ODYSSEY: A MEMOIR - CHAPTER 1 - POST # 14 - PART D

{ODYSSEY: A MEMOIR - CHAPTER 1 - POST #14 -}

                  A DREAM COMES TRUE {PART D}

Obviously just confronting the addict was not in and of itself likely to transform his basic attitudes in a flash.  We were faced with a very complicated treatment problem. If analyzing the addict's psyche was next to impossible because of his defensiveness then what else could we do? Thus there was considerable pressure to try something, almost anything even remotely productive that might be the key to the hoped-for treatment breakthrough. Odyssey evolved out of this need for some alternative form of effective intervention.

From my past training and experience I appreciated the fact that effective interventions are derived from a comprehensive theory. But I also realized that irrespective of how illuminating a given theory might be, ultimately all derived interventions, flowing from a given theory, have to be transmitted by and through an individual therapist. Further I was impressed by the variations in therapist's styles particularly those of Judi's and Walter's. Each of them was equally effective though vastly different in their approaches to their patients.

I actively pondered their differences. Judi was tough; Walter was tender. I wondered how come Walter was not as hard on the residents as was Dr. Judi. Did he do it deliberately or was it simply a function of his personality? Clearly Judi seemed to be in more over all command than was Walter; yet he had a greater power to penetrate the defenses of the residents than did Judi. She grilled the patients, Walter explored. Judi interpreted a lot whereas Walter asked more organizing questions. I liked Walter's quality of simplicity, unusual for psychiatrists {and psychologists, psychotherapists, and social workers as well}. Most professionals I had known were figure-outers, over analyzing material to death, often missing the real passion and meaning of the issues at hand. Too many therapists seemed to get lost in a debate over 'psychological trees' {theoretical understanding} losing their vision of the more important 'psychological forest{effective ways to intervene.}

Although I valued simplicity I rejected the notion that it was the same thing as superficiality. Intuitively I felt that all people at their core are a combination of simple and complex. I believed that to reach the core of simplicity one must bore through layers of complexity. In this connection, Freud's 'onion skin' metaphor, implying multiple layers in inner space, had a ring of truth thus having a strong appeal to me as the most valid model of the psyche. For me, this idea worked in the following way. Just when you would think that you really understood a person's psychology, that is, what really made him tick some new wrinkle would inevitably appear that would defy easy labeling. To understand this new development or part requires the therapist to go deeper or wider into both his and his patient's psychic unknown. This unknown region means there is always something more going on below the surface - unseen, invisible, and unconscious - something that is intangible, different, and unnamed but definitely there just the same.                                                                 

Deeper, different, unconscious! It was this quality - a strange curious almost magical sense of something more - something better or richer or fuller and deeper - that I had unexpectedly ran into from time to time, that, when contacted, never failed to excite me, filling me with hope. Occasionally I felt it with people - 'special' people on special occasions.  This special feeling  happened in Walter's presence.

Observing Walter reinforced my conviction that there are alternative ways of viewing the same reality. By his way of being he was giving me permission, by example, to find my own way. Since there was more than one way to effectively work with addicts I felt challenged to find my own unique style. Nothing thrilled me more in the early days working at Odyssey than the perception that different points of view were allowed to flourish under the same therapeutic roof. This ethic was our prescription in dealing with multiple crises of incomprehensibility.

During my second induction meeting I was pitted against one such crisis in a particularly challenging way. Five bedraggled and beat raw addicts had come to induction for the first time. They appeared helpless and hopeless. Although each of them eventually voiced the required 'magic' words expressing commitment to Odyssey it was clear they did not have a shred of understanding or experience to know what they were talking about. I wondered what we could possibly do to motivate these seemingly 'motivation-less' individuals?                                                                      

I mulled what was the most sensitive thing to say to a shabby, scabby, cynical and unwashed, young man who says that the only thing in the world that has any real purpose for him is getting his next fix? I wondered what I could say that might possibly spark a growth process eventually leading to a significant change of attitude from negative to positive.                                                                       

I first tried by trial and error to persuade, convince, reason with, and cajole but I felt underneath it all I was faking it - at worse, and only randomly improvising-at best. And if by chance something substantial actually occurred that appeared to move the addict in the desired 'positive' direction, I was unsure as to why it was happening. So what I did in those early days was a great deal of looking and listening rather than actively intervening.                                                                     

Listening to the life stories of the inductee's I found myself feeling a kinship with nearly all of them. I felt as if I were somehow in their insides struggling with the same sort of feelings and problems as them. I shared their identity crises, particularly their fear of taking chances with the program (perhaps their last chance for salvation) versus their drifting back into the 'mean streets' with all of its associated horrors. It was during this emotionally painful induction group that I understood the meaning of the saying: "There but for the grace of God, go I."

In the early days successive induction groups seemed like revival meetings in the best sense of that term. This was an apt description, for at the time we were truly promising the raw addict a realistic possibility for a new beginning – an authentic transformation - nothing short of a spiritual resurrection.

