praying without believing

when your child is in danger it will cause you to do all kinds of crazy things.

my 10 year old daughter has had a tough life. since infancy she has suffered from a severe neurological disorder. she has undergone four surgeries, including a corpus-callosotomy, the removal of the brain matter that connects the 2 hemispheres of the brain.

she has been treated by the best pediatric neurologists in america. she has had numerous hospital stays. prior to her brain surgery, she was being transported to the emergency room 2 to 4 times each week to stop status seizures. she spent 2 years on a highly restrictive diet administered by the epilepsy team at johns-hopkins. she had a vagus nerve stimulator surgically implanted at washington university medical center. she also had a g-tube, so she could be fed while she sleeps, installed at denver children's hospital. she needed the g-tube because she was not gaining enough weight.

on wednesday, april 14th, the surgeons broke the bones on the outsides of each of her feet and lengthened them by adding a bone graft. they also broke her heels and moved them to an ideal location, then added screws to hold them in place.

hopefully, these procedures will allow her more stability so she can walk better and even run.

she has been a trooper throughout all of this. she is currently sitting in her hospital bed, surrounded by balloons and teddy bears, wearing big purple casts with pink hearts and sparkles. the prognosis is good.

as her daddy, i have done my best to stay positive. i have to admit though, i have been scared. i am also heartbroken, watching this beautiful, courageous and loving child experience so much adversity. i wonder how much she really understands about what she is going through. i worry about the impact of being forced to undergo painful, life-changing procedures without even having a vote on the matter.

the night before her surgery, she seemed excited about having “a sleepover at the hospital with mommy.” she talked about the “sleepover” enthusiastically and prepared by gathering a few items, teddy-bear, bubbles, and balloons, that she wanted to take with her.

but she also cried. she complained about a hangnail. she fell down and claimed that she could not get up without help. she told me, weeping, that she had gotten soap in her eyes while she was bathing. though she was optimistic on the surface, her anxiety and fear was evident.

i held her in my arms. i told her, “you know what sweetie, everything's going to be okay.” throughout the rest of the evening, she kept repeating, “everything's going to be okay, daddy?”

i wasn't so convinced, but i hoped i had convinced her.

after she went to bed, i went out to the garage and prayed.

i could only hope that someone was listening. since i don't believe in god, praying represents an act of complete desperation. i really needed there to be a god and i needed him (or her) to hear me—to watch over my daughter. my lack of power over my daughter's wellness was total.

i was praying as much that someone or something had the power necessary to protect her as i was that he would protect her.

some people call this foxhole praying. some say that god only answers prayers if you have faith. well, i don't have faith. i've tried; it's just not there. but i still prayed.

i figure that if there is really a loving god that has the ability to help my daughter, he doesn't give a sh!t about some “it only works if you have faith” technicality. personally, i would help a child in need whether they or their father had faith or not.

i figure that, if there is a god, he helps where he is able. if not, i wouldn't trust him anyway.

seekingintongues

p.s. if you're out there, please watch over my little girl

how i was spititually raped and left for dead (part 4)

part 1 is here
part 2 is here
part 3 is here

according to “the story of [seekingintongues]” in george's book, “many of his [seekingintongues] co-workers and subordinates became angry with [seekingintongues] and they eventually confronted him. [he] finally resigned from the treatment facility…”

reading this, one would assume that, as a result of the confrontation, i resigned shortly thereafter. further, the reader may think that i simply refused to stop being “abusive” and was hell-bent on finding the flaws in my superiors.

here's what really happened.

part 4
 
i'm gonna find myself a girl who can show me what laughter means
and we'll fill in the missing colors in each other's paint-by-number dreams
and then we'll put out dark glasses on
and we'll make love until our strength is gone
and when the morning light comes streaming in
we'll get up and do it again ~ jackson browne
 
before i go on, i want to acknowledge that there were a few people that helped me make it through the next few months following the “confrontation.” j.h. pulled me aside one day and said, “look, all of this is going to turn out okay. your wife will never leave you. hang in there.” he also told me to watch my back with bob's wife. he said in so many words that she could not be trusted.

one of the women on staff accompanied me to an na meeting. i’ll never forget that. when everyone else was ostracizing me, she reached out. i had been clean and sober about 13 years at the time, but was told that none of my sobriety counted—that although i had avoided drugs and alcohol, i wasn’t really sober. i changed my sobriety date to the day after the confrontation and went to an na meeting to receive a desire chip.

i got to the meeting late (after the chips had been given out). when they asked if anyone had a “burning desire,” i spoke up. i stated that i needed to get clean and sober and had come to get a desire chip, but “i got here too late.” i was in tears and had a hard time getting the words out. someone said, “it’s never too late.” they gave me a desire chip. i am thankful, not only to the woman who accompanied me to the meeting (and i hope you know who you are; thank you), but also to the members of that na meeting who were loving and empathic. of course they had no idea that i had actually been clean and sober for 13 years.

also, bart was assigned to be my new sponsor. since i was “newly sober,” it was no longer appropriate for bob to sponsor me, so they chose bart. he helped me a lot over the next several months.

then there was eric, my coffee shop partner. he was always safe. he never talked down to me. he made me feel as though i had nothing to prove to him. i found myself trying to hang out around him as much as possible just because it felt good to be around him.

another person who gave me respite and respect was a guy who wasn’t in the program. his name was james. james did sound and lights for many of the events i produced. he knew things weren’t right with the program, but never said so. he believed i had a unique talent for planning and facilitating raves, dances and other events. he was making 3 times more than me and tried to convince me to let him set me up in the entertainment business. later, after hearing me play drums at a round robin, he again said he felt i was very talented and offered to get me a job playing drums with a touring band that was making money.

i never considered leaving the program, as i knew that leaving meant losing my family, but his affirmations helped me feel a little better about myself. i never told him what i had been put through, he just believed that what i was doing in the program was a waste of talent. i also never told anyone about his proposals for fear that the bob would prevent me from using him for events or from having any contact with him.

finally, the local chapter of aa held marathon meetings around the clock on christmas eve and christmas day. i spent most of christmas at those meetings, because, having broken ties with my parents and siblings, being “out” of my so-called family (the staff), being in a position where i was a guest in my house while everyone was waiting to see if i was going to “make it, and also being pretty much ostracized by my wife, who was reporting on me to bob and joy, i was alone on christmas. ”i’m not sure i would have survived christmas without those aa meetings.

back to the story

bob was an ex-con. he once explained to me the process used in prison for making someone into a punk. for those who don’t know, according to bob, a punk is basically someone an inmate owns. they give the owner their cigarettes, money, and other stuff, they also serve as the inmate's serial-rape victim. a punk has no existence other than to serve at the pleasure of the inmate who owns him.

here is how the process works, according to bob. first, a new inmate/recruit without street smarts is chosen—someone who isn't a hardened criminal, someone who is still sensitive, human. after selecting the recruit, the hardened prisoner will beat him within an inch of his life. the recruit may spend weeks recovering in the infirmary. the beating would be the worst the recruit had ever experienced in his life, bad enough to cause him to believe he is going to die, to cause significant emotional trauma.

at this point, the recruit is ruined. he will never be the same. next they wait for him to recover, not only physically, but mentally. when the recruit feels as though he’s going to be okay—when his confidence is almost restored and he begins to feel safe--they beat him again…within an inch of his life.

after the second beating, when he’s almost physically recovered, but still traumatized, they corner him. they begin to beat him again. but this time they tell him, “i’m not going to fvck you, but i just want you to suck my d!ck.”

all that is necessary to force the recruit into performing sexual acts is the threat of violence...a raised hand or a quick movement. he has been removed from his environment and placed in prison among violent sociopaths. he has little contact with family and friends. there is no hope of escaping his current situation. he fears for his life.

once the recruit performs oral sex, usually in tears, he is fully broken. he is so ruined by the trauma he has experienced and devastated with shame because he has given in to the rapist, he becomes the property of the inmate and can even be rented or sold to other inmates. they knock him down further by constantly reminding him that he is a loser, a weakling who would rather suck c0ck than defend himself.

the recruit/punk now performs any sex act demanded by the inmate. he may be forced to wear women's clothing and makeup. the essence of the individual, who has been converted to punk, is gone--destroyed.

bob also claimed that the forced sex is more about destroying the punk than it is about sex. it's about power. when speaking about raping young inmates, i heard bob say, "i couldn't get a nut [climax] 'til his tears hit my c0ck."

once destroyed, the punk becomes a deployable agent—a slave. he is dead.

the hardened inmate that turned him has no remorse, no empathy for the person he has destroyed. human life means nothing to him.

the infirmary

metaphorically speaking, i was in the infirmary from november of 1995 to the fall of 1996. i began to regain my confidence toward the end of '96 and winter of '97.

during most our time in arizona we had only one car. we couldn’t afford another. after a while we were allowed to purchase a pickup truck for my wife. in february of 1997, i was allowed to trade our old ford escort and buy another car.

i’m not even going to try to explain the insane process of trying to buy a car while having to call bob's wife from the dealerships throughout the negotiations. i’ll just say that: 1. she can’t perform basic arithmetic and 2. i was humiliated having to present her proposals to normal people, who thought i was an absolute lunatic for suggesting what i was told to suggest and for my (her)inability to do basic math.

i knew better than to cross her. when she said 2+2=5, i agreed.

with my new car and feeling as though i had done penance, had been taken back by my wife, and been taken back (kind of) by “the family,” i was less afraid.

more specifically, rather than being in a panic, i had adopted ongoing moderate-grade fear as a natural state. i functioned in a passionless, depressive state of post traumatic stress disorder. however, i began to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

then i was blind sided.

it was time for the grand opening of the new coffee shop, of which i was half owner. i had devoted a tremendous amount of time, along with my partner, to designing and building the shop. i had performed dances, raves and other events that brought a lot of revenue in to the shop. the shop was beautiful.

that friday i was called over to bob’s house and verbally beaten. i was told that, while this confrontation was going on, brian, bob's muscle, was out in the desert digging a hole (for my body). i don’t remember the specifics of my supposed transgressions. here is what i do remember.

