Different Views On Straight

Virginia Journal, Febraury 14, 1991

Eighty teens sat rigidly in their chairs, feet flat on the floor and hands motionless in their laps. Eighty heads stared straight ahead, never making eye contact with the adults sitting just a few feet away.

There were no smiles, no waves, no emotion as their parents entered the meeting room at Straight Inc., a Springfield drug treatment center.

One mother stood and told her son how disgusted she was to still be finding drug paraphernalia hidden all over her house. "It hurts," she said. "It scares me." Her son stood there looking at her. He did not respond. It wasn't allowed.

The teens shouted "love you" before another mother stood up and burst into tears. It is this kind of rigidity, and routine and emotional moments, that some parents say has freed their children from drugs.

But other parents and former participants describe the program as a prison camp that completely disregards the dignity and privacy of its clients. Therein lies the controversy over Straight.

The Commonwealth of Virginia has moved to shut down the Springfield center, which has 105 clients, after finding license violations.

The violations mostly were clerical problems, but state officials have made it clear they don't like the way the program treats clients.

But some parents with children in the program disagree.

"My daughter would not be alive today if it weren't for Straight," said Robert G. Henderson, a Fairfax resident who has two daughters enrolled in the program.

Before her 17-year-old stepdaughter entered Straight, Dyanne de Jong, Henderson's wife, said she could tell the teen wanted to die.

"I looked at her one day as she held my baby (Jordana, then 3 or 4 months old) and there was a cloud of death all over her (the 17-year-old stepdaughter's) face, "she said. "I could see that death."

When Springfield resident Kathleen White took her son, Jim, to Straight in 1988, he was addicted to heroin and his weight was down to 137 pounds. He had hepatitis from dirty needles.

"I called Fairfax County, and they said they couldn't give him an evaluation for nine days," she said. "He didn't have nine days left to live."

Jim White, now 27, is a Straight graduate who works at the center while attending Northern Virginia Community College. He plans to be a drug addiction counselor.

"This is the first time in a decade I've been able to live drug free," he said. "I wouldn't have done this without this program.

Other ex-clients tell a different story.

"It was very abusive to people," said Christopher Hoffman, 21, who now lives in Mount Airy, Md., and was enrolled in the Springfield program by his father about two years ago.

Hoffman left Straight when he turned 18, after about five months in the program.

"They don't treat you like a human," said Hoffman, who said he had a drinking problem as a teen and experimented with marijuana, but wasn't an addict. "They treat you like a dog or an animal."

Clients weren't allowed to shower or use the bathroom alone, he said. Those who misbehaved often were deprived of meals for punishment or limited to several stroles when brushing their teeth.

He said that twice, boys were strip-searched in front of about a dozen other clients.

Boys who reported being sexually abused by other clients or parents in the program were not taken seriously, Hoffman said.

The parents who take children to Straight - which costs $12,900 and lasts about a year - often have tried other rehabilitation programs.

Many are desperate. Some teens haven't attended school in months; others go to class stoned. They run away, attempt suicide or get in trouble with the police.

"Straight is a tough program," Kathleen White said. "Only parents that are really scared and frightened wind up here."

When teens first enter Straight, they are taken out of their homes and move in with a family who has a teen further along in the program. That "oldcomer" serves as a mentor to the new client.

Then they begin the first of five "phases" they must complete before being allowed to leave. The first phase involves admitting there is a drug or alcohol problem. They attend Straight every day and talk with other teens and counselors.

In the second phase, teens are allowed to go home with their parents at night, and the family is supposed to begin talking about their problems and how to fix them.

Those who advance to the third phase are allowed to return to school, although they must attend Straight every afternoon.

Fourth phasers are allowed to go out with friends to learn to have fun without drugs. By the fifth phase, teens are ready to leave the program and stay free of drugs and alcohol with the help of AA meetings.

"It's not an easy progam," said de Jong.

de Jong likened Straight to boot camp, "but there is a lot of love and support there. More people need this love and caring."

Straight's strength, parents said, is that it forces parents to go through the program with their children. Parents have their own meetings in which they learn to talk about their feelings and how they will deal with their children.

"It had been years since we had anything but anger in my house," said one father who did not want his name used. "I hadn't told my son I loved him in a long time."

During the first phase, teens have little contact with their parents. Those who have done well in the past week might be allowed five minutes with their parents on Friday nights, and even then they are allowed to discuss only their drug use.

Other parents talk to their children in front of the group on Friday nights, where the teens sit in rows facing the adults. One after another, parents mention how the teens and his or her/ "druggie friends" hurt them.

Brothers and sisters also attend and take their turn at the microphone to say how scared or hurt they were to see drugs. The teen is not allowed to talk back and must stand up and face the parents.

"It's time for them to listen for a change," said one father of a 17-year-old boy in the program. "For the first time in years, I can talk without starting a confrontation."

Last Friday night, a few teens stood and described how they had once attempted suicide, while others talked about going to school high.

Others who were further along in the program mentioned how their lives had changed for the better by getting off drugs.

There are dozens of rules in the year or two teens stay in the program, but parents say they are important.

Girls are not allowed to wear makeup or style their hair because they are supposed to forget about everything but their addictions.

The teens must sing the required songs, sit correctly, stand when they are supposed to and always look at the person speaking. They shout "love you"on cue.

"When we say 'love you' to one another, it's our way of showing support. You know that after you have told your feelings that people are still listening," said one 17-year-old girl who is in her last phase of the program.

"It's a love-hate relationship with the rules," Jim White said. "We don't like it, but at the same time we need it. We cling to it."

Now that parents are faced with the possibility of Straight shutting its doors, they say they are afraid for their children.

"My child really needs to graduate this program because she has never completed anything in her life," de Jong said. "Who's going to take responsibility if the doors close? Is the state of Virginia going to help them?"

Straight officials have appealed the mental health, department's decision to close the center. Straight officials last week closed a similar center in Chesapeake, Va., citing harassment from state inspectors.