Chapter 9

First Phase- Cincinnati, Ohio

January 6, 1982 was the first day of operation for the Cincinnati Straight, Inc. There were 55 clients. I was very proud to be one of them. I was still on first phase and was disappointed in that but I felt more comfortable knowing I was in an area I was familiar with.

Steve and his parents drove us to the building for the first day. Again, I was placed in an intake room. There were six intake rooms. Thankfully there was more room for us and we weren’t so cramped in there. The Group room, although not nearly as big as the St. Petersburg group room, was more than sufficient. Brand new signs with the steps hung on the wall. There was a double door that led into the group room, bathrooms, a drinking fountain, a time-out room, and an infirmary, which had two beds. A door leading to the Senior and Junior Staff offices, another door leading down a narrow hall to the intake rooms, a kitchen area, and one other door that led to the Carpet Room. It was a small room, but adequate for our needs.

At lunchtime we were not served food from a caterer, but rather we packed our lunches and were served orange juice or grapefruit juice to drink. Dinners were great. I will always remember being served hot meals for a change. At some point I remember hearing about the drinks we were served. Staff had ordered 50 cases of orange juice and 50 cases of grapefruit juice. What we got was 100 cases of grapefruit juice. The Group was "regular" for months as a result of that mistake.

On January 8, 1982 I put in through the chain of command to be called on during the "past" part of raps. I was always being called on in the future part and didn’t think I was getting a lot accomplished. I was still having problems remembering parts of my past that related to the rap topic, but at least I was trying to work on it.

Steve was really great. He and I worked hard on my program. He really took a lot of time going over my MI’s. If it wasn’t a good one, he made me write it again. He and I got along more like brothers rather than Oldcomer/Newcomer. The one thing I will always remember was the alarm clock. Steve had a smoke detector hooked up to a digital timer. He called it "The Beast." Was it ever loud! I can tell you we never overslept.

On January 8, 1982 was the first Open Meeting. I earned Talk. The one thing that was different from the St. Petersburg Open Meetings was the fact that they went so fast. I think that the first Open Meeting, including the Open Meeting Review was over by no later than 10:30pm. It was nice to get back home and in bed at a decent hour. I remember lying in bed that night thinking that the St. Petersburg group was still in the middle of the Open Meeting and hadn’t even started the Open Meeting Review yet. With that, I dozed off to sleep.

During my time in Cincinnati I started seeing things that I hadn’t seen in St. Petersburg. I suppose this was because there wasn’t a lot of room to in the smaller room in St. Petersburg. I started seeing people "misbehave". They would sometimes fight when they were asked to sit up or pay attention. Others would yell out and disrupt the rap. When another person in group tried to get the person to stop, they would start fighting and hitting them, this resulted in about 4 or 5 people taking the misbehavior and dragging them to the side of group where they would be sat on. One person would sit on each limb and sometimes a 5th person sat on their chest. It was a terrifying thing to see. I can distinctly remember not being allowed to watch what was going on. We had to stay focused on what was going on up front. The raps would continue as if nothing was going on.

Some of the restraint sessions resulted in broken bones both the misbehaviors and the person doing the restraining. Some people were restrained for hours, others only a few moments. After most of the restraining sessions, the misbehavior would stand up and later make amends to the group for his outburst. Other people would try to run for a door in order to cop-out. In seconds they were tackled violently to the ground.

One thing I remember the Staff doing to embarrass or humiliate a person was what I call "Name Changing". A misbehavior would be made to sit on the girl’s side of group and was given a female name. Robert was now Robin, Don was now Donna, and Jack was Jacquelyn and so on. Although nothing like this ever happened to me, I remember thinking that I wouldn’t mind sitting next to some of the girls. But I was compliant and I was never told to sit on the girl’s side.
I confronted someone for the very first time in Cincinnati. It was during what was called a Confrontation Rap. This took the place of a regularly scheduled rap and just one person was singled out. A girl named Marsha had not been involved in the raps, was misbehaving daily and frankly the Group was tired of it. At one point I was called on. I stood up. I was scared to death. I had never done anything like this before. I basically told her that I didn’t appreciate how she was wasting my time having to deal with her crappy attitude. I then said, "I can’t respect someone like you for doing this." She began tearing up for the first time since the start of this rap. Shortly afterward, she told the Group that she would start getting involved again and made amends to the Group.

A few weeks after we moved to the Cincinnati area I learned that the Staff was required to do a home inspection. This ensured that Newcomers could be kept safely at home with little chance of copping out. I was excited about the possibility that Lee would be coming over. I knew that I didn’t want Mark there. About an hour later the doorbell rang and when the door was opened I heard Mark’s voice. I felt sick to my stomach. I tried to hide the fact that I didn’t like him. I talked about myself as much as I could, but I was doing it to make him feel good about me. The whole time he was there my heart was in my throat. I was a nervous wreck. He couldn’t leave too soon for me.