-bob and his wife made a direct threat against my life.

-that night i went to staff purpose and the topic was me...again.

-bob and his wife had to explain what was “wrong” with me to the rest of the staff, because no one else saw it. they told the staff that it would be difficult to understand what was wrong with me, but continued to explain it until everyone “understood.” they told the staff that the things i’d done to harm them (the staff) would not be things that they would know had been harmful, but that whatever, difficulties, fears, bad feelings, etc. that any of them had experienced recently were the direct result of manipulative things i had done to harm them. they were told to think of whatever difficulties, fears, etc. they had experienced lately and then they assign blame to me.

-my wife was told that she must sit in a place where she could not see my face during the confrontation. she was told, as were the others, that if i seemed hurt, became tearful, apologized, tried to be nice to people, helped someone, showed empathy for anyone, or anything else that would normally be considered a sign of remorse, i was conning them. therefore, i was not allowed to be contrite, emotional, apologetic or helpful. this was a brilliant double-bind created by the otherwise tree-stump-stupid, mrs. bob. if i was mean i was an as$hole. if i was nice…i was an as$hole.

-i was told that i used my sexual prowess to “con” my wife into wanting to be with me—that i should be less effective in the bedroom.

-once again, i spent several hours, powerless, as the staff attacked me, accusing me of creating a variety of problems for them and manipulatively planting fears within them.

-a well known rock star, and bob lapdog, was present in the purpose for some reason. he was also a member of bob's inner-circle and an honorary graduate of the the counselor training school. go figure. his friend, a former music partner from childhood and leech of the rock star was also present. so i was forced to endure this confrontation while two people, one i barely knew and another i’d never met before, were present and participating.

-after the purpose, i was sent home alone while the males gathered at one house for social time and the females, including my wife, at another.

aside from the rift created between my wife and me, the most hurtful part of the experience was a comment made by a woman on staff whom i had taken under my wing. in the past, i had seen her beaten down, ostracized and kicked out of the house where she had lived for years with a family in bob’s inner circle.

she had no relationship with her family and i was afraid she would ultimately be kicked out on the street with nowhere to turn. secretly, i had made it my personal mission to protect and nurture her. for years, bob had made fun of her, claiming that she was an idiot. in working with her, i found that she was brilliant and talented. during the purpose, she said to me, “i’ve worked too hard to get where i’m at to let you fvck it all up.” she had no idea that i had been devoted to advocating on her behalf. i don’t blame her and was never angry at her. i was saddened by the “fact” that in trying to help her, i had hurt her. later, when the fog cleared, i was saddened by the fact (no quotes) that the person who was in her corner was portrayed as someone who was trying to “keep her down.”

the next night was the grand opening of our new coffee shop.

the coffee shop was a drug and alcohol free nightclub for teens and college-aged kids. we had taken a rented warehouse property and transformed it into a desert-themed dreamscape. a silhouette of desert mountains lined the walls from the floor up to about 5 feet. the brilliant colors of the sunset arose from behind the mountains, darkening to purple and then midnight blue which covered the very top of the walls and the ceiling. the ceiling was midnight blue with stars.

there were malibu lights mounted every 6 feet along the baseboards and the light hit the walls just above the mountains, accentuating the sunset and then fading into the night sky.

there was a stage on the back wall. i was positioned behind the mixing board on the side of the stage. the bar was positioned on the wall opposite the stage. the room was packed with hundreds of enthusiastic young people. looking over the tops of their heads, i could see the wall behind the bar. halfway up the wall was a 12 by 5 foot mirrored mountain scape. a shelf, lined with bottles of coffee flavorings, vanilla, caramel, pomegranate, cherry, etc., ran across the bottom of the mountain scape. a purplish hue radiated from behind the bottles, reflecting off the mirror-mountains.

the rock star and his deadbeat friend were on the stage. they had come to perform the star's hit songs for our grand opening. the room was electric. the audience was bouncing to the beat, singing along. looking across the stage, i could see my wife on the other side. she, like everyone else was intoxicated by the music, the excitement, the happening.

it was 20 feet between where i stood, behind the mixing board and where she stood on the far end of the stage. i looked up at the stars of the universe above my head. i imagined floating and flying through the stars. i thought about times i had been away from my wife, my soul-mate.

in our younger years, when circumstance had caused us to be in different cities, we had both looked up at the same night sky, each of us knowing that the other was seeing the same stars. we took comfort in knowing that although we were physically separated by hundreds of miles, we were together is spirit.

with my eyes, i followed the painted night sky for 20 feet across the length of the stage. then, lowering my head, i looked down to see the woman i loved, a million miles away.

this was to be my night. not mine completely, i did have a partner and we had created this place together. as long as i could remember, my desire to be creative had been an unquenchable longing. art, music, writing, i was passionate about these things. the coffee shop and everything that went with it, dances, raves, parties provided a creative outlet which kept me going in an otherwise stifling environment. like most artists, i wanted to be recognized for my work. i needed to create, but i also needed others to see the product and recognize my achievement.

my partner in the coffee shop was brought on stage and applauded for “the beautiful coffee shop that he had created.” i was in the corner running the mixer. no one would talk to me. i received no recognition.

that night, when i should have been applauded and been allowed to celebrate my achievements, i was instead made to be a pariah. i fully believe that this entire thing was orchestrated by bob's wife so that, my partner, her “spiritual son,” did not have to share the spotlight with anyone else.

my wife stood at the edge of the stage applauding as well. she wouldn’t talk to me either. at one point, i went over and stood behind her. later that night, she was livid that i had “tried to ruin her fun by standing near her.” this idea had been planted by bob's wife. later, i was harshly confronted by bob and his wife for attempting to keep my wife from celebrating the grand opening of the coffee shop of which i was half owner...by trying to stand by her!

the image of my wife, celebrating with her new “family” at the grand opening of “my partner’s coffee shop” while i was banished to the corner to mix the sound—which i’d better not fvck up, if i knew what was good for me—is still burned in my brain.

i can still see her standing there, stepping out of her shoes, head tilted, glowing at my partner’s success. i felt betrayed. i hated her for this.

for all intents and purposes, they had caused my wife to be unfaithful. she was with them. her primary loyalty was not to her husband, but to them. in my mind, it was no different--what happened that night and the following months—than if she would have been sleeping with another person. they manipulated her, lied to her, rallied the troops against me, and caused her to cheat on me, metaphorically.

i have tried to reframe this for years, but cannot because it is the truth.

furthermore, our intimate relationship ended there. she was coached by bob's wife, to whom she reported my actions on a regular basis. it didn’t really matter what i did or said, because everything that happened was interpreted as an attempt on my part to hurt my family and everyone else.

at some point, our 4 year-old daughter, who had gotten a new camera, asked to take a picture of mommy and daddy. my wife was livid. she accused me of “setting our daughter up” to ask to take a picture of us. “i don’t want my picture taken with you,” she said. this was reported to bob and his wife. as a result of being poisoned by their convoluted, conspiratorial meddling, she thought that i was trying to use our daughter to get close to her. she couldn't have been more wrong. i hated her.

whatever love i'd had for her was gone.

i need to step out of the story to explain that it wasn't my wife's fault. she was being carefully manipulated by bob's wife. bob and his wife were scripting nearly every discussion my wife and i had. she would return to bob's wife several times each week to report on our “progress.” bob's wife would then interpret every word, every action, telling my wife what the words and actions “really meant.”

bob's girls would be together in a group where my wife was present and they would openly talk sh!t about me. they would call me a loser. no one challenged bob's girls.

bob's daughter, muffy, was part of this crowd. muffy had grown up in this group. nearly every friend she had ever had, had been handed to her by bob and his wife. in fact, she didn't have friends, she had lapdogs—people who followed her around and did whatever she wanted to do, whenever she wanted to do it. she wanted my wife to be her best friend. she wanted to hang out with my wife night after night. she wanted my wife's world to center on her.

as a tool to manipulate my wife, they also used a method which thought-reform expert, dr. robert j. lifton, referred to as mystical manipulation.

