Bob Meehan Pathways Crossroads Icecap Pdap mind washing drug abuse Tempe Arizona, Saint Louis Missouri, Atlanta Georgia, Colorado

First, most professionals believe the basic concept of teenagers helping teenagers is a good thing. Young people often feel lost in traditional support groups such as AA and NA. The idea of a staffed peer-support group, which Pathway, Insight, Cornerstone, and Crossroads claim to be, is a good one.

Secondly, most genuine, credentialed drug and alcohol counselors are not opposed to the idea of encouraging and even urging young people, who are recovering from drug dependence, to avoid peers who are active drug users. Many practitioners feel that this may be the single most important step that a newly recovering teen can take.

Third, Palmer Drug Abuse Program as it operates today, is a legitimate and much needed organization. Furthermore, there appears to be no indication that they currently meet criteria that would designate them as a destructive or cultic organization.

Now, here is a little information on Meehan and his organization.

Meehan currently sits at the head of a group of several devotees, who call themselves the International Coalition of Enthusiastic Chemical Abuse Programs (ICECAP). The ICECAP "Board" is fully controlled by Meehan. ICECAP operates several facilities in Arizona, Georgia, Colorado, North Carolina, and Missouri.

"Technically", members of the ICECAP board independently own the facilities. Bob Meehan, possibly under the name JAD (for Joy Ann DeFord his wife's maiden name), LLC , owns a licensed residential facility called Step Two Recovery Center, as well as, another residential facility called Step One Recovery Center. At the time of the last investigation Step One was unlicensed, operating under the radar. Step Two costs $16,000.00 for a 6-week stay, and to our knowledge uses no credentialed staff in it's "therapy" sessions.

He recently opened another Step Two facility in Forsythe County, Georgia. As of the time of this writing, both facilities are operating illegally, as they are not propely zoned.

His son in law, Michael "Clint" Stonebraker, "owns" Pathway Drug Abuse Program in Tempe. Pathway may operate a chapter in Tucson as well. Pathway provides free support groups for teens and parents. In addition, they have an outpatient treatment program, which charges a fee of about $7000.00 for 6 weeks of group counseling. Stonebraker also "owns" a program in Atlanta called Atlanta Insight, and a third in NorthCarolina. There is a program in Colorado operating under the name Cornerstone. It is "owned" by Frank Szachta Jr.

Finally, there is another program in St. Louis called Crossroads. It is also "owned" by Frank Szachta. Both Cornerstone and Crossroads are identical to Pathway in that they offer free support group meetings and a fee based outpatient.

All of these support groups serve as feeders for Step Two and Step One Recovery Centers. In addition, Meehan holds seminars for each of these programs on a regular basis*. All parents and teens are expected, pressured, and even manipulated into attending the seminars at a cost of $30 to $50 per person. Up to 200 teens and parents may attend the 4 to 6 hour seminars over a weekend. Meehan keeps all the money. He pockets the cash, which can be a substantial amount.

Meehan also operates a counselor training program under the name Meehan Institute. It is a non-profit, tax-exempt 501 (C) 3. Meehan charges about $4000.00 per person to go through the 6-8 week training program.

All of the students are clients, referred by the ICECAP programs. In most cases, their parents are happy to pay the tuition because they are convinced that becoming an ICECAP staff member will help to insure that their child doesn't return to drug use.

The training program is a sham. Courses, titles, and outlines have little to do with the actual content of many of the classes; The course outlines are created to insure that the courses are accepted by certifying bodies such as ABCAC and ICRC/AODA. In reality, many of the courses are simply half-day sessions where students are subjected to various new-age type philosophical lectures given by Joy Meehan (who has no training or experience as a counselor and is not a recovering addict), Meehan himself, or some other Meehan devotee.

Nearly all former trainees who have left ICECAP report that, as a regular part of the Meehan Institute curriciculum, Meehan teaches a course on his personal feelings about "niggers" and fags" (Meehan's words). They report that the young trainees are expected to adopt Meehan's intolerant views and that his opinions are presented as truth, couched in psuedo-science. Those who don't adopt Meehan's views can hardly be expected to succeed in the organization.

In addition, Meehan uses the money from the Institute to pay staff that refer clients to Step One and Step Two. All of the staff who are paid by the training program are also required to work in any capacity that Meehan wishes, including ways that benefit him financially.

