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Sergeant Michael Sweet, Lancaster County Sheriff's office,
displays marijuana confiscated in drug raids
Full Circle
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Tough love3
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Ron Ruhnke, Full Circle halfway house director
Tough Love' is a means of bringing drug
abusers to honest evaluations of their own lives.
When it works it leads to a process ot
self-medication.
'Though Love' is what counselors and house
members living at the Full Circle House on the
corner of 26th and N Sts. call their rehabaitation
method. . . , ,
"We use the toughness to make the individual
take responsibility for his own life," explained
the house director, "and the love is the part that
helps in the healing."
Full Circle is a drug' rehabilitation center
sponsored by the Lincoln Council on Alcoholism
and Drugs. At the house, everyone goes by first
names, and the director is known simply as
"Ron." ' k ,
"Most people here have used a number ot
drugs heavily," he explained. Currently the house
is filled to capacity with polydrug abusers.
Intensive work
The Full Circle approach docs not employ any
form of medical detoxification, Ron said. During
the adjustment period for a new house member,
when he may be suffering withdrawal symptoms,
the drug abuser is encouraged to settle into the
house routine slowly. Four tablespoons of raw
honey are prescribed per day to help the
newcomer fight a craving for drugs.
"When their bodies get used to being without
drugs," Ron said, "then it's time to start the
more intensive work."
Evenings, Monday through Thursday, are set
aside for group therapy and group awareness
sessions. Featured are training periods in muscle
relaxing and breathing exercises. One counselor
teaches a massage class.
An individual also has three private counseling
periods each week as well as a follow-up group
session once a week. If he is an out-patient who
does not live at the house, the Full Circle client
spends from two to eight hours a day at the
house working on various rehabilitation projects.
Clientele busy
"We generally have to keep the clients at
something most of the time," Ron said. "Drug
rehabilitation is the most difficult type of
rehabilitation there is."
On Friday evenings the members engage in
some in-house social activity such as a sing-along
or a series of games. These programs help to
develop a sense of social ease in group situations
for individuals who have never before achieved
simple enjoyment in a social setting, the director
explained.
On Saturday, the morning is reserved for
housecleaning, the afternoon is for some physical
activity such as as a ball game or a hike, and the
evening is set aside for an activity away from the
house such as a play, movie or round of minature
golf.
"On the weekend, we try to put in practice
what we teach all week," said Ron.
One weekend activity is a Sunday afternoon
communications exercise in which the Full Circle
residents are paired off for two or three hours to
simply talk to one another as openly as possible.
Di-ads help
"We have discovered that once a person leaves
here and goes back out into the world," Ron
said, "he needs better communication skills than
the average person."
He explained the Sunday sessions, which they
call "di-ads," are one more exercise to develop
those skills.
Some of the rehabilitation patients go to
school while living at the house, others work, and
still others stay at the house all the time. Most
people stay at the house for three or four months
before becoming out-patients.
The Full Circle process of in-patient,
out-patient, and finally, follow-up client is a
continuing system of counseling which saves on
release problems, Ron said.
Generally, once a young person is released
from the house, he said, the main problem which
has to be overcome is one of intense loneliness.
Psychological pain
"A former drug abuser needs to develop
friends with the same values he has recently
acquired, and with the same lifestyle and
humanism," he said. "Having to face the tasks of
living, relating, and of being alone is not easy for
them. It's very hard!"
With a newcomer, Ron said, the counselors
look for conflict problems, both within the
individual and with others.
"Most drug abusers are extremely sensitive to
psychological pain," he said, "which is'a product
of their drug use."
"We try to get them to understand what
things have kept them from being the person
they were meant to be," he said. "And,
everyone, when they first arrive has their games,
their cons, routines and facades."
One means of breaking down psychological
blocks, Ron said, is an emphasis on body
therapy. Patients are encouraged to find
expression through their bodies, and a lot of
pounding, shouting and rolling is practiced at
the house as a means of letting strong emotions
surface.
Bio-energy
"We do a lot with the bio-energetic
approach," he said.
Using the 'tough love' formula, the counselors
work for total honesty in rehabilitation therapy,
the director said. Therapy consists of some
limited meditation, some fantasy exposure
techniques and elements of body awareness and
control.
"There aren't any complete systems for
rehabilitating drug users," the director explained.
