Straight Inc.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight,_Incorporated

I became familiar with them during my last couple of years of high school in 1982 and 1983.  There was a guy I was on the football team with who's sister had been put in the program.  He told us how he was going to have to go in for a "sibling interview", and we were all making fun of it, telling him he better watch what he said or they'd put him in there.  The look on his face said it all.  We were all clowning, and he knew how serious going to this interview was.  He'd seen the beast, and was scared shitless.  He wasn't really much of a drug user, as far as I knew he only drank a little at the weekend parties like most of the kids I grew up with.  It got everyone's attention when we heard they had put him in the program.  When we saw him again about 6 months later when they let him go back to school, he wasn't allowed to talk to anyone but the teachers and school administration.  

It really hit home for me a couple of days before my Senior Prom.  I'd become good friends with this girl in the Junior class who was in my Journalism class.  That Spring, I decided to try out for the Baseball team and she was trying out for the Softball team.  My folks leant me one of their cars so I didn't have to walk home after practice, and we would usually go for a drive and hang out by the Potomac River at one of the parks, smoke some weed, listen to some music and I'd drop her off at her parents' house.  She told me a lot about herself.  I knew she had been a lot wilder the year before, but she told me all she wanted at this point was to get good grades and get into college so she could get away from her parents.  Her mom had remarried a really strict Army guy, and she had a younger twin half-brother and sister who her stepdad was telling her mom would be corrupted by her wild ways.  The year before, her Mom had tried the Tough Love program on her and locked her out of their house for a few nights, so she had made her plan to get good grades and get out of there.  She was doing really well in school, and had a really cool creative streak.  I asked her to the Prom, and was real glad when she said yes.  We were looking forward to it.  Two other couples who were friends of ours had thrown in for a hotel room to stay in after the prom and we were all set up for a fun night.

Our prom was on a Monday night, and she had called me on the previous Friday night to ask what color tux I had rented.  Her mom had told her they would go get her prom dress the next day and she wanted to get me a bouttonierre.  She told me she would call me after they got back to tell me what color dress she had gotten so I could get matching flowers for her.   
 

The next afternoon I was hanging out at home waiting for her to call, when I got a call from her best friend, in tears, telling me that she had just spoke to her mom.   They had told her they were taking her to a discount dress wherehouse,  but it was really just the Northern Virginia Straight location in Springfield.  She had been told they were not leaving until she signed herself into the program.  There was a lot of name-calling and at one point her mom slapped her.   I got all these details a little later that day when I picked up her friend and went over to her parents' house to try to talk them out of it.  I tried to point out how well she was doing in school and about her college plans, but they had made up their minds and we were shown the door.

Her best friend felt bad for me and told me I should still come party with them after the prom.  We had a good party but it was all kind of bittersweet.  That summer went by in a blur for me.  My friend was stuck in Straight and never made it to the third phase where you get to go back home before I left for college.  At Thanksgiving and Christmas I went back home, but she still wasn't home.  I had started seeing someone else by then, but still wanted to know what was going on with my friend.  Her parents treated me like persona non-gratis.  At Easter I was back home again, and her friend told me she had finally got to go back to school in January.  She wasn't allowed to talk to any of her friends, and was frequently seen crying.  By the time I came home at Easter, she had run away to her grandmother's house in Florida.   Her grandma called her mom up and told her that she had someone who wanted to speak to her, her daughter.   Her mom agreed to let her stay with her grandma and finish high school there.  
 

I went off the deep end with drugs for a couple of years then, and never ended up seeing her again.  Years later, I reconnected with an old high school friend who had run into her while they were at the University of Florida.  He said she was doing well and studying Biology.  I got it together after taking a semester off to get my mind clear and body healthy enough to fully appreciate being in school.

Some of the stuff I've learned about Straight is unbelievable.  I thank my parents for seeing through their manipulations and letting me find my own way.

Anyone else here have any encounters with this program?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BZnNTVEKDFo

The first half of this video is Straight propaganda film, and the second half shows it being debunked by one of the people who was in it.

https://www.cedulegacy.org/blog/princess-diana-and-nancy-reagan-visit-st...

1985 footage of Nancy Reagan and Princess Diana visiting the Springfield, Virginia Straight facility.  The Just Say No propaganda machine was in full effect.

http://survivingstraightinc.com/

This is a website for people who had to go through the program.