The training is ultimately useless outside of ICECAP because the trainees would need a college degree to become certified alcohol and drug abuse counselors. I know of no treatment facility outside of ICECAP that recognizes Meehan Institute training. Most importantly, this tax-exempt organization is taking young people who have been through Meehan controlled programs, charging their families for counselor training, and using the training as part of the client/student's indoctrination to insure that they themselves will go on to refer clients into Meehan's fee-based for profit programs.

Meehan is technically a voting board member--in reality he fully controls the board--and he is financially benefitting from the institute. Therefore, Meehan is once again guilty of the same conflict of interest that got him in trouble in 1980, when "60-Minutes" exposed him for taking money from for profit hospitals while sending them, clients of the non-profit organization he ran.

Those that are "fortunate" enough to be hired by an ICECAP program are overworked and often paid sub-minimum wages. Any staff member is on call at all times. If they work for any ICECAP facility they may be called to work at another ICECAP facility at any time. Staff may be uprooted and moved to another city with little or no notice. They may be demoted at any time on trumped-up charges or for alleged "spiritual" impurity. No one is permitted to seriously question these kinds of decisions.

Meehan expects total loyalty from staff. They see their employment as a part of their recovery and are indoctrinated to believe that they can never make it without the program. Staff members have no real relationships outside the program. Many have been manipulated into severing ties with any family that is not in the program. If one family member leaves or is thrown out, others in the program are encouraged to partially or completely sever ties with the individual who left.

Meehan and his upper echelon (referred to as "The Family") determine when an individual is ready to enter into a romantic relationship. Staff relationships, even marriages, are set-up and managed by Meehan and "the family" which consists of his innermost circle.

For a staff member, there is no such thing as a private matter. Sex, relationships, thoughts, fears, past history, family matters, and money is discussed with and even managed by superiors. As outlandish as it may seem, it is actually a seamless, natural progression for the client, who becomes the student, and then the employee. Staff members, even those with years clean and sober are, handled as though they were clients in a Synanon-type therapeutic community.

Incidentally, these clients-turned-staff are not hard-core street addicts who have no hope of a normal life. They are young people, mostly middle-class, who are generally in the early stages of drug dependence (if drug dependent at all) when they enter treatment. If released from the program early on, most could go on to college. Those who have a desire to help others could get an education and become counselors for a legitimate agency.

Staff members are completely dependent upon Meehan and the program. If they leave or do something to offend "the family" they lose their jobs, friends, recovery resources and possibly their families. Usually, they live with another staff member in which case they lose their home.

The active staff is very difficult to penetrate. They are taught that it is acceptable to lie to outsiders. However, total honesty is expected within the group. They are paranoid. Meehan is terrified of the media. If the media, for any reason, contacts anyone in the program, a special meeting may be called to determine how it should be handled.

The same tactics that are used to control staff are used, to a lesser degree, to control clients. Clients may be blackballed or ostracized. A young person who leaves the program stands a good chance of immediately losing all of his or her friends. Romantic relationships and even some friendships are managed by staff. Anyone outside the program is considered a drug user who should be avoided. During treatment at Step Two, teens are allowed only limited contact with family, usually short phone calls once a week with a staff member present.

Meehan is a bigot. He refers to Muslims as "towel-heads". He refers to Jesus as a "dead Jew-boy on a stick", offending both Christians and Jews. Africans are referred to as "niggers" and staff is taught that Africans are less evolved than whites. Hispanics are called "wetbacks" or "spics." Women are bi**hes. Gays, according to Meehan are "queers" or "faggots" who "suck their own sh** off other people's di*ks". These are Meehan's words.

Meehan sits atop this empire yet he has no education, no training, no license (as a clinician), no certifications, and no degrees. To my knowledge he has not attended a single training class in his 30+ years as the "Father of Drug Intervention". He knows nothing of pharmacology, cannot state the 12-core functions of substance abuse counseling, and has never completed any type of supervised practicuum. He is simply an ex-convict who claims to have a better understanding of addiction and recovery than anyone else in the world.

* It has been reported that Meehan has stopped giving seminars for young people and is only providing seminars for parents new to the program. We have no information in regard to the current cost for attending these seminars

anon
scottsdale, Arizona
U.S.A.