It only “helps” the people who never leave
Insight Program Survivor Story
I was also told that “I don’t wanna walk on eggshells around you, you need to stop being so sensitive” by a counselor because I didn’t want to hear misogynistic, racist, bestiality, rape, incest, and suicide jokes that triggered extreme flashbacks.
Your Clothes Don’t Matter to a Predator
FullCircle Program Survivor Story: 2019 - 2021
Content Warning: Description of Sexual Assault
I was told that whatever happened will go away and to let go and let god.
I had completely morphed my brain to believe what the staff wanted me to believe.
FullCircle Survivor Story: 2019 - 2022
This included preaching abstinence unless in a long term relationship, wearing modest clothing/ enforcing modest clothing, extreme methods of the second step, boy-cotting all mental health medications, etc.. I was 16 or 17 at the time and just wanted to please “the group”. I had completed lost myself and my own ways of thinking. All I cared about was appearing “cool” to the staff. When graduating the program, I was 18. I had been in fullcircle for over 3 years and believed it to be an amazing place.
A Requirement to be Grateful for Everything
Cornerstone Team Counseling Survivor Story: 2017 - 2021
“The years spent in this outpatient where some of the most traumatic in my life… Every bit of my story was used as a weapon against me. On multiple occasions the threat of homelessness was held above me, I was forced to sleep in abandoned cars, park benches, and whoever was Willing to allow me to sleep on their parents couch… On multiple occasions my outpatient counselor said "I was meant to be homeless".
“Winners” Would Constantly Put Me in Danger.
Full Circle Survivor Story: 2022
The counselors had knew I was on Probation and URGED me to go out past curfew, commit various felonies, etc. I had seen multiple felonies committed such as shooting fireworks at houses and vehicles all the way to breaking into abandoned buildings and businesses and causing over $50,000 in property damage.
Still picking up the pieces of what was broken in me by this program.
The Insight Program Survivor: 2017 - 2019
this was my personal first incident of many of sexual abuse, coercion or harassment in the program that wasn’t punished or handled. I was forced to share about my prior assaults in excruciating detail, including being made to think of my part to blame for them.
No Repercussions
Cornerstone Team Counseling Survivor: 2019 - 2021
i was 17 when i joined cornerstone. i had been in various therapies for 6 years already and nothing had worked. i was referred to a trauma therapist who told me she could not help me, but she knew who can. it was cornerstone… if i had to choose a common theme for my time in cornerstone, it would be sexual predators.
We are not just angry because we didn’t get it.
The Cornerstone Program Staff Survivor
“In light of recent claims that people who take issue with the Enthusiastic Approach to sobriety are simply people who did not get sober, I would like to firmly express that this is not what our anger is about. This anger is about having much of our childhoods stolen at vulnerable points in our lives, and then being convinced we were addicts and would die without living their prescribed way of life.”
This Program is Supposed to be for Sobriety Support
The Pathway Program Survivor: 2019 - 2022
“A lot of you probably know of me whether or not we’ve personally met or you’ve heard stories about me because of my reputation in the Phoenix group. Even a while after I’ve left, I’ve still gotten messages from people in this program, telling me they know me because I was the one who “got shot in the face while in the group”.”
Parent to Parent
An Open Letter to The Parent Group
The following statement was read at the Arizona FullCircle Parent Group Meeting on August 24th, 2022. The next day, this parent was introduced to Enthusiastic Sobriety Abuse Alliance and gave ESAAlliance permission to share their statement publicly.
A Story of Institutional Abuse
The Insight Program Survivor: 2019 - 2022
“It’s hard for me to talk about this but my story needs to be heard because group kids can be abusers and the group is purely a cult that favors certain members and takes advantage of many unfortunate young kids.”
My Dad told me many times to leave - and I wish I had listened.
FullCircle Program Survivor: 2020 - 2021
“Luckily when I left, I had my parents support. But I lost all of my social support and “friends” that I had in the Group. It was isolating but freeing just for the fact that I felt like I could breathe finally.”
The Group was becoming a bubble that I wouldn’t be able to live without.
The Insight Program Survivor: 2019
“I felt like the group was becoming a bubble that I wouldn’t be able to live without. Frankly I did more drugs after I left insight then before. My personal belief is that insight is better at creating young drug addicts rather than helping them.”
Messages of Hope from LGBTQ+ Enthusiastic Sobriety Survivors
Messages of Hope from LGBTQ+ Enthusiastic Sobriety Survivors.
LGBTQ+ Survivors of Enthusiastic Sobriety Programs regularly face discrimination, harassment and conversion therapy in the Group. These testimonies from LGBTQ+ survivors share a message of hope, freedom and encouragement to other survivors and people currently in The Program.
High Control Group
The Crossroads Program Survivor: 2001 - 2004
The aspect of the Group that I’ve had the most difficulty articulating is how deep this sort of control goes. You are expected to constantly share all of your thoughts, feelings, and actions. Anything less is dishonest.
I Needed To Change Everything.
FullCircle Program Survivor Story: 2021 - 2022
When I first joined, I was immediately love bombed, and from the first week I was in the group they wanted to change major aspects of my life. It seemed like every thing in my life was disproved by the group and I needed to change everything.
I became a completely different person.
FullCircle Program Survivor Story: 2019 - 2022
I had the epiphany Full Circle was not doing what they said they were doing. Regardless of me knowing that I was in a cult, I stayed.
The Addict and Six Degrees of Separation
Adolescents In Recovery Survivor Story: 2005 - 2009
When I was about three weeks sober, just before my 19th birthday, we discovered Adolescents in Recovery (AIR), an outpatient treatment center for young people that offered group and individual therapy, peer mentoring, and social activities. Little did we know this treatment center was based on an infamous rehab known as PDAP.
A Message to Parents from a Crossroads Counselor
The Crossroads Program Staff Survivor: 2005
For those of you out there still defending the program… I was a Crossroads staff member. I am sorry.
Not a Typical Staff Meeting
The Crossroads Program Staff Survivor Story: 2002 - 2010
Truthfully it is hard to share Purpose stories because I don't remember a lot of details. Likely because I walked into every single Purpose SO afraid I just blocked much of it out, while I sat there hoping I would not be the one put on the "hot seat" that night.