ODYSSEY: A MEMOIR - CHAPTER 1 - POST # 12 - Part B

{Part B of the first chapter of ODYSSEY: A MEMOIR}

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               A DREAM COMES TRUE {part b}

I unexpectedly found the ambiance of frenetic energy to be calming rather than distressing, feeling enveloped in sensations of peacefulness and comfort, the likes of which I had not known for years. This special feeling made me look forward with excited anticipation to returning to work, recharged, to eagerly throw myself into each new day's activities.

Among those activities were Judi and the staff - composed of professional and ex addicts - confronting lower level and recently inducted residents. These confrontations were called encounters. The idea behind them is for the staff to function as a mirror enabling the addicts to objectify their actual behavior. As many of them felt literally invisible when they first came into Odyssey House the experience of being encountered was often felt to be quite shocking – in an enlivening way.

I was highly attuned to the effect of each encounter that took place especially experiencing Judi's confrontations with other staff members and residents as a series of intense shocks to my solar plexus. When occasionally registering them as negative, I would find myself drifting, or falling asleep. When more often experiencing them as positive, I would be mentally and emotionally revitalized, intently engaged in the events of the moment.

Thus began my early days at Odyssey. I rapidly began to transform from a relatively detached observer of the social scene to an active participant in an extended seventeen-month 'marathon', only occasionally interrupted by 'intrusion' from my private life, such as being with my new wife of only a few days of marriage. Although supportive about my dedication to Odyssey, my wife wondered if I wasn't feeling somewhat overworked. The truth was, contrary to feeling imposed upon, I felt nourished by the endless stream of food brought into the staff meetings by the small resident population, and by the endless stream of meaningful talk {food for the soul}that flowed between Dr. Judi, my fellow staff members, and me.

We pooled our collective observations about the residents and their interactions,  attempting to fit them into a comprehensive theory to guide us in providing effective treatment. In so doing we hammered out what Judi came to name the Odyssey Concept.

         In essence, Judi believed that an ideal therapeutic model – the Odyssey Concept - is based on the following seven principles: l – conveying  to the resident that in understanding his experience he can  find a bridge  to transcend himself; 2 – providing a graded set of tasks to be mastered; 3 – creating an accepting atmosphere in which  residents can learn what makes them tick; 4 – teaching the residents what must be tolerated; 5 providing opportunities for learning social skills and for assuming personal responsibility for the resident's actions; 6 – providing residents with opportunities for making amends; and 7- providing a  recognized social status as a  rehabilitated person on their own merits.

 Our self appointed mission was to convert these innovative ideas into effective action. Towards this end: the mechanics of the concept, the spelling out of the various details and connections, the implementation of these details in the daily red tape of  have to do details, began assuming a life of its own. Soon, the specifics of the concept were transformed into a repetitious record, whirling and spiraling into our collective consciousness, hour after hour, and day after day. The effect on me was to feel as if I was  caught up in a dizzy whirl of creative energy defined in the ideas and words of the concept expressed in intense daily activity.

Innovation was actively encouraged as we explored using new treatment techniques such as marathons { extended therapy groups that continued for 24 hours or more.} We philosophized about implementing radical psychiatric points of view like centering on the 'here and now' instead of ruminating on the 'dead' past. The major focus of our discussions centered on the detailed analysis of the attitudes and behavior of the ten residents currently in treatment.

Work was exhilarating as I was dazzled by the glow of my unexpected rich discovery. Now, not only had I rediscovered the symbolic equivalent of my long sought illusive golden egg, even better, I was actually holding it in my hands. The nightmare of my life had unquestionably been transformed into an actual ideal dream come true.

A major reason for my unqualified positive endorsement of Odyssey was their attitude to time. Odyssey had no nine to five schedules as linear time had less importance than did durational here and now time. Thus the conventional boundaries of time were obliterated A staff meeting could and often would go on all night if the group member(s) judged some issue important enough to continue discussing it at length.

These attitudes towards time and openness were in marked contrast to all of my professional work experiences wherein people touched each other in only the most superficial ways. Here at Odyssey the usual guardedness of personalities was penetrated as the staff was encouraged to speak their hearts and minds. This meant that anyone was free to literally say whatever was thought or felt to whomever they wished to say it, including Judi herself. And the discussions would continue until the problems were satisfactorily worked out.

All throughout my adolescence and even in college there was never enough time to just be. I always felt rushed. Rush through dinner, and classes, and even dates. Be home exactly at 6:00 P.M. or there will be hell to pay. Always deadlines! Thus, for me, the purposeful bending of time at Odyssey created an atmosphere in which I could breathe freely and easily.

          We 'dialogued' and 'monologued' (Judi's terms), often to the point of fatigue, and even then we pressed on. No small detail was passed over. Talk and more talk: theories, observations, techniques, crisis groups, politics, supervisory issues, logistics, chit-chat. If by chance we started to tire there would be some predictable crisis to stir us up recharging our run down batteries.

Working at Odyssey was an idealist's dream come true. I was part of an alliance of fellow workers dedicated to a cause greater than our individual selves. I enjoyed the pleasure associated with feeling like an equal partner in what I believed was an authentically progressive rehabilitation and recovery center whose primary focus was the search for an effective cure for drug addiction. We were bound only by the limits of our individual and collective energies and imaginations. I was finally a dues paying member of the real world, working on an important real problem searching for real solutions. Unknowingly I was an active participant in what I believe was one of the best characteristics of the 1960s: pioneering practical idealism.

Adding to my positive feelings about work was meeting with Carolyn each day. Getting to know her more intimately, I liked the combination of her being both serious and witty. Her five foot six inch thin but solid frame complimented her definitive strait - forwardness. Her face had character, much like certain pictures of American Indians that gave her an unusual attractiveness that made me love being around her. I admired and envied her knack for saying whatever she meant, and saying it without gloss.

