3 ms·

My Brother's Keeper

52 points by petewailes 11y ago

trhway 11y ago
hard to add anything: "TROSA’s CEO, Kevin McDonald, is imposing beyond his height but maintains a folksy and reassuring demeanor. He’s a military brat, he tells me. His difficult home life bloomed into an early dependence on alcohol, and then, later, heroin. McDonald was facing a 20-year prison sentence for armed robbery when a state supreme court let him begin a lengthy stay at Delancey Street, a San Francisco therapeutic community. "So I go there, and it’s a two-year program," he says. "I started going forward, learning how to communicate a little better, eventually realizing I didn’t have to use my fists and I hated violence. Learning to care about people, letting people care about me, learning job skills, et cetera. So I stayed 12 years." "
- protomyth 11y ago
  I'm sure they exist, but I've never met a Drug & Alcohol Counselor that hadn't been an addict. I guess you see what's at the bottom of the abyss and want to keep others from falling in.
  - baseballmerpeak 11y ago
    You just can't wrap your head around it otherwise. The logical struggle at understanding the illogical.
    - protomyth 11y ago
      Your explanation of D/A Counselors sounds about right. Its strange that doesn't seem true in the other "helping" professions. Its weird, I've met a lot of social workers and many are just people good at helping other people. I've also met social workers that went into social work to save themselves. They were more screwed up then anyone they would likely meet in the course of their work. I think I've met the poster child for "why you shouldn't go into social work if...".
- icanhackit 11y ago
  > "I started going forward, learning how to communicate a little better, eventually realizing I didn’t have to use my fists [...]" Learning how to communicate effectively solves a lot of problems. Language allows individuals to internally articulate what is bothering them, rather than allow an amorphous shadow to unendingly torment their minds with no clear lines to see and thus attack the underling problem. Language allows us to express to others what is wrong so that they may understand the problem and provide useful feedback. Language is an incredibly important skill and if we can encourage more young people to learn effective communication, the better for us all.
tthayer 11y ago
Powerful stuff. I appreciate the parts that talk about the damage AA-based programs have done for the cause of recovery too. Medication and therapy can be very helpful when used in conjunction with effective recovery programs, a view advocated by SMART Recovery (http://www.smartrecovery.org http://www.smartrecovery.org).
- j_baker 11y ago
  AA still has its place. A lot of people like its philosophy. Plus, some people just don't respond to anything else other than its "tough love" philosophy.
hindenburg 11y ago
Umm, does anybody else cringe at the public documentation of this person's problems? The author hasn't spoken to her brother since 2013 -- so how does she know he wants his problems to be made public to all the world? She even gave his full name.
- ebbv 11y ago
  Yeah seems really unfair to publish this without talking to him. Hopefully she did. Also, not to downplay what they've been through, but her brother's transgressions against the family hardly seem worth kicking him out over. He pawned some musical equipment and tried to sneak whiskey into his room, and left a bruise on her arm? For that they permanently kick him out? I realize he broke into other people's homes and stole from them, and that sucks but he's also paid for those crimes. Maybe she's leaving out some things he did, I don't know. But to me this article reads like she and her parents are harder on her brother than he deserves. Hopefully it all works out.
  - CocaKoala 11y ago
    It's more like you're the one leaving things out; she pretty clearly describes how this is representative of patterns of behavior persisting for years and years.
  - Crito 11y ago
    Allowing a criminal to live in your house puts the whole family at risk. What if he does something that prompts the police to SWAT him, and by extension you? And then there is asset forfeiture; people have lost their homes because their adult child that lived with them got busted with drugs. If I had a family member that was up to that kind of shit, I might help them pay rent in a home of their own, but they would not be staying in my home.
- joshstrange 11y ago
  That was my thought constantly through reading this. I agree wholeheartedly that we need to spend more on rehabilitation and treatment and it sounds like this facility is doing good work but laying your sibling's (a sibling you haven't talked to in years and even when you did they weren't the person they are now) life bare like this feels like a huge invasion of privacy as well as possibly having a negative impact on the brother when he does find out about it. Not to mention this will now follow him for the rest of his life as a very public record of his past failings....
spb 11y ago
Even if they don't have full-on attack rituals to break each other down, putting people in a small room and denying them any contact with the outside world does sound more than a little culty. It's interesting how highly correlated rehab communities and cults tend to be - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon (linked in the article) being a nigh-on perfect textbook example.