in his landmark book, thought reform and the psychology of totalism, a study of “brainwashing” in china, lifton defined mystical manipulation as : “the manipulation of experiences that appear spontaneous but in fact were planned and orchestrated.”¹

here's an example: those of use who had reached a certain level within the organization believed that bob's wife had mystical powers. she could enter people's dreams while they were sleeping, read minds, and interpret the words used by people to decipher unknown desires and motives. she could also read tarot cards.

the girls would gather together at muffy's house and joy would help them find answers to life's most important questions. one of those questions for my wife was: “will i ever have another baby?” bob's wife did a reading. the results indicated that my wife had done a great deal of spiritual work to invite the right people into her life [bob's girls] and distance herself from the wrong people [me and her mother]. now, after finally achieving what she had sought, she was on the verge of sabotaging everything. a baby represented a destructive instinct in my wife. it would cause her to be trapped—tied to the undesirable spiritual vampires while creating a time-consuming task (taking care of a newborn) which would separate her from her true family [bob's girls].

what appeared to be an answer to an important question was in reality just a con. bob's wife wanted my wife to continue to avoid her mother and me. she made the question and the cards fit the message that she wanted to deliver.

she also knew that my wife had struggled for much of her life to have strong friendships with other girls. difficulty along these lines had caused her a great deal of pain. being accepted into the fold and having these friendships with bob's girls made her happy. the underlying message, "you have to choose us or your husband," planted a powerful fear within her.

bob's wife was a student of eriksonian hypnosis and neuro-linguistic programming. she knew how to plant fears.

exit counselor, mental health professional, and mind-control educator, steven hassan calls this technique of planting fears “phobia indoctrination.” in his book, releasing the bonds: empowering people to think for themselves, he defines phobia indoctrination as: “programming of irrational fears of ever leaving the group or even questioning the leader’s authority. the person under mind control cannot visualize a positive, fulfilled future without being in the group.”²

for my wife, the deeper fear was that, if she questioned the guidance provided by bob's wife, she would die, at least spiritually, and more importantly, destroy her daughter.

it may be difficult to understand how an intelligent person could turn her life over to an obvious charlatan. the truth is, if my wife had met these people and they had immediately tried to lay this crap on her, she would have walked away. but this was after years of indoctrination. we had no contact with the outside world. our ability to think critically had been stifled. all questions were answered either by the doctrine of the group or the leaders directly. from the beginning we were told, “your best thinking got you here,” meaning our attempts to solve our own problems had led to ongoing drug abuse and had nearly destroyed us. we needed someone else to think for us.





bob sat me down and told me, “your wife doesn’t love you. she doesn’t want to be married anymore. they [his wife and the girls] are trying to figure out where to send her.” he told me, “she hates you man. she told my wife she can’t stand the sight of you.” these were bob’s words.

he said that they couldn’t afford to support my wife and daughter and had nowhere for them to live. he said he couldn’t send me away—that he needed me in arizona, because “i can’t do this thing without you.” he also indicated that they didn’t have another man available to hook her up with.

somehow, i had screwed everything up. my marriage needed to be split up and i was putting the burden of dealing with this problem on the program. they couldn’t send me away, couldn’t support her and my daughter, couldn’t find a guy for her to marry who could support her and my daughter, didn’t have anywhere to send her…and it was my fault.

“i’m gonna have to fix this thing [meaning find a way to make my wife stay with me and get joy and the girls to go along with it],” bob complained.

at this point, i was trying to get his residential center licensed and opened. bob needed to hold things together long enough for me to finish the job, which i’d been working on for months. bob's wife was trying to end my marriage and in reality had succeeded. she just couldn’t get bob to agree to put the final nail in the coffin because of the residential center.

i had enough sense to realize that bob and his wife were interfering with my marriage, my family. i had seen them split other marriages. i had always believed that, when they split couples in the past, it was in the best interest of the couple. now, on some level, i began to see things in a different light.

my wife and i were estranged, but it was because of their meddling. they may be the chosen spiritual leaders, but in this situation they were wrong. if i didn't do something they would destroy my family forever. my daughter would grow up calling some other man daddy. they would see to it that she would grow up believing i was evil.

this is the point where bob hatched his plan to hold things together long enough to get the center opened.

it was also the point where i hatched my plan save my family.

i decided to murder bob and his wife.

to be continued…

notes:
1.lifton, robert j.; the psychology of totalism, a study of “brainwashing” in china, 1981 (reprint) university of north carolina press.
2.hassan steven a.; releasing the bonds: empowering people to think for themselves, 2000 aitan publishing company.

how i was spiritually raped and left for dead (part 3)

part 1 is here

part 2 is here

prior to my move to arizona, i had hired george to serve as program director for the atlanta program. i had also arranged for bob to begin doing seminars for kids and parents.

bob had approached me, saying that his car was about to be repossessed and he was on the verge of losing his house. the houston hospital deals had fallen apart and his california residential was all but dead. the state of california had forbidden him from any involvement in drug and alcohol treatment and he had “sold” the center to former employees. he was trying to get them to make payments to him, but they weren't able to get any paying clients. he had turned the center into a “retreat” and was trying to run it, secretly meeting with the staff behind the state's back. to make matters worse, he was apparently caught by some staff members naked and in bed with a client. it was reported that he had threatened to use his influence to see to it that the client would lose her child if she didn't keep her mouth shut. additionally, some insiders claimed that his wife suspected he was sleeping with the client and that, in an attempt to catch him, she had secretly followed him to palm springs where he was supposed to be speaking at an na conference. “if i could just do seminars for the kids and parents [in all the cities where bob's organization had programs], i could make enough to get by.”

he claimed he needed $10,000 per month to “make [his] nut.” it was 1992.

bob was not well-liked in houston, so i arranged for his first seminar to take place in atlanta. i contacted george, gave him specific instructions, and although i was about to lose my own home to foreclosure (remember, i had taken on the hospital staff, and lost my best employee and older group to the guy who lived in the rock-star's house.), i paid his expenses to fly to atlanta and give seminars to the kids and parents.

what i didn’t realize at the time was that bob’s plea for help, was actually a con. he had started the process of creating a new hospital contract in arizona—a deal which would exclude his partners . he needed to take full control of at least some of the existing programs, wrestling that control from them and jim. the seminars were his vehicle.

he began in atlanta. when he got there, unbeknownst to me, he met with the staff and told them that i was “fvcked up.” he convinced them that george, my employee, should take over the program. he told them that he would arrange to get the parent group to finance the take over. he instructed them that, if i refused to allow george to take the program, they would all resign immediately, reopen under a new name, and take all of the clients with them.

next bob held his seminar with the kids and parents. the primary topic was seekingintongues is “fvcked-up.” he slandered me. “the program is going to fall apart,” he claimed. “the kids will be left with nothing. they will return to drugs and die.” then he convinced the parents to donate money so george and the staff could take control of the program. he threw his partners and long-term friends under the bus as well.

this was the start of meehan’s conscious and systematic split/hosile take-over of this national organization, controlled by bob and his two partners.

he went to st. louis, dallas, austin, and threw his partners and me under the bus in those cities as well. he convinced the the city directors to side with him. he had already managed to take over phoenix and put his own person in the directorship position there. he now had every city, except houston, to use as a referral base for his hospital contract. he realized that he could not take houston because, even though i was the “owner” on paper, the program was really controlled by one of his partners who lived there. i was the owner only in the sense that i had the legal and financial responsibility.

bob returned to houston, on my dime, and layed out the con. “atlanta is just a thorn in your side,” he said. “george is a mess. he’s not invested. if you want to survive, you need to sell atlanta to george. maybe if he owns it, he’ll pull it together and make the program work. right now, things are worse than you realize.”

of course, he neglected to tell me that george had already incorporated and taken over the program, that they had become bob’s staff, that they would simply walk away from the building we had leased and reopen in a new suite under george’s new corporation, and that i had already been “fired.”

i asked bob all the right questions, including, “are you going to split with jim and al?” he lied.

i agreed to sell atlanta to george on a payment plan which would allow him to make payments based on the amount of revenue generated. this would allow him to pay less if money was tight, more when things were good.

george never paid a dime. never.

when i was recruited to go to phoenix, shortly after i arrived, i was beaten into the ground by meehan and the other directors i was told that i didn’t deserve anything from george. i was not to be paid. i had lost my home, which had been paid for with inherited money, left houston and turned over the program to jim, was living with the current arizona director's house (i had no money), and was thrown under the bus by jim, who told everyone that everything that had gone wrong in houston was my fault.

jim painted himself as the hero who was going to fix houston (in the long-run, his entire staff ended up quitting and he was later investigated for medicaid fraud). bob painted himself as the hero who was going to fix everything else. i was held up as the source of all the problems.

the ironic part, regardless of what anyone has said, is that my programs brought more money into the organization than all the others combined. i kept the referral records for all the programs. no one, besides jim, al, and bob ever saw any of that money though. they didn’t pay me, which meant that i had great difficulty paying my staff (including those i had inherited from the hospital). i could not pay my bills. i lost my house and all the equity i had in it.