We developed a routine of having early morning coffee breaks together. We talked about the house, the concept, the residents, Judi, ourselves whatever. What I liked the best was that the 'whatever' was always quality talk not chit chat. How marvelous it was having a new wife at home and a real friend at work both of whom 'spoke' my language.

Despite subsequent workdays becoming ever longer (15 hours plus was not uncommon), a combination of acceptance, challenge, and camaraderie, more often than not, offset the infrequent negatives. I was experiencing an almost constant state of sustained perfesion transforming my fundamental attitudes about being and doing - from passive tiredness to an excited intensity. In this transforming atmosphere I felt as if I was being lifted out of a psychological black hole I had been in for many years before coming to Odyssey House.

After one particularly stimulating talk with Carolyn, I recalled one day in the seventh grade when my mind literally came alive. This happened the day I went to my best friend Robert Krone's house for the first time and was turned on to classical music and Mentor pocket books. I felt like an initiate in an elite secret society but, although I was a welcomed participant, I felt as if I was, at heart, only a naive observer.

In addition to being struck by the power and beauty of the music (Beethoven's 7th Symphony), I was impressed by Robert's capacity to express himself about worlds of knowledge I hadn't even known existed. My awe knew no bounds. I longed to be as confident as him. At Odyssey I felt as if I was moving in that same direction once again.

I was both proud and somewhat uncomfortable with the title of psychologist. While I was more than a raw recruit, just starting his basic training, I was far from a skilled expert. I did not delude myself that I was in control. The facts were that I was a relative novice psychotherapist and I felt like one. However, despite my feelings of inadequacy and hyper-self consciousness, no one else seemed to notice. And if they did no one seemed to care. Finally I had been given a green light to be and to do something that was the fulfillment of a life-long dream, an opportunity I truly appreciated.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

During the years 1967 - 1969, the problem of drug addiction had undeniably resurfaced and was now an acknowledged epidemic. The New York State Division of Drug Abuse estimated that in 1968 there were more than 100,000 drug addicts in New York City alone.

There was a reluctant recognition that a pressing need existed to find a remedy that would protect both the public from the addict and the addict from himself. There was the added condition that the remedy had to be fast acting, like magic. For many it did not really seem to matter if the remedy worked at all as long as it got the addicts off the streets.

For those in recovery programs who did care about the quality of treatment offered the addict, the problem of program design was enormously complicated by the fact that traditional treatment techniques simply did not work with this patient population.Thus the staff at Odyssey was faced with a problem that had tenaciously defied resolution.

From a psychiatric point of view heroin addicts as a group had long ago been explicitly or implicitly relegated to the junk heap of psychological disorders. Addicts were generally thought to be unmanageable and unsalvageable therefore rarely curable. {This same attitude appears to still be prevalent today in 2006}.

Psychoanalysis, the psychological technique par excellence, was rendered nearly totally ineffective when utilized in the treatment of drug addiction. This was so because a prerequisite for effective treatment for those with psychological problems is an acknowledgment that a problem does in fact exist, and that the person is prepared to work at understanding it with a particular therapist. Further, and this is crucial,  that whenever inevitable glitches would occur the addict has to be willing to make every effort to resolve the issue at hand rather than to "split," which is the  typical   reaction to stress of addicts in general.. Most addicts seen in traditional treatment settings fail to meet these basic preconditions.                                                                                                                                

         It was also noteworthy that an additional barrier to effective treatment was that drug addicts forced into treatment were openly hostile to the therapist's attempts to treat them. Further, those that seemed at all receptive to treatment soon evidenced waves of frustration, impatience, and hopelessness about the possibility that anyone could really help them. {I later learned} that this was because of an addict's pan distrust of everyone including himself, combined with an inability to tolerate overwhelming negative feelings. Thus from the therapist's point of view most addict patients were generally unresponsive to conventional clinical approaches. Induction meetings were Odyssey's attempt to implement a novel approach to motivate the raw street drug addict to both voluntarily enter treatment and stay put.

I soon realized that the label 'captive audience' would be a more fitting description for potential inductees than was the term 'volunteer'. The addict's 'choice', then (and now), was not exactly a choice in the usual sense of the word. Simply put, the addict could choose to submit to an unknown treatment program that required him to give up his main reason for living, heroin, and risk suffering the pain and deprivation that would inevitably follow; or, to face the risk of probable imprisonment, and perhaps even death on the street.

Carolyn invited me to join her in co-leading groups of potential inductees. These were held daily from 4 to 5:30 P.M. in the basement. Carolyn said that it used to be a stable but now it was a way station for lost and down-trodden addicts, who sick of their bondage, sought a meaningful connection with a place that promised relief and salvation. Indeed Odyssey House was aptly named.                                                                                                                                  

The aim of this initial phase of treatment was to try to engage the incoming addict in such a way that he would make a declaration of commitment to the program. In actuality little was required of the new inductee. He had only to convince his peer group in the house that he was serious about changing and was willing to leave his drugs outside. If successful, he would immediately be admitted into the house with only one proviso. He had to promise to submit to the rules and regulations of the concept and to unquestionably do whatever he was told. This leap of faith promised high yields on the inductee's investment.                                                                     

The program offered a new resident high intensity contact instead of chronic states of boredom and emptiness. It promised a maximum safe, secure, and ordered structure covering twenty-four hours a day in the place of internal and external chaos that the addict experienced on the street. It also held open the probability of friendship and love (quality connectedness) in place of warfare, hatred, and cynicism.  Finally, it promised change and hope instead of passivity and despair.

                           To Be Continued