For many who walked through the doors of induction this appeal must have been experienced as a utopian dream come true like a return or the discovery of their personal 'Garden of Eden'. In this sense induction for many raw addicts could validly be thought of as the fulfillment of a fantasy for birth, rebirth, and transcendence. It certainly was for me.

         Odyssey House was both a concrete place and a process as beneficial for me as it was for the residents. Although I didn't quite realize it at the time, Odyssey had become my spiritual refuge. It is no exaggeration to declare that in these early days of my employment Odyssey was a temple – a spiritual, philosophical, psychological, post graduate: learning-about - my-identity center. Dr. Judi was the inspiring master teacher of this holistic therapeutic rehabilitation recovery institute and I was her totally dedicated student.

Dr. Judi entered the room precisely at the point when my colleagues and I were totally stuck. We had just exhausted our collective 'magic' finding that nothing we said was working, and feeling as helpless and hopeless as our inductees were looking and acting. Just before she entered I said to myself the blind truly cannot lead the blind.

I felt elated the moment the great Doctor burst onto the scene observing everyone in the room perk up as she instantly captured our undivided attention. Her presence was electric-like being around a great actress - someone like Rosalind Russell in "Auntie Mame." Her pointed talk served to reinforce the special 'magic' she radiated. I soaked up each word as I intently watched her every gesture and action. I was in my own fairy tale - vividly awake and aware of being in a dream that was real. I, the good prince was locked in a battle with the dragon of drug addiction whose major task was to exorcise the possessed souls of our enslaved patients. Success in this endeavor was dependent upon our ability to help the inductees overcome a variety of obstacles of which induction was the first. Leading us in this quest Dr. Judi was our supreme guide.

Although participating in the induction groups with Judi was an entirely new experience I had the feeling I had been here before. I vividly recalled one day in the 6th grade, standing in the back of the school auditorium watching my mother - the president of the P.T.A. - speaking in front of all of the parents. She appeared radiantly beautiful, smiling like an angel, everyone listening to her with rapt attention. When she finished speaking there was a burst of sustained applause. She, having been in complete control, and I, her proud son, had enveloped the whole audience between us, and having splendidly mastered the occasion we were both on top of the world – together – she, my revered queen, and I, her dutiful prince.                                                                   

That moment was the zenith of my youth, as, from that point on, it was as if I unexpectedly stepped on a slide to chaos - one that would last for the next fifteen years - deepening and intensifying - reaching its nadir just preceding the invitation to work at Odyssey House.

My personal development coincidentally paralleled Odyssey's, both of us recently recovering from a downward spiral. But although we were thriving - the house having rapidly expanded to twenty-five residents - there were new concerns because of it. Judi began obsessively ruminating about the possible reasons why she nearly lost control of the treatment process due to a failed revolt just one year ago.

The original core group, who with Judi had founded Odyssey in nineteen sixty six, failed in their attempt to oust her a year later, peaking only a few days before I began work. Although most of the core group left on bad terms, Judi was still impressed with what she felt was their considerable progress - their participation in the aborted coup notwithstanding. She was thrilled with those who stayed on remaining loyal to her.

Much of what she talked about I found confusing but it was clear that the revolt was a turning point in Judi's attitudes in working with drug addicts. Judi said she had been shocked by what she referred to as "their betrayal and disloyalty." While she still believed that most addicts were sensitive (meaning potentially reachable through therapy), she became much more suspicious and distrustful of them in general, especially in the early stages of their treatment.                                                               

Later, Dr. Judi would write in a book about the history of Odyssey that drug "…addicts are lonely, empty, depersonalized and fragmented... and have almost no ability to trust." She concluded that while this overt description is true, with time and individual attention, she was certain that addicts were capable of significant attitudinal and behavioral change. In time, they appeared to be more responsible, more open to examining the motivations of their behavior, and more open to viewing other possibilities for living constructive life styles. Contrary to most professional opinion at the time she observed addicts both helpful to one another, and, able to learn from their experience.                                                              

In short, Judi's brand of treatment appeared to work when most professionals indicated that therapy with most addicts was futile. Thus, despite reservations and guardedness, learned as a result of the nearly successful revolt, Judi still believed she had initiated a major therapeutic breakthrough.

An important consequence of the failed revolt was Judi's preoccupation with modifying the structure of the program to guard against the possibility that such an event would ever take place again. In her lengthy analyses of the aborted insurrection she concluded there were two likely reasons for its occurrence. (1) Her dual relationship with Tony, the leader of the core group. He had been both the co director of Odyssey and was also Judi's private patient. Judi surmised that her two hats, as his therapist and as his boss, probably made for too much confusion; and, (2) revolution was a natural development that happens with addicts at some point between nine months and two years in treatment. She likened it to teenagers rebelling from their parents' authority. "They are rebels", she said, "who know what they don't want but are not sure of what they do want. Thus they fight against the external structure, but they haven't quite yet got their own internalized structure to replace it."                                                                   

                                   TO BE CONTINUED