it was the culmination of all these events that allowed bob, under the preplanned, orchestrated attack delivered by all the directors, to tear up the sale contract and allow george to take the atlanta operation for free.

a side note: george has since “sold” the atlanta program and then, together with bob, beaten down the individuals he had sold it to and taken back ownership at least 2 times. in each of these “sales” the “marks” have made payments to george and received nothing back after they were ousted. their equity was simply taken away.

now i'm in arizona, having lost everything.

the arizona program was limping. the director was someone for whom i had tremendous respect.

very little money was coming in, many of the staffers were on the hospital’s payroll, allowing them to do work in the outpatient/support group program for free. in addition to my other responsibilities, i was also running older group meetings. the arizona program had several free, 12-step support groups for young people and parents that served as feeders for the inpatient, residential and intensive outpatient programs. young people and parents would come to the free support groups for help and ultimately would be shuffled into the expensive fee-based treatment programs.

the tempe support group was fledgling. the tempe parent group was dead. so i began doing parent education groups as well.

one other “slight” problem…the program was not licensed. it was/is illegal to run an unlicensed treatment program in arizona.

one day we were told that the state would be coming in to do a licensing inspection…tomorrow. i knew that the state would either grant us a license or shut the program down. it generally takes months to prepare a treatment program to be licensed. we had about 18 hours.

there was no policy & procedure manual (the first thing the state inspectors look at). there was no acceptable system for keeping client records. there was no acceptable employee file system. if i remember correctly, there was not a single person in the city who had ever written a p&p or licensed a program. except me. remember, i was the broke d!ck guy who was worried about all the “white folk crap.”

i quickly put together a team of people and, with the state regulations in hand, began writing a policy and procedure manual that was in line with state regulations. sometime after midnight, i sent the director home. he would have to be fresh at 8 am when the state came in. i created employee files and a client file system. we worked throughout the night to bring the facility up to code.

i left the following morning, finishing the job an hour before the state arrived. i went home, took a shower, and went to work at the hospital. for this effort, i was paid exactly $0.00.

that day the arizona program received its license. the state was so impressed with the policy and procedure manual and client files that they asked for copies to use for training purposes.

to this day, i have never received even a thank-you from bob or anyone else. more likely, bob ridiculed me for being “damaged” enough to be able to pull it off.

back to the story.

did my coworkers and subordinates confront me the way george explains it in his book?

it was fall of 1995, november if i remember correctly.

bob's inpatient center, which i was running, was going strong. i had built relationships with many of the insurance companies and succeeded at increasing the average length of stay for hospital patients from 5 days to 16.5 days, which was unheard of for adolescent inpatient treatment. we were receiving referrals from a variety of sources. even the other hospitals were referring patients to bob's center rather than treating them in their own facilities

i had managed to get the center moved to its own hospital wing. we painted the wing so that it did not look like a drab hospital unit. we were able to mount stereo speakers in the hallway so the kids could wake up to music. i had battled with a member of the hospital’s administration to prevent him from setting up his office on our unit, allowing us to have an office and hang-out for all of our staff. i had also arranged for breakfast to be served outside on the lawn.

each morning the kids woke up to great music. they went outside to a table with clean linens and various pastries, juices and coffee, for breakfast and a morning meditation meeting.

this was my idea of how a young person should be treated while having to live away from home and while participating in rehab. i felt that this set-up would help them maintain dignity and self-respect and serve as constant reminder to everyone who was responsible for their treatment that they were human beings rather than “dope-fiends.”

i had also begun hosting huge christmas fund-raising dances. we raised thousands of dollars each christmas to buy toys for the children living in residential treatment at the hospital. this was important to me because these kids, some as young as 4 years old, could not spend christmas with their families. many of their parents were in prison. they did not get presents, except for socks, toothbrushes, and other essentials provided by the hospital.

i was well-liked and respected by the hospital administration and the 'non-bob' hospital employees. they consulted with me on other cases, made it a point to introduce me to corporate executives, and even talked to me about concerns related to their own children.

bob never got a phone call. no complaints. more telling, no one called him to consult on other cases, meet with corporate execs, or on concerns related to their children. he was seen by the administration and the corporate execs, as a necessary pain. at that point, i could have walked away with the center, though it never would have crossed my mind to betray bob and my friends in this way.

this concerned bob's wife. she felt that i had too much power, though i had no authority over anyone.

joy also voiced concerns about my involvement with the parent support-group. i had been doing parent ed for quite some time. parent-ed sessions were standing room only. she clearly stated, to me and others, that she thought that i would use my influence with the parents to take control of the entire program.

she was paranoid. these thoughts never would have occurred to me. moreover, she was wrong. the arizona program had an exceptional parent coordinator. if anyone could have taken control, it would have been her. she also would never have betrayed anyone in such a way.

george presents it as though some of my subordinates and coworkers got together and decided they needed to confront me. that is a lie!

here’s what really happened.

george was about to marry bob's daughter. we'll call her muffy. george was living in atlanta, running the atlanta program that he'd taken from me. bob's wife was determined to see to it that muffy did not move away from her to be with george. she had to bring george to phoenix.

she created an insidious plan. she would ultimately set it up to steal the the arizona program from the current director and give it to her soon to be son-in-law. she would also set it up to send away the director and his family and move george and muffy into his house, which was in the same neighborhood where joy and bob lived.

bob initially arranged for george to be the program director, working under the current arizona director, who would be the executive director. the problem that i saw in all of this was that there was no way bob's wife was going to allow her son-in-law to be second man on the totem pole.

one option would be to get rid of me, move the current arizona director to the hospital, and move george to the position of ultimate authority in arizona. bob's wife had already begun campaigning against the current director behind his back.

bob's wife, with bob’s help, hatched a 2 part plan to drive me into the ground, probably hoping i would either leave or commit suicide.

part one: she arranged for my wife to be ostracized from the group and then harshly confronted. for months no one would talk to my wife. she had been told, without my knowledge, that i was unhappy with her, that she was flawed and on the verge of losing her family and all of her friends. after a long period of anguish and loneliness, bob's wife took her back. she befriended her, “rehabilitated” her, and took her under her wing.

part two: she set up staff to confront me. everyone involved with the phoenix program was told that i needed to be harshly confronted. it was explained to them what was wrong with me. many reported to me later that they had said that they had no complaints. they were told to come up with some. they were told to go all the way back into my past and come up with whatever they could. i needed to hear everything i’d ever done wrong, they were told. they were told that it had to be harsh. i had to be destroyed and, if i survived, rebuilt.

bringing my wife into her fold, bob's wife, who was now directing her every move, convinced her that the “defects” for which she had been previously ostracized were the result of being married to me. i was the source of all of her problems. i had held her back all these years and would continue to, not only hold her back, but destroy our daughter as well, unless i changed everything or unless my wife left me.

i should also point out that george was conveniently out of town when the confrontation took place. later, both he and bob's wife blamed the whole thing on the the arizona director, the guy who was doing what he was told to do by bob and his wife. it was part of what was used to discredit him and to take the arizona program and give it to george.

the confrontation

it was a fall evening in arizona. my wife, my daughter and i had moved into a modest 3 bedroom house in scottsdale. i was standing in the backyard, just outside the sliding glass door which opened into the family room. to my left was my daughter's swing-set. the sky was strange. unnatural streaks of pink and burnt orange stretched out from the western horizon as though the colors were struggling to escape the darkness which was drowning the sun in the desert dust.

the wind was gusting, blowing the empty swings, twisting them slightly, as though an invisible hand was holding them out in front of their natural lie. toxic oleanders formed a lovely and inviting hedge, enclosing the yard and hiding the 6-foot tall cinder block fence. something didn't feel right.

it was “purpose” night. every other friday night, at 7 pm, every staff member in every city, along with their spouses would gather for pseudo-therapy groups facilitated by the city directors. we called these meetings “purpose meetings.” the idea was that we would gather to expose and resolve any personal shortcomings which interfered with the program's “primary purpose.” what was our primary purpose? “...to carry our love and understanding to others and practice the principles of love and honesty in our daily lives with the help of god as we understand him.”

there was always some degree of anxiety associated with purpose meetings. one never knew when the the attention would be focused on him or her. anyone could be charged with spiritual corruption at any time. often, the consequences were severe.

through the glass door, i could see my blond-haired, blue-eyed daughter playing play-doh on the floor. my wife was greeting the baby-sitter who had just arrived. the baby-sitter had been chosen for us by linda, bob's “spiritual daughter” and the most trusted member of his inner-circle. linda's husband arrived a little later. he was also part of bob's innermost circle and was bob's best friend.

i later learned that his job was to take my daughter and hide her if i tried to leave during purpose. they had arranged a scenario where, either i would endure an orchestrated attack and demonstrate that i “got it,” or i would be put out on the streets without my family. if i tried to go home without their blessing, linda's husband would take my daughter. “bob's girls” would take my wife.

i knew something was up, but i didn't realize the extent to which they had gone to set me up.

my wife and i backed out of the carport and drove silently south, out of our neighborhood and then west, toward the struggling sunset on our way to our purpose meeting. we were both anxious. we knew something wasn't right, but neither of us knew what was about to happen.

