on me, they broke the glass in my hand and sliced my leg open. They took me to get sowed up and took me straight back to the building where I was to be confronted. I was on first phase for fifteen months. I fought back but it made matters worse for me.

They tried alot of ways to break me. I remember standing in a corner for a week once and if I moved or turned my head I got my face shoved in the corner and was held up by two upper phasers. By this time I stopped fighting because I would find myself on the ground with two or more phasers sitting on me. I went through a peanut butter diet for over six weeks. I ate peanut butter, other than that I ate the one shitty meal at the building. The peanut butter was better than what they served but I still was not broken. Then there was the bread and water diet. I became very malnourished and thin. I must have made the staff really mad because I was taken to an intake room and forced to do sit ups, push ups, jumping jacks and running-in-place for hours. I became dehydrated through this painful process and every time I moved I would suffer severe cramping. The four upper phasers would be screaming at me the entire time and when I physically could not move Any longer, they would pick me up like a puppet on strings and make me do more. I still did not change.

They sent me to my own home as a newcomer to humiliate me but that did not motivate me. So then to screw with me some more, I had to ask for every bite of food that I took and if I asked too fast I was told NO!! So then I was put on janitor detail of the month where I was lead around cleaning everything from bathroom stalls to baseboards. I was in hell. Because it was so hot in that building with no A/C, it felt good to my skin to clean those pissy toilet's. I would ask for water and they would not give me anything to drink, so I would rub toilet water on my skin to cool down. After three weeks I was broken. I made 2nd phase two times and ran away {split} or copped out as they called it, only to be found and kidnapped and took back to the group for more screaming.

Well I did make it through the program after thirty-one months. I was in the Atlanta group. I think about alot of the other kids I was in with. I wonder who is still alive what they are doing with their life. As for me, I'm turning forty-two this this year. I live in a different state. I was married for ten years and I have a lovely thirteen year old daughter and a sixteen year old son that live with me. I currently work in management and enjoy spending time with my children. I have been a relationship for four years and I share with her my experiences with Straight. At times, it has been very difficult for me to open up and talk about Straight, but I have found that it has helped me to heal. I still have dreams of running from Straight from time to time but other than that I am happy in life. It took a while but I think as time goes by it gets better. Every day away from that insane hell hole is a blessing. This is my story in a nut shell. There is so much more I could talk about and I'm really just scratching the surface. I wish everyone the best of luck in Life. I know we will never forget this part of our life but for me, I have found my happiness through my own children.

BRAD FINGER

Steven Brown, Atlanta Georgia Straight, 1983-85

I was 15 years old when I was put into Straight inc. My drug use consisted of occasional pot smoking with my friends. I had also drank beer a few times at parties and such. I was making bad grades at school and was being rebellious at home. I did not have a problem with addiction at all. My problems could definently be described as normal teenage adjustment issues. This did not stop Straight recruiters from convincing my naive mother that i was a full blown drug addict who would die without immediate "treatment". I had no idea that my mother had been recruited by Straight when she woke me early on a school morning and said that we were going on vacation to Atlanta Ga. and would be going to Six Flags theme park. I remember thinking how lucky i was. I was getting to miss a couple of school days to go ride roller coasters in Georgia. If i had any idea what the next 18 months held for me I would have run and never looked back. But how could I have known that my mother had been lied into sending her only son into a destructive mind control cult masquerading itself as a drug rehab.

There were no signs on the Straight building so when we pulled into the parking lot I had no idea where we were. My mother told me it was a doctors office, she said we had an appointment which would only take a moment. I went inside and quickly found myself locked in a small room with 2 other boys my same age who began to interrogate me. The bizarre questions they asked included stuff like "What kind of animals have you had sex with? etc. This line of questioning quickly pissed me off but my anger and sense of betrayal went into overdrive when the Straight program director came into the room and announced that i would be staying permanently. I couldn't believe my mother was doing this to me. I was told that I would be allowed to tell her goodbye but if I said anything else to her the consequences would be dire. At this point, i think some kind of mental disassociation began in my young mind. The memories become fuzzy sometimes and crystal clear at other times. I barely remember saying goodbye to my mother. I just barely remember the hours of interrogation and forced strip search that followed. The nightmare was just beginning.

