I Needed To Change Everything.
FullCircle Program Survivor: 2021 - 2022
When I was first introduced to the group a year ago before joining, it was through my best friend who had been in the group. At the time I would visit the shop and hangout and I thought it seemed great at first (of course). The group was much smaller when I first came and in my opinion has gotten worse due to the increased amount of members.
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’m not a gullible person so I knew what was going on but I tried to push myself in the name of sobriety and also my parents wishes. At first they would want me to spend every second of my day with them or I was on the “sketch squad” … for living my life normally. They did not seem to understand the concept that there was life outside of the group.
When I first joined group members asked if my parents knew that I vaped. I said no and they told me to let Staff talk to them, and my counselor was very good at convincing parents to let children vape. This was concerning to me for obvious reasons.
After that behaviors got worse and I was introduced to things like fun felonies and wedging. Which were actually not fun at all. The group would be disrespectful in public in general, trashing things, being disruptive, I was at a thrift store with the group, they knocked over a huge rack of clothes, laughed, walked away, and left me and the workers to clean up after them.
They did dumb shit in general like playing with tattoo guns, drinking cigarettes, all because they were sober these things were ok. They were approved and encouraged by counselors. If you did not share every aspect of your life you were not recovering. If you were not recovering and doing your step work you were shunned by the group.
If you had actual issues outside of sobriety such as depression they would push those problems away because you were not “working your steps” or “reaching out”. The group makes people cult-phobic and believing that they cannot live without the group. It was repeated in meeting that if you left the group you would become insane, be killed, become a drug addict, end up in jail, kill yourself etc.
I physically left the group about a month ago, but I had mentally left months ago with no freedom to leave physically.
- FullCircle Program Survivor, 2021 - 2022