we parked in the side lot and entered the building through the steel door which separated the meeting room from the back alley. the floor was covered with bluish industrial carpet. the walls were textured and painted off-white. about 30 folding chairs lined the walls, making a sloppy oval. there were a number of other staffers milling about. they had been prepped for the meeting.

the air was filled with trepidation. in a forced gesture of betrayal, several staffers hugged me and smiled at me, though none would look me in the eye.

a couple of “bob's girls,” members of his inner circle, immediately guided my wife to one of the offices and closed the door. the director led me to his office. he closed the door. we sat down.

he said to me, “dude, this purpose is going to be about you.” he attempted to hold a compassionate facial expression. he continued, “some people have some things they want to say to you. it's going to be tough.” he explained that they were doing this because they loved me and that it was going to help me. after a speech that sounded as much like a justification as it did an explanation, he said, “you don't have to go through this if you don't want to.”

at that point, i got it. what choice did i have? if i didn't go through with it i'd be put on the streets. bob's wife, who was pulling the strings over the telephone would convince my wife that i had gone crazy. they would whisk her away and take my daughter as well. besides, if they said i was this screwed-up, i'd better pay attention. this group was my lifeline, my family. they knew me better that i knew myself. they loved me unconditionally. that was what i'd been taught.

then the director said, why don't you stay here and pray. i'll come get you when we're ready.

so, i prayed.

a short time later, the director returned. he escorted me to the meeting room and motioned for me to sit in the only available folding chair. the other chairs were filled with about 30 of my friends--thirty staffers who had called themselves family, people who had professed their love for me.

my wife was positioned across from me. to her sides were “bob's girls.” she was obviously terrified. they comforted her. they had convinced her that she had to be tough on me—that my life was on the line. that i was spiritually bankrupt and that my condition threatened the well-being of both her and our daughter. they were doing this to save them and, if possible, save me. if she showed any compassion, she would sabotage the entire process.

for the next 7 hours each person in the room, including my wife, took turns verbally assaulting me. they confronted me with every unkind word or action, real or imagined, that i had spoken or taken over the last 10 years. they assigned nefarious motives everything i had done, good or bad. they told me how the evil deep within me had caused me to harm everyone and threatened the very existence of the program, even though i was unaware of any desire to cause harm.

they provided long and painful explanations of how i was harming my wife and daughter, holding them back from spiritual and financial freedom. they said i was unconsciously trying to “keep them down,” so they wouldn't leave me.

the director's wife, whom i had considered to be one of my most trusted friends, said to me, “i know i'm supposed to love you unconditionally, but i can't find a single redeeming quality in you. i look at you and all i see is pure evil.”

at some point, my wife left the room with linda. they went into an office and got on the phone with bob's wife. she returned a few minutes (or a few hours) later.

after she returned, flanked by “bob's girls,” she made it clear that if i didn't “get it” and have an immediate change, i wasn't coming home. a stream of bob's wife's ideas came out of her mouth. she said she'd worked hard to get where she was (spiritually). she said that she had worked hard to develop the close friendships she currently enjoyed. (these were the friends who had ostracized her just a few months earlier, refusing to even answer a phone call, no matter how much she was hurting.) she told me she would no longer allow me to hold her or our daughter back.

there was blood in the water. at some point, the confrontation went beyond anything that was supposed to be helpful to me or anyone else. instead, every fear, every bit of anger, all the desperation, dread, hurt and betrayal perpetrated upon these people by bob's dysfunctional totalitarian regime was directed at me. these people had devoted their lives to bob's program. in return, they had been made to work endlessly for little or no pay. they had been forced to move from city to city to do “god's work.” they lived in poverty. they were constantly afraid.

but no one dared to admit their fear, dread, hurt and anger, not even to themselves. on this night it would be vomited on me.

also at some point, i realized that i was floating above my body. it was strange, but i was actually able to look down on myself. people in the room were getting increasingly angry at my lack of an emotional response. but i was powerless to respond. i wasn't there.

sometime around 2 a.m., linda decided that i “got it.” she told my wife that it was okay for me to go home. she said that i hadn't responded because i was “in shock,” which was true. also true was the fact that enough of my real shortcomings were mixed in with everything that was said about me that i believed that everything they said was true. since i was pure evil on the inside, i had little hope that i could change.

later i was told that some of the them had expected me to commit suicide that night. they were happy that i had "chosen life."

for the next year, i suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. i wouldn't say that i changed so much as that the experience changed me. gone was my creativity, passion, sense of humor, desire to help others. i didn't watch tv, read a book (other than program literature) or see a movie. i didn't feel i was worthy to even have a desire to do anything enjoyable.

i didn't dare laugh or smile. i didn't allow myself even a single pleasurable thought. for a year, i was a zombie. i had spells of uncontrollable sobbing. whenever, my daughter acted out, i had to leave, because i couldn't stop crying. i had destroyed this beautiful child that i loved more than anything in the world. i had brought evil upon everyone with whom i had come in contact, even when i thought i was trying to help them. as one staffer put it to me, i was “toxic.”

i was broken.

one night, a few months after that purpose meeting, i was with a couple of other staffers when they decided to stop for ice cream. as they ordered their ice cream, i became afraid. i wasn't sure what to do. was i supposed to have ice cream? was i allowed to? i finally worked up the courage to ask them, “am i allowed to eat ice cream?”

i was 33.

part 4 coming soon—(just when you thought it couldn't get any worse)

how i was spiritually raped and left for dead (part 2)

part one is here

before i continue, it's important that i give a brief explanation of how bob's organization was structured.

bob had two partners, jim and al. jim had been a client of bob's and later worked for him before becoming his business partner. al was a business man who had made a good bit of money working with bob in the past. bob had tremendous influence over jim and al. both saw bob as a kind of spiritual genius who had a remarkable ability to get people off drugs. in fact, they believed that bob's approach to drug rehabilitation was the only thing that worked—that all the doctors, psychiatrist, therapists and counselors “out there” working with troubled teens were complete imbeciles that did far more harm than good. we all believed that.

bob, jim and al owned, partially owned, had a financial interest or were paid to fill beds in various high dollar inpatient and residential treatment centers. initially, bob and jim set-up free, community-based 12-step support groups for young people and corresponding parent support groups. al would broker deals with psychiatric hospitals wherein, the support groups would feed patients into the hospitals and the hospitals would in turn allow bob and john to staff a unit and establish the treatment model to be used. the hospital would pay them as much as $10,000.00 for each kid they placed in the hospital.

bob and jim had support groups in various cities around the country, some with several hundred kids and parents at any given time. to establish a new support-group to feed the hospital and residential programs, they would take one of their clients, usually a young single male in his early to mid 20's and send him to a city where a family had shown an interest in having a local support group—usually a family that had sent one of their kids to bob and jim for drug rehab.

bob and jim would convince the family to come up with some seed money to start the program. when i went to atlanta, the family there had agreed to loan me $10,000 to start a program.

the twenty-something director would be told that the new program would be their own business. they would incorporate, choose a name, take on the loan, sign a lease for a storefront property and have full legal and financial responsibility. the new “director” was led to believe he was being placed in this position because he was spiritually ready. in reality, directors were folks who had an extreme level of commitment and showed a strong ability to recruit.

although there was some seed money. it wouldn't last long. in order to continue to fund the support group, the director would set up an intensive outpatient modality. the directors were expected to send as many kids as possible to bob, jim and al's inpatient and residential programs. production was synonymous with spiritual growth. those who had the biggest support groups and referred the most kids were seen as the spiritual giants. it was a spin on the concept that god will send people to those who are spiritually powerful enough to help them.

those of us who worked for these programs had virtually come of age within them. we wholeheartedly believed in bob's approach. bob's concept was “sobriety must be fun or kids won't stay sober.” we believed (and learned to convince parents) that drugs were at the root of all youth problems. as long as kids stay off drugs everything would be okay. we also believed that the main ingredients for staying clean and sober were “sticking with winners” and having fun. a winner was a kid or staff person in our program.

teenagers were allowed to drop out of school, hang out all night, smoke cigarettes and go just about anywhere or do anything as long as they were with other kids who were in the program.

all of the programs were staffed by clients. they initially came for free 12-step support groups, hung around because of the fun and freedom they had and avoided anyone who wasn't in the program. their parents encouraged this because they themselves were indoctrinated to believe this was best for their kids.

when a kid came to the support-group, he would be drawn in. the staff would encourage other kids to “reach out” or “rock the newcomer.” this meant giving the newcomer lots of hugs, inviting them to hang out, calling them on the phone and talking to them about how great the program was and how it had saved them. kids who were the best at reaching out were publicly praised by the staff. they were also placed on steering committee, a leadership group that served as a reward for “giving back” to the program.

the staff would contact the parents of the newcomer and try to convince them to pay for their child to go into one of the fee-based programs. we believed that the higher the level of care and the longer the treatment lasted, the greater the chance that the child would stay off drugs.

also, if a kid relapsed, was found to be hanging around kids who weren't in the program, had an unsanctioned romantic relationship or simply didn't seem committed to the program, he would be sent to inpatient or residential care. if the family couldn't afford that, the child would be placed in intensive outpatient, which was less costly.