52 points by petewailes 11y ago

hard to add anything: "TROSA’s CEO, Kevin McDonald, is imposing beyond his height but maintains a folksy and reassuring demeanor. He’s a military brat, he tells me. His difficult home life bloomed into an early dependence on alcohol, and then, later, heroin. McDonald was facing a 20-year prison sentence for armed robbery when a state supreme court let him begin a lengthy stay at Delancey Street, a San Francisco therapeutic community. "So I go there, and it’s a two-year program," he says. "I started going forward, learning how to communicate a little better, eventually realizing I didn’t have to use my fists and I hated violence. Learning to care about people, letting people care about me, learning job skills, et cetera. So I stayed 12 years." "

protomyth 11y ago
I'm sure they exist, but I've never met a Drug & Alcohol Counselor that hadn't been an addict. I guess you see what's at the bottom of the abyss and want to keep others from falling in.
- baseballmerpeak 11y ago
  You just can't wrap your head around it otherwise. The logical struggle at understanding the illogical.
  - protomyth 11y ago
    Your explanation of D/A Counselors sounds about right. Its strange that doesn't seem true in the other "helping" professions. Its weird, I've met a lot of social workers and many are just people good at helping other people. I've also met social workers that went into social work to save themselves. They were more screwed up then anyone they would likely meet in the course of their work. I think I've met the poster child for "why you shouldn't go into social work if...".
icanhackit 11y ago
> "I started going forward, learning how to communicate a little better, eventually realizing I didn’t have to use my fists [...]" Learning how to communicate effectively solves a lot of problems. Language allows individuals to internally articulate what is bothering them, rather than allow an amorphous shadow to unendingly torment their minds with no clear lines to see and thus attack the underling problem. Language allows us to express to others what is wrong so that they may understand the problem and provide useful feedback. Language is an incredibly important skill and if we can encourage more young people to learn effective communication, the better for us all.

tthayer 11y ago

Powerful stuff. I appreciate the parts that talk about the damage AA-based programs have done for the cause of recovery too. Medication and therapy can be very helpful when used in conjunction with effective recovery programs, a view advocated by SMART Recovery (http://www.smartrecovery.org http://www.smartrecovery.org).

j_baker 11y ago
AA still has its place. A lot of people like its philosophy. Plus, some people just don't respond to anything else other than its "tough love" philosophy.

hindenburg 11y ago

Umm, does anybody else cringe at the public documentation of this person's problems? The author hasn't spoken to her brother since 2013 -- so how does she know he wants his problems to be made public to all the world? She even gave his full name.

ebbv 11y ago
Yeah seems really unfair to publish this without talking to him. Hopefully she did. Also, not to downplay what they've been through, but her brother's transgressions against the family hardly seem worth kicking him out over. He pawned some musical equipment and tried to sneak whiskey into his room, and left a bruise on her arm? For that they permanently kick him out? I realize he broke into other people's homes and stole from them, and that sucks but he's also paid for those crimes. Maybe she's leaving out some things he did, I don't know. But to me this article reads like she and her parents are harder on her brother than he deserves. Hopefully it all works out.
- CocaKoala 11y ago
  It's more like you're the one leaving things out; she pretty clearly describes how this is representative of patterns of behavior persisting for years and years.
- Crito 11y ago
  Allowing a criminal to live in your house puts the whole family at risk. What if he does something that prompts the police to SWAT him, and by extension you? And then there is asset forfeiture; people have lost their homes because their adult child that lived with them got busted with drugs. If I had a family member that was up to that kind of shit, I might help them pay rent in a home of their own, but they would not be staying in my home.
joshstrange 11y ago
That was my thought constantly through reading this. I agree wholeheartedly that we need to spend more on rehabilitation and treatment and it sounds like this facility is doing good work but laying your sibling's (a sibling you haven't talked to in years and even when you did they weren't the person they are now) life bare like this feels like a huge invasion of privacy as well as possibly having a negative impact on the brother when he does find out about it. Not to mention this will now follow him for the rest of his life as a very public record of his past failings....

spb 11y ago

Even if they don't have full-on attack rituals to break each other down, putting people in a small room and denying them any contact with the outside world does sound more than a little culty. It's interesting how highly correlated rehab communities and cults tend to be - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon (linked in the article) being a nigh-on perfect textbook example.