Over the weeks that I stayed with my Oldcomer, I grew especially close to my Foster Mom. She was so easy to talk to. I didn’t have this type of relationship with my first Foster Mom. I could talk to her about anything, she has a great gift of listening and she encouraged me a great deal.
On January 15 I earned Talk again. After the talk I was confronted because I wasn’t really sharing a lot of feelings. It wasn’t really a bad confrontation. It was done in such a way that it was something that I needed to take into consideration. When I sat down I actually felt better and could focus on how to make my next talk more productive.

Some Newcomer’s were still causing problems in Group. I remember one event like it happened yesterday. Once, during exercise rap Peggy was working us hard. We were doing sit- ups. At one point, she was yelling at us to push ourselves harder. I was in pain as my stomach burned. Suddenly another Newcomer yelled out, "Fuck you!" I immediately stopped doing the sit ups because I knew he was going to be confronted. True to form she stood him up and the confrontation began. I was always careful to show the Staff the respect that they demanded even though I knew not all of them deserved it.

The next day something clicked. I ‘m not sure what the events were that led up to this point, but suddenly it was like a curtain had lifted that before now, obstructed my view of the obvious. The whole program began to make sense. I understood how the steps worked. I knew how to make the needed changes. I started myself over day one. I set the goal to be on 2nd Phase on day 70.

On January 18, I asked for "Nothing." I explained to the group that I had started myself over and that I really didn’t deserve anything because I thought I was not doing enough. I went on to explain that the program had just started making sense to me. I was shocked when I got Talk that night.

I was excited about my progress. I continued to work hard in every aspect of my program. I even started helping other people out in the group. In the next Homes Rap, I asked for and got Talk. In the following Homes Rap I asked for and got Talk and Responsibilities. I was right on schedule. Or so I thought.

Then it happened. On January 29 I asked for Home for the very first time. I got TNR. That night I got extremely mad. I didn’t hold back and try to hide my anger. I was convinced that I was more than ready to go home but I didn’t achieve my goal.

The next morning, Peggy stepped out of the office and stood in the back of the Group. I knew as soon as she started making eye contact with the Staff Members up front and they started looking at me, I was going to be confronted. My heart was bounding like crazy. I was terrified. "Don Smith…Stand up." I slowly stood. Peggy really laid into me confronting me about the attitude I copped at my Oldcomers house. I acknowledged that I was upset because I didn’t get to go home last night. In true Peggy style she started a pity party for me that the Group eagerly got in on. "1-2-3 Ah" I was visibly upset by this and tears swelled in my eyes. Then she said "You know what? We were going to send you home Monday but after your little temper tantrum you’re going to have to wait. Have a seat." I sat down as those words echoed in my head.

Peggy was true to her word. On February 1 I asked for Home and got TNR again. I was still upset, but I didn’t let it show. On February 5 again, I asked for Home and got TNR. I was really mad at this point but I knew that Staff was watching for me to react. But I didn’t. I continued to work hard. I wasn’t going to let her beat me.

Finally February 8 I put in for Home. I made it. The one thing I remember was how I had always looked forward to running clear across the room at full speed to my parents. My parents came into the Open Meeting room and sat just three rows back and I was on the second row almost directly across from them. So my long run turned into nothing more than a short jog to my parents. But I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to finally be off 1st Phase. I had worked really hard, I knew I would have to remain consistent and not let up. I didn’t want to ever be back on 1st Phase.

During the Open Meeting Review, Steve came up to me, hugged me, and told me he was proud of me. I thanked him for all the help and support he gave me. Then he told me that I had to have a Dime Therapy list. This list is used by all Oldcomers to call someone for help, support or advise in case of any problems. The Dime Therapy list consisted of three 4th Phasers, two 5th Phasers, and one Staff Trainee. I insisted that Steve’s number be on the list as a 5th Phaser. I also wanted Todd’s number on the list.

When we were dismissed I made my way out to the parking lot to find my parents. I was hoping that I would see my old car out there, but I wasn’t too surprised to see they were driving something else. I got in the car and asked where my car was. They told me they had gotten rid of it. My parents considered giving it to my sister, but were concerned for her safety. They thought that a lot of people knew my car and would mistake my sister for me because of the car. They thought it would be best to sell the car and get it out of the family.

On the way home my mom told me something that absolutely shocked me. After the Open Meeting, Peggy came up to my parents and told them they even though I had done and said all the right things, Staff was still not 100% convinced that I was really ready to go home. But they were willing to take the chance. If there were any problems, Staff should be called at once and they would take care of me. At first, I was hurt. After all, the Staff that I trusted didn’t seem to trust me. Before the end of the night, I decided that I wasn’t going to let that get me down. I was going to prove them wrong.

After we got home, we had a snack. We stayed up really late. I talked with my family in a way I hadn’t done in years. I wrote my MI and learned that Pamela and I were on 1st Phase the same number of days. 73. Soon, it was time for bed. My parents showed me to my room. They had moved me into my sister’s old room in preparation for Newcomers in the future. The room was bigger. The door- knob was turned so that it locked from the outside. The windows were screwed shut too. My parents thought it would be a good idea to lock me in my room for the first couple of nights. It would be two weeks before I could leave the door unlocked. I really didn’t have a problem with it. I was asleep in a matter of moments.