all of these different parts of the program, the support-groups, intensive outpatient, residential, and inpatient treatment, were staffed almost entirely by clients who had stayed sober and been chosen to become staffers, were put through a program-run training/indoctrination program and sent to another city to work. this system was all they knew. all of their friends were in the program. they had little meaningful contact with outsiders. they'd learned not to trust outsiders. they had come into the program as teens, showed that they were good at recruiting (“rocking the newcomer”), had been placed on steering committee, and then ultimately placed on staff in a city far away from home and family.

every kid wanted to become a staff member. most parents wanted their kids to get on staff. being on staff was like being a rock star...a rock star who had no life besides working 80 hours a week; associating only with other staff and clients; having no outside contacts; living in constant fear of being beaten down or thrown out on the streets; being told when and who we could date, sleep with or marry; having no money; being forced to move to another city without notice...again; never getting a vacation, being forced to be friends with everyone else on staff; and being on call 24-hours a day, seven days a week.

but that part was the dirty little secret. we all thought that everyone else on staff was filled with joy. being unhappy wasn't allowed. any expression of fear, depression, sadness, loneliness, or doubt could lead to one being demoted, sent to another city, separated from his romantic partner, being ostracized by the rest of the staff, or being publicly humiliated. of course the greatest fear was that we would be excommunicated. we had lost contact with the outside world. once we were on staff, we broke ties with our families, which we were convinced were not “winners” for us. we had no prospects for employment, no support for our “recovery” from drugs and alcohol, no friends. no connection to a higher power.

leaving the program meant losing everything. to leave meant to die.

we kept our desperation to ourselves.

(see you tomorrow)

what do you believe?

i have a friend. though some would certainly say, “i know seekingintongues and there's no way he anyone would be his friend,” sal paradise has demonstrated that he is my friend.

mostly, we debate one another on political matters. sal refers to himself a neo-communist; i am a libertarian. sal believes in spreading the wealth. i believe in capitalism. sal thinks ronald reagan was a criminal. i believe he was the greatest president since jefferson(save his necessarily pragmatic ties to the religious right). sal likes the pixies. i like the beatles. okay, he likes the beatles too, but you get the idea.

point is...we don't agree on much of anything.

my initial rendition of “god has a purpose for me” was written for an online support community. sal was a frequent and celebrated contributor to that community. as a man who has embraced atheism, he responded to “god has...” by explaining the way in which atheism has made his life meaningful. those are my words not sal's

sal is a fantastic communicator and though i disagree with his opinion on a lot of stuff, i love to read the stuff he writes. he bills himself as an “anti-everything enthusiast.” classic. he's funny, sardonic, irreverent, logical, intelligent and almost always sickeningly “on.” he's like dr. gregory house on steroids...and opioids.

i asked sal paradise to contribute a piece on “the virtues of atheism,” because i thought it might stir some discussion related to peoples' beliefs.

here is sal's response, which can also be found on his blog, daydream nation. (sorry, no caps sal.)

enjoy...

On Atheism; Part One

"...there almost certainly is no god..."

-Richard Dawkins

What it is that gets me about that fantastic sentence is the word "almost".

Recently, a friend emailed me (someone that I respect tremendously), and asked if I would write for them something regarding the "virtues of atheism".

I am an atheist. So the request made complete sense.

I read the email and was flattered to have received such a request. I jumped on the idea of having an opportunity to share what I perceived to be the "virtues of atheism" with the general public, especially when the request was coming from such a valor source.

So, I responded to this email with an amiable agreement to do precisely what had been requested:

"I would be happy to write something up. Just give me a couple of days and I'll send something to you..."

(that's paraphrased, I'm sure...)

It's been WAY more than "a couple of days."

The reason it's been "way more than a couple of days"...is because once I received the request and so hastily responded to it, I was almost immediately faced with task of having to begin thinking about what indeed were the "virtues of atheism".

Here's something about atheists:

When you ask an atheist, "what are the virtues of atheism?", what you have done is you have unwittingly and almost certainly without malice (but quite unfairly, nonetheless) triggered a series of cerebral events...a series of events that are neither interesting nor worth going on about in this essay.

What ends up being interesting and actually worth sharing, though, to be sure...are the consequences of having asked an atheist such a question...

First of all, there isn't any such thing as any sort of "virtue of atheism".

I wrote:

"There are no 'virtues' of atheism. That would be a misnomer, at best. Atheism is nothing more than a personal declaration to remain within the boundaries of reason...Atheism neither demands nor is defined in any way by what anyone would ever consider to be a 'virtue'..."

Now, that's one hundred percent true, right there. Seriously, that's an honest statement.

People find and live by morals and virtue (with AND without religion!), everywhere. Those that live by moral values and virtues are represented thoroughly in this world by:

Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhits, Wiccans, Christians, agnostics, Satanists, Outer-Space-Teacup-ers, 12-steppers, Mormons, Scientologists, Catholics, and...believe it or NOT...atheists! (not to mention the countless OTHER religions, questions, beliefs, non-beliefs, creeds, races, cultures etc....)

SO...there's good guys, right?...I mean, just look at Mohammed Ali, Stephen Spielberg, Gosāla Maskarin, Buddha, the guys that put together "the Blair Witch Project", Jesus, my brother 5 years ago, Ozzy, ????, Doctor Bob, .5% of the Salt Lake City Population, John Travolta, Robert DeNiro's character in "Sleepers" and...believe it or NOT...Thomas Jefferson! (not to mention representatives of the countless OTHER religions, questions, beliefs, non-beliefs, creeds, races, cultures etc....)

Unfortunately, because of to what degree the above paragraphs are TRUE, you must also consider that those that stray away from a life of any sort of morals or virtue are also well represented thoroughly in this world by:

Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhist, Wiccans, Christians, agnostics, Satanists, Outer-Space-Teacup-ers, 12-steppers, Mormons, Scientologists, Catholics, and...believe it or NOT...atheists! (not to mention representative of the countless OTHER religions, questions, beliefs, non-beliefs, creeds, races, cultures etc....)

SO...there's bad guys, too...Just look at Osama Bin Laden, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Ranvir Sena, Tiger Woods (just kidding!...lol), Godsmack, Jerry Falwell (not kidding), Dave Matthews, Peter H. Gilmore, Glenn Beck, Bill W , 99.5% of the Salt Lake City population, Tom Cruise, Pope Benedict XVI, and...believe it or NOT...Josef Stalin!

The one thing that all of the above have in common is that they each have very little in common...

...the only thing they have in common is that every one of them feature some of history's biggest assholes...

...and some of history's biggest heroes.

Not one comes close to cornering any market in terms of either "virtue" or "sin".

And for me, it takes understanding that before any understanding of atheism can be realized.

Basically, the point here is, that there's no evidence that believing in anything makes anyone on Earth any less of an asshole. Those fuckers are EVERYWHERE.

So let's first toss out completely the ridiculous idea that some kind of religion or otherwise structured belief in a "god" (and of course, what I mean by that is, "whatever it is according to whatever it was that YOUR parents indoctrinated you into believing"...[if you haven't gotten offended yet, now's the time!]) is required for anyone anywhere to be a GOOD or a BAD person.

All jokes aside...

-32-

daydream nation

how i was spiritually raped and left for dead (part one)

this story begins at the end.

the year was 2008. i had just finished reading a book written and published by bob's son in law (we'll call him george), a leader in bob's organization. i had been out of bob's organization for about 10 years and was involved in an internet community that provided support for those who had been victimized by his groups.

our community had received national attention and as a result several print and television news stories had been produced, exposing bob and his programs. bob saw me as the ringleader of a campaign to destroy him.


knowing his followers and some of his detractors would read the book, george used it to try to discredit me. in the book, he claimed that i was an angry, troubled person that had been saved by bob and his organization. he said that, since i had never resolved my intimacy issues, i was attempting to destroy the program and people who had saved my life. in his book, he claimed that i was so angry that my coworkers and subordinates finally had to confront me.

as i stated in “god has a purpose for me,” i was off drugs and on the right path before i ever met bob. he can hardly be credited for getting me off drugs or saving my life. also, i never set out to destroy anyone. i simply told the truth. and the truth proved to be damaging to his organization which thrives on secrets.

it had been 10 years since i had last seen bob and i was still under attack by his followers.

i began writing a series of posts, not so much to t set the record straight, but to expose the truth. this story begins with those posts.