"Each one works at a little different level, but
something is clear in every case. People give up
drugs because they want to, because they find a
better way to live."
Many drug abusers want to change but don't,
Ron said. "The old life is familiar to them. It
my be painful, but at least it's known, so they'll
stick with it rather than face something new and
hard."
And, many of the people at the house can
eventually make a decision to live a drug-free life
he said, "The test is when they get back out and
are with old friends or have to face old
problems."
Hurt shows
"Often when people come here," he said,
"they are hurting, and it shows. But after they're
here for a while, they feel safe. And they
suddenly realize, that without drugs, they feel
better than they ever have before. They think
that everything is all right. That's when the hard
work really begins."
A houseful of drug abusers aged 16 through
28 can provide reinforcement for many
rehabilitation techniques, Ron said, or it can
have just the opposite effect.
"Sometimes they can help one another," he
said, "or they can all resist the program
together."
The Full Circle project is funded by the city,
Lancaster County, the State Crime Commission
and by the Junior League, Kiwanis, and several
local churches.
House members who work while undergoing
the program contribute 20 per cent of their
take-home pay to the support of the place.
The Full Circle program employs five
counselors plus two nighttime counselors, and
maintains a 24-hour-a-day crisis line.
Full Circle session: understanding,
Sitting in a circle on the shag-carpeted floor of one
of the rnnms in the Full Circle House, you feel the
family snugness of the setting, the good vibrations of
the house, and the dynamic energies of the young
people in the room.
They are talking about what most want more than
anything, their freedom. One by one they are
explaining what they'll do on that great day when
they can walk out the door.
The Full Circle program is a drug rehabilitation
project and the young people engaged in the
discussion are all former drug abusers, most assigned
to the house as part of the terms of some probation
plan.
Through their experience with the Full Circle
program, these half-dozen teenagers are accustomed
to group discussions. They are polite to one another.
They give everyone a chance to speak and they treat
one another with understanding and patience.
Easily available
They sound overly-bright for teenagers, but as one
of the young women explains "dope makes you
mature fast."
One of the Full Circle counselors comments on it
in another way. "If you want to regard intelligence as
primarily the means to figure out how to get what
you want in life, these people are generally higher
than average," he said, "they always knew how to get
what they wanted!" '
Drugs are extremely easy to find, the people in the
circle report, and for those who live in the house and
leave to attend high school classes, each day is filled
with many temptations. But, they say, they also have
the opportunity to see their environment in ways
they couldn't before.
Now, they say, they can sec the ego-games and
petty deceptions they used to play on themselves by
watching others go through the same routines.
It is easy to tell which of the young people have
been in the program awhile and which are
newcomers. The veterans are a little more open, have
a little more to say and are generally more relaxed.
Captors hated '
The people who have been in the house only a few
days or weeks have less to say, keep more to
themselves, and when they do speak, generally show
themselves to be more in touch with the
drug-oriented world they left behind a short while
before.
Each veteran or new kid-on-the-block has a story
to tell about how to poison a body with drugs, and
each tells it with honesty and sometimes wit.
And if most of the young people in the circle are
glad they are not now taking drugs, still they have in
common an animosity toward those who cauzht
them. Many want to talk about the manner in which
they were "trapped by the law."
A common theme among those who have
complaints against the police holds that narcotics
officers are little better than the people they pursue.
Such officers, they say. take drugs, illegally confiscate
money and drugs and harass young people.
One young man from a small Nebraska town says
his path to drug abuse was the result primarily of
boredom. Most of his high school classmates are using
drugs, he says, and the local residents don't know
how to cope with the problem.
The young man said he is fortunate to have the
opportunity to stay with the program at Full Circle.
His alternative h the state penitentiary.
When speaking of those who sold them drugs,
individuals in this circle have some difficulty
establishing exactly how they feel. They are not
ready to turn dealers in to the police, yet they would
rather dealers ceased to exsit.
One young woman says she started using a variety
of drugs four years ago, when she was 13-years-old.
Without placing blame or responsibility on any other
person, place or thing, she states frankly, "I can't
handle drugs."
Sitting in a circle Sate one afternoon with a droup
of young people who know a lot about
self-destruction, who each stepped back from the
brink to gain a chance at self-awareness here in this
comfortable old house.
This place is good for them, they tell you, and
they mean it, but it is not the endall of their dreams.
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daily nebraskan
Wednesday, april 30, 1975