__________________
"All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking." - Friedrich Nietzsche
"All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream" - Edgar Allan Poe "Sick liaisons raised this monumental mark
The sun sets forever over Blackwater park" - Opeth
This was my experience of hatred and bigotry at JOTC:
A few years ago, I went to drug rehab. Went in an atheist, and came out an atheist. However, I think the state did wrong by sending me to a spiritual-based 12 step rehab that pushed the Christian god. Here’s a recap I wrote upon returning from there in 2007:
I went to a drug rehab for 28 days; 99% of the staff and residents were theists, and I was the only atheist. I could write a short book on the experiences, but let me start by saying I had to defend myself against ad homine attacks, daily Pasqual’s Wagers, AA meeting that where more like jail house church, and lectures from a xian staff member making derogatory comments against atheists like “Believing nothing gets you nothing…and you will go to hell.”
The James Oldham Treatment Center is the low end of treatment centers; this is the end of the road for most users. It’s located in Buena, WA, which is south of Yakima, about thirty minutes. The area is one trailer park ghetto after another, and there is more cocaine, meth, and heroin then the cities of Seattle and Portland combined. This is on the major smuggling route by traffickers from Mexico, which distributes all the drugs around Washington, Oregon, Vancouver, BC, and Idaho. The solution to this problem of addiction is a belief in god, according to JOTC. This isn’t really a faith-based drug rehab, but called a “spiritual based treatment facility”. They define “spiritual based” as: accepting god, “cleaning house”, and letting go. Prayers, after every class, group session, or AA/NA meeting.
The NA meeting weren’t that offensive. The chair person was Native American, and was into some Native religion, saying “great elder spirit, great grandfather…” He even stated people without faith would not be judged because we all suffer from drug addiction, yadda, yadda, yadda.
We residents ran the AA meetings, and counselors didn’t attend. Keep in mind that most residents here come out of the Union Gospel Mission, jail, prison, and the streets. Although I was not the only guy singled out; a Wiccan was put on the spot, and I jumped to his defense. Did you know Rational Response Squad and Infidel Guy are offensive URL’s and slogans?
Oh yeah, one morning before the 8:00am meeting I wrote, ‘god is just pretend,’ and ‘Fighting to free humanity from the mind disorder known as theism’ on the chalk board, along with the URL’s. This started a fight amongst residents, to say the least. I came close to stomping the shit out of some Mormon, but kept it to verbal abuse. I way I saw it was, the theists put their Jesus crap on the chalk board every morning, so I thought it’s only fair to have free access.
I got singled out for not praying. That wasn’t anything of significance, but residents began to question my beliefs. I did claim to have a higher power in logical thinking, science, and humanity; however this didn’t sit well with most residents and reacted with trying to prove god; praying for me; and even one fundamentalist Christian said ad verbatim, “This place does not belong to the atheist and Secular Humanists. This is the house of god, and you better recognize!”
Of course, I told him to fuck off. Nevertheless, this wasn’t the only time.
Oh his defense of god, counselor John Ingram at James Oldham Treatment Center (JOTC) used this:
“[A] hundred years ago if you told somebody you believed in a cell phone, they laughed at you. So don’t tell me god’s impossible, you never know…”
The next sentence out of his mouth was:
“God is a fact, just hope you’re right. After this life we will take notes with each other and see who has it best…”
He even claimed there was meth in hell, and people walking around tweaked out. I asked him for a GPS location, or location in space. He than claimed he didn’t know, to be followed by saying what he was saying were facts. To end the lecture with a prayer right out of Sunday morning church added to the sermon-like lecture.
I give the guy a break though; he didn’t sober up until age 50. Had kind of a fucked up life, and may still be inept with reasoning skills. This, nonetheless, is all you need to be a drug & alcohol counselor. I feel a counselor should have, at least, a BA in psychology or sociology; maybe even cultural anthropology. Counselors are getting a certificate from the local community college to indoctrinate addicted patients into 12-step meeting and religion.
So anyways, it been almost three years without cocaine and alcohol, and I’ve done the task without god. So is a lawsuit possible, in regards to JOTC?
Don't go here if your an atheist!
Similar Threads
Linear Mode