2008—in response to george's claims

first, i’ll give george this much: when working for the enthusiastic sobriety programs, i did have a reputation for being hard on my staff. i was also angry and depressed. many people claimed to be afraid of me.

i’m not going to try to blame these things on the program or anyone else. it was not my nature to frighten people or hurt them prior to getting involved in the recovery movement. in 1983, confrontation and “tough-love” were considered to be essential aspects of d & a treatment. in rehab, one of the treatment goals established by my counselor was that i needed to demonstrate the ability to confront others.

as i became enmeshed with enthusiastic sobriety, i became more and more stressed, frustrated, and critical. maybe i had no business counseling anyone.

in the early 90’s, i moved to phx to run bob's inpatient treatment program which was housed at a psychiatric hospital that was part of the country's largest chain of psych hospitals. the day before i was to start work, after i'd already moved my family to arizona, the hospital's administrator called and said that the hospital was going to back out of the contract. why? bob's staff could not show up to work on time. they constantly forgot their keys and i.d. badges. they repeatedly trashed the hospital van, drove the van dangerously, forgot to make legally required chart entries, and undermined the psychiatrist that was responsible for the clients' well-being. (when a patient enters a hospital based program, they are the psychiatrist’s patient. the rest of the staff is supposed to support the doctor’s treatment plan).

none of bob's staff knew how to function in any environment outside of bob's organization. they could not fulfill simple job requirements like, “ this is a locked facility where people who may harm themselves or others are housed. don’t lose your key!”

i was able to convince the administrator and psychiatrist that i would fix these problems. we were allowed the opportunity to continue with the program on a probationary basis. it could be ended at any time.
it was a complete nightmare. no one was qualified. no one was able to be responsible. they had nothing but disdain for mainstream counselor ethics, hospital policies or general workplace values. they saw everyone outside of bob's fold as idiots at best and evil at worst. this is what bob had taught them.

to make matters worse, bob made it clear to everyone on staff that i had no authority. i did not have the ability to hire or fire staff. the staff, which consisted primarily of people who none of bob's other program leaders wanted, were chosen for me. they were told i was a “broke-dick” who had too much “white folk,” college shit in my head. i had been put in that position only because i had some formal education. i was well-versed in the traditional schools of therapy, pharmacology, counselor ethics, regulatory laws and insurance reimbursement requirements.

this was the message that was sent to the people i was supposed to lead, while transforming a hospital program, bob's primary source of income, into something that could exist in an environment that required real accountability and professionalism.

nevertheless, i was honored to be trusted with the responsibility of running bob's inpatient center. it was more than a job; it was my salvation. this opportunity was to be my spiritual revival.

when i arrived in arizona, bob saw to it that i was broken-down. over a weekend, in a hotel suite, he guided his people while they verbally attacked me. i was told that the 10 years i had already devoted to working with drug abusers was wasted—that i had helped no one. my “spiritual shortcomings” had infected everyone who had ever come in contact with me. i was evil.

bob and his people made a good case. they dragged up all kinds of failures from my past. wherever there had been success, bob was able to take the credit and make it his own. using his philosophy on life, counseling and spirituality, he was able to paint a picture wherein, even those i had helped, had really been harmed in some way. i had been so spiritually bankrupt, according to bob, that i had actually believed that i was helping, when, in fact, i was harming.

i remember his opening statement that weekend. he said, “seekingintongues, you are completely and totally f#cked up. and if you don't see that you're completely f#cked up, you're even more f#cked up than i thought.”

at the end of the weekend, they decided they would let me stay in bob's circle. since they loved me so much, they were going to fix me. i would be allowed to keep my position as director of the inpatient center. they would watch every move i made to insure that i didn't infect others.

i was thankful.

at that time, we had 2 patients in bob's inpatient center. the cost of operating the program was far greater than the revenue coming in. bob was making $6000.00 a month, plus expenses. the rest of the staff was underpaid. i was making $1700.00 per month as the sole provider with a family of 3 to support. at that time, mom’s didn’t work in bob's organization. the hospital's nurses and school teachers also had to be paid. so did the doctor.

bob also repeatedly said, “seekingintongues is doing his job when i don’t get any phone calls.” i had to make sure that he was never bothered with any problems that arose at his program.

i was completely overwhelmed. i couldn’t make ends meet. the staff considered everything i tried to teach them “white-folk bullshit”, things like don’t forget your i.d. badge, don’t lose your key, don’t violate driving laws when transporting the patients, don’t show up for work an hour and fifteen minutes late with wet hair wearing a t-shirt with a confederate flag on it (the confederate flag part came later). i was blasted by bob and the rest of the leadership, because no one seemed to understand why african hospital employees and patients were offended when bob's staff started showing up wearing t-shirts with huge confederate flags on them.

trying to go around to the entire mainstream hospital staff and all of their patients to explain bob’s version of why the confederate flag was not a symbol of racism, was not, in my opinion, the best approach to take. call me crazy, but i determined it was best to ask bob's employees—the one’s i had no authority over—the stop wearing those shirts to work.

the hospital administrator was a good man. bob had been able to convince him that his (bob's) approach to drug treatment was superior to anything else available. bob had convinced him putting his program into the hospital would save kids' lives. this administrator took a huge risk working with bob. he put up with a lot. he put his own career on the line. the hospital had lost a lot of money early on. and bob's fee was outrageous.

in private, bob referred to the administrator as “my punk.”

one day, i was called into the hospital administrator’s office. he yelled at me for 30 minutes straight. he had several complaints, but the primary complaint was that our counseling staff had destroyed one of the hospital vans. the fabric was torn off the ceiling of the van. the upholstery was torn from the seats. the side-view mirror had been broken off. there were cigarette burns on the armrests. the floor was littered with cigarette butts (due to arizona and federal laws smoking was not allowed in the van). trash, including half-eaten, fast food items covered the floor. drinks had been spilled with no attempt to clean them.

the administrator was furious. he could not understand why any employee would treat a $30,000.00 piece of property this way. i was dangerously close to having to deal with bob receiving a phone call. bob didn’t give a damn about the van. he just wanted me to make sure it wasn’t his problem.

worse, we were once again in immediate danger of losing the hospital contract. i would have lost my job, been blamed by bob and everyone else, and probably would have been cast aside.

the counseling staff saw the van problem as “a bunch of white-folk bullshit.” they thought i was an asshole for even being concerned. not only was i concerned for our program and our reputation, but this, the hospital administrator, was signing my paycheck. i had an obligation to them.

i asked the staff, over which i had no authority, to meet me at the hospital. they showed up within 45 minutes after the designated meeting time.

when i talked about the van problem they laughed. i yelled at them. i became livid. i honestly couldn’t understand the connection between bob's approach to sobriety and the destruction of property. rather than backing me on these issues, bob ridiculed me. “seekingintongues is all caught up in that white-folk bullshit.”

he used me as the scapegoat…the bad cop. i was to make everything work, while he played the role of “cool, loving, messiah. when i had to try to get people to behave professionally, i was ridiculed.

i should add that this was just one example of me having truckloads of the leadership's problems heaped upon me.

here are some others:

-in 1986,i was given the position of running another hospital in st. louis and keeping the beds full. the staff, myself included, were all under-qualified. i wasn’t even a certified counselor at the time. ultimately, i was summoned to testify before a grand jury. they had been using illegal billing practice—billing insurance companies for services that were never performed. my testimony, which was fully truthful, caused the hospital administrator to go to prison. to this day, i believe he was set up by the cult leadership to take the fall. he was married with 3 kids.

-in 1988, i was sent to atlanta to start an outpatient program…against my will. i delivered pizza to make a living while licensing the program and getting it up and running, with no support from bob or his top lieutenants.

when i would call with concerns and questions, primarily financial, because we did not have the start-up capital needed for the operation, the response was always the same. “just send people out to our residential center, now located in texas, and we will send you $1000.00 per kid to pay the bills.” needless to say, when i did send people, they never sent any money. they always seemed to be “struggling financially.” they always promised to pay later, even though they lived in lavish homes, drove nice cars and traveled frequently.

i was asked to start a program in houston, while still running atlanta. i had to travel back and forth at my own expense. i had to maintain a house in atl and an apartment in houston, at my own expense. there was no start-up money for houston. i was personally responsible for all the operating expenses for these programs, rent, payroll, accounting, etc.
when bob's organization was kicked out of the 3rd houston hospital, i was expected to hire all the hospital staff so that, until a new hospital deal was set up, they didn’t lose the employees. additionally, bob's right hand man took the most profitable part of the houston program from me and my most valued employee. they had been the primary revenue generators for the houston program. but…bob's guy needed to feed his kids. since there was no hospital deal, he had no income. he was, however, living in a beautiful home, with a swimming pool, in a golf community, owned by a rock star that was loyal to bob. he ate at expensive restaurants several nights each week always billed to the program. he also traveled all over the country and even to russia.

-while running the inpatient center in arizona, i was given the responsibility of running bob's counselor training school. no one else wanted to teach all that “white-folk crap.”

the school was set up so that young people that had been clients in bob's programs could clock the educational hours required to turn them into legally certified drug and alcohol counselors and go to work for bob.

ultimately, it became a vehicle for indoctrination. young people were separated from their families, subjected long daily session where bob and his people would tear them down and rebuild them over months while they were used as free labor, allowed little time to sleep, and forbidden from having meaningful contact with the outside world. their parents paid for them to go through the training program, mostly because they believed that becoming one of bob's counselors would insure that they would never use drugs again.

also, i was given the responsibility of serving as clinical supervisor for bob's arizona outpatient program, a program that had been seized by another bob follower through brute force and given to bob's son-in-law to run as his own business.

i was told to find a house to purchase, handle all the inspections, write the policy and procedure manual, and license and launch a free-standing residential treatment center...and serve as the center's program director. i also worked shifts at the residential center when they needed someone to fill in. i was given the responsibility of launching a similar residential center for kids 18 and over as well.

also, bob came to me and asked me to merge my side business, a d.j business, with another staff person. i had been doing d.j. work to supplement my income, because i wasn’t making enough to pay the bills. another staffer had started a coffee shop, but was not making money. bob felt that if we merged the shop would be more successful. i also took on partial responsibility for the coffee shop and the functions.

i stalled when bob asked me to write the second edition of his book, a book on drug rehab which had been a new york times bestseller. he offered me $1000.00 and no title credit.