Daily life for a newcomer in Straight inc was as close to hell on earth as most people could ever imagine. Your dignity as a human being was stripped away in the most humiliating fashion. You were watched while using the bathroom. Anytime that you moved you had to be held by your back beltloop, I felt like a dog on a leash. Come to think of it, things were done in Straight to human beings that would get you arrested if you did to animals. Food and sleep deprivation were just a part of everyday life. We spent 12 to 18 hours a day sitting in group. We had to stare straight ahead, back ramrod straight. We could only turn our heads to look at a person who was speaking. If you even moved your eyes to glance around you would be confronted for not paying attention. When I say confronted i mean intense verbal assaults that could last a few minutes or hours depending on the whims of staff. Anyone who was bold enough to directly resist was met with overpowering force. Several times a day someone would be slammed to the floor and sat on for hours simply because they refused to "motivate". Motivating at Straight consisted of waving your arms violently over your head to show the staff that you wanted to speak. If called upon to speak you would be expected to admit something very embarrassing about yourself to the group. If this admission was not done properly the speaker could expect a confrontation from the group led and directed by staff members.

The abuse at Straight took many, many forms. This included medical neglect. I had been in Straight for a few months and being a growing teenage boy, i had outgrown my shoes. I asked for new shoes but my request was denied. As a consequence I developed ingrown toenails in both of my big toes. These became infected and eventually got so bad that I could hardly walk. Finally I was taken to see a doctor. This guy turned out to be a Straight-approved sadistic quack. I was held down on a table while both of the toenails were yanked out. At no time did i receive any pain medication. The pain was excruciating. I was immediately carried back to the Straight building where I was placed back in group. I couldn't walk or even stand up at this point. I was still expected to motivate in group and if called upon to speak I would stand with the assistance of the phasers sitting next to me. Due to the complete lack of medical care or medication of any kind, my toes and feet swole up. This was extremely painful, even worse than the removal process had been. I remember one night my host Mom called the building and begged the staff to allow her to give me at least a tylenol or aspirin. Her request was denied. I remember the tears in her eyes as she watched me writhe in agony on her floor. This incident is one of those things that still makes me very angry to think about - even 25 years later.

The worst thing about Straight to me was the day to day hopelessness of it all. The feeling that I had been thrown away by my family and I had no alternative but to join the madness all around me. Escape for me just wasn't a realistic option. I was 15 and hundreds of miles from home with no experience on the streets whatsoever. Gradually I came to believe I deserved everything that was happening to me. As month after month ticked by I started internalizing the message of Straight, eventually I completely believed everything they were telling me. I believed the abuse was necessary to help us druggies get better. I began to progress through my phases. When i made 2nd phase i got to go to the bathroom by myself for the first time in over 6 months. I was determined to never be set back to 1st phase again and lived in a constant state of fear that this could happen.

I finally reached 5th phase, the final phase of the program. My paranoia about being set back to 1st phase again became very acute at this time. i had seen so many people started over for the most trivial of rule violations and I believed it would inevitably happen to me as well. I wanted to leave but at the same time I believed what Straight had told me: I was a drug addict and would die or go to prison if I left. Around this time an incident occured that clarified my dilemma for me. The group was having alot of internal turmoil due to a mini-rebellion of sorts being led by what were called "misbehavors". We had a dozen or so inmates misbehaving simultaneously and tensions within the group began to run very high. As a 5th phaser I was expected to help staff control the group. When newcomers were not cooperating, the upper phasers were blamed and punished for not properly controlling these rebellious 1st phasers. This was one of the ways that Straight kept us divided against each other constantly. One day during the midst of this mini-rebellion the Exec Director of Atlanta Straight ordered each misbehavor to be properly punished for their behavior. The offending newcomers were taken one by one into the bathroom and beaten senseless by upper phasers selected for the job. Fortunantely I was not selected for this chore as i would have done whatever i was told. In Straight, you always knew that you could be the next one being abused if you failed to carry out commands without question.

It is hard to explain to anyone who wasn't there but I was so brainwashed at the time, that I initially supported the decision to crush the rebellion in group by brute force. I thought that by hurting someone we were actually helping them. Thats how screwed up my thinking was after 18 months in Straight. It wasn't until later that I began to realize what I had seen was terribly wrong. This event, combined with my constant fear of being started over gradually brought me to the decision to leave Straight. I called my Mother back home and for the first time in 18 months I told her the truth about what was happening at straight inc. Straight had told the parents to not believe anything their child said. They were supposed to report any negative comments immediately to the staff. My mother chose to believe me instead. My stay at Straight was over.

The after-effects of being brain-screwed at Straight are numerous and ugly. I trust almost no one. Only my wife of 17 years comes close to having my complete trust. All others are suspect. I have periods of rage and anger that are so intense "normal" people are scared of me. After the fits of anger i will become sullen and depressed. There is so much more I could mention here but these things are too personal for an open letter like this. Suffice it to say, Straight haunts me and has affected virtually every aspect of my life. I hope that others who went through what i did will find some measure of peace in their lives. The horrible memories will always be there but we can't let them control us.

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