I was forced to hold all these positions simultaneously, and at the same time, i was constantly criticized by bob for using work to avoid my family!

in fact, i was just criticized…all the time. bob humiliated me, teasing me, ridiculing me, calling me names, both privately and publicly. while i was in charge of the operations that were bringing in millions in revenue and assuring that he made a fat salary, he went from one end of the country to the other talking shit about me.

at the same time, he was obsessed with the idea that i was secretly critical of him. he thought i was passing judgment on him, when in reality, i was trying to justify his insane behaviors and ethics both in my mind and to others. i wanted him to be the hero i had initially believed him to be.

on top off all of this, i was expected to stay home on many of my nights off to be with my daughter while my wife was hanging out with bob's wife and daughter. on some weekends, my wife would go out of town with his daughter.

every other friday night, we had to attend meetings led by bob's son-in-law. these meetings were billed as a time for us to work on our own spiritual growth. during them, we were often subjected to long hours of verbal attack. after those meetings, when the men and women would gather at separate houses for social time, i was sent home to care for my daughter, while my wife went to the home of bob's daughter-in-law--again leaving me alone to watch my daughter. if bob's daughter wanted to hang out with my wife, she damn sure got her way.

they were attempting to drive a wedge between my wife and me.

i sat at home many of these nights with the full knowledge that bob's wife and her crew were working on my wife, trying to get her to take my daughter and leave. we had no communication between us. our intimate life was halted by bob and his wife.

bob's wife had a rule. when trying to split a marriage, never be the first one to use the word “divorce.” the idea was to manipulate the target to believe that she was the one who had decided that she needed to leave her spouse. she would patiently and subtly convince the target that her spouse was the source of all her problems and insecurities, problems and insecurities that she herself had created in within the target.

my wife was forced to report my actions to them. they created deep fear within my wife, a sense of dread and impending doom. then they attempted to make her believe that i was the source of those feelings.

i had no friends, no spouse (we were, for all intents and purposes separated but still living in the same house). my wife now belonged to bob and his wife.

these were my work conditions.

was i angry? depressed? afraid? overwhelmed? yes to all these.
should i have yelled at people? no.

did i want people to fear me? no. i hated it.

i also hated the fact that the program that i fully believed in, because of all its dirty little secrets, was unable to be honestly presented to mainstream society. i knew we didn’t stand a chance of becoming the “leaders in drug treatment” under these conditions. the counselor training school would never train the counselors of this country. it would never be accredited. nothing would be published in any journals. no one in the industry would adopt our approach. we had too many secrets. we were unprofessional.

in my mind, it was a travesty.

i take full responsibility for the way i treated others. it is one of my greatest regrets. it is probably part of what drives me to try to amend the past and end the damage being done by the program. it is very personal for me.

i have spent years making amends to people for my transgressions. i know i am at fault. i am not trying to run from that. i was working under horrible conditions. i reacted to these conditions in a horrible way. the reaction is mine.

did my coworkers and subordinates confront me the way george explains it in his book?

that part next…

god has a purpose for me (part 4)

read part 1 here
read part 2 here
read part 3 here

i could find relief only in knowing that it was the right thing to do. this god thing had to be stamped out, lest my wife and daughter suffer due to my own selfish desire to believe.

bob and his wife attempted to destroy my marriage and family. for several years, they drove a wedge between us, coercing us into “reporting” on each other. our house was not our house, it was his. bob and his wife were “present” in our house, at our meals, in our bedroom, 24 hours a day 7 days a week. there was no sanctuary in our home, because anything we said or did would be reported to them. i was constantly on guard, watching every comment, every facial expression, every act for fear that these would be reported to the bob and his wife and used against me.

when my wife and i had the thought that we might want to have another child (we’d had one prior to being fully indoctrinated), my wife went to them to ask their approval. the result was that they pushed harder to drive us apart. they put a total stop to our sex life. not only would a child make it more difficult to separate my wife from me, but it angered them that my wife would even have this desire independent of them. bob's wife had thought she was much closer to separating us than she had been.

they controlled every aspect of our parenting of our daughter. at one point, i suffered a brutal verbal beating by bob and his wife, followed by weeks of being ostracized by them, my friends in the organization, and my wife.

my crime? i helped my daughter remove some excess salad dressing that she had accidentally spilled on her salad. according to bob's wife, this act somehow represented an undermining of my wife’s authority and a statement of male-chauvinism. in addition to the former punishment, she saw to it that my wife and i were not intimate for months.

thirteen years ago i left bob and his organization. thankfully, i was able to get my wife and child out as well. it wasn’t easy. in order to get them out, i had to become as crafty and manipulative as bob.

after a turn of events caused me to realize that bob's organization was a destructive cult, i had to fool him and the others, causing them to believe that i was still loyal to them until i was able to create an opportunity to reach my wife. it was during this period that bob told me that, now that i realized there was nothing out there (meaning no god), i needed to put my full faith in him. “i am the closest thing to a god that you’ll ever have,” he said.

it was too late. he had been god to me for a long time, but not any more.

a lot has changed over 13 years. my wife and i have enjoyed great intimacy at times. we have had two more children. my oldest daughter is an excellent student and gifted musician. we are, for the most part, happy. i have retained employment and been able to make ends meet. i have also been fortunate enough to continue my education, taking college classes and attending frequent workshops, seminars and conferences related to my work. i get to listen to and play music again. long gone is the fear that my actions, thoughts, moods are going to be reported. also gone is the once constant fear of being torn away from my family or being banished from the spiritual fold.

for years i had nightmares that bob and his wife came and took my family away. i still occassionally have those dreams.

i enjoy spending time with my 3 daughters. we laugh and play heartily. i am a good father and take pride in my attentiveness as a father.

also, i have rekindled my passion for helping people. it is rewarding to see the impact of my work on the individuals and families i have helped. this brings me joy.

that said, there is one thing that continues to elude me...faith. as hard as i’ve tried, i simply can’t believe for a sustained period. i have attended churches, read religious and spiritual materials, prayed. i’ve literally strained to believe; yet faith continues to elude me.

when i begin to believe, i can’t seem to help feeling as though i’m setting myself up to be conned once again. worse, everything that i hear or read from those who do have faith, in regard to what is necessary to obtain it, sounds suspiciously familiar to the things i was taught by bob.

i know there are those that will say that millions have been harmed and in the name of religion. and certainly that’s true. i have no doubt that others, like bob have used god and religion for evil purposes. many have been harmed by their local churches. others have lived in fear and guilt handed out through mainstream religious doctrine.

religions have been responsible for tragedies such as war, racism, sexual discrimination, slavery, sexual abuse, bigotry, hate, homophobia, abuse of power, and fascism just to name a few. however, until i met bob, that was not my experience.  the god that was in my heart would never do these things.

i was taught that all people were equal in the eyes of god—that you couldn’t judge a person by the color of their skin, their sexuality, their culture or heritage, or the size of their bank account. i was never a huge proponent of organized religion, which i had learned was not what truly what represented “the church”. a church, to me, was simply an organization where, believers could gather and enjoy fellowship.

i was warned from an early age to never put my faith in any individual—that all of us had a direct link to god and had no need for an intercessory. i was taught and believed that god alone had the corner on truth. i believed that there were many paths to god.

i grew up believing that god would reveal himself to everyone. that he was concerned with our day to day lives. that he would help us when we needed help. that we were all god’s children. that he loved us equally.

i grew up believing that we were created by a loving god.
never in my life was anything more dear to me...more important.

god has a purpose for me.

or at least he did.

where did it go?



epilogue

no doubt, some will judge me harshly for allowing myself to be fooled in such a dramatic way. others will claim that, had i truly had faith, or the right kind of faith, or believed in the right god, i would have been "protected" from this evil. but i am telling this story because i believe that virtually anyone is vulnerable. scientology, children of god, the branch davidians, end time ministries, the unification church, the cornerstone program, pathway drug abuse program, the way international, lifespring, the jim roberts group, synanon, erhardt seminar trainin and fundamentalist latter day saints are a just a few organizations that have coaxed thousands away from their lives, their families, their faiths.

they promise truth and deliver lies.

in my case, it never occurred to me that anyone could be as manipulative as bob. additionally, i was vulnerable precisely because i believed that my faith would protect me from lies.

how did i allow someone to have such total control over my life? why didn't i just leave in the beginning? how could anyone give away so much power?

i will tell that story, on this blog, over the next year. hope you'll stay tuned.

seeking in tongues