Search Results
Barry McCaffrey, 2015 April 2
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McCaffrey describes his first encounters with substance abusers in the military during the 1960s and the subsequent pathway to his position as the Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. He discusses the politics of White House agencies and controversies over their respective jurisdictions. He speaks extensively on the nexus of mental health issues and substance abuse, and the role of the family in instilling anti-drug values in children. He narrates his own education on the "drug issue," from drug courts to methadone to therapeutic community methods. He gives his impressions of Phoenix House's work amid this discussion. McCaffrey also details the issues surrounding government funding of substance abuse treatment programs. Finally, he discusses the scientific controversies of using medication in treatment for addiction.
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Carlos Pagan, 2014 August 11 and 2015 March 3
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In the first session, Pagan discusses his initial involvement with Phoenix House and his role in founding the program. He explains how he joined Efrén Ramirez's rehabilitation program after years of chronic drug abuse and details how that initial program grew in membership and gradually evolved into Phoenix House. Pagan credits the creation of Phoenix House to the support group of six founding members that he maintained, and a move from Hart Island to Manhattan, which put the group out on their own. In the second session, Pagan discusses the dynamic that existed between the original six members of Phoenix House, as well as his childhood upbringing in Williamsburg as a young Puerto Rican immigrant. Pagan details the beginning of his drug use in the mid-1950s, due to his gang involvement and his subsequent bouts with incarceration. He explains how he joined Efrén Ramirez's program to rehabilitate and how he met the first few members of the Phoenix House program there. He then documents the acquisition of the first house and subsequent expansion.
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Chris Policano, 2015 March 11
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Chris Policano details his pathway to Phoenix House and shares backstory about the building that was slated to be the Nancy Reagan Center and the process of establishing good relations with the Lake View Terrace community. He discusses the therapeutic community method and Phoenix House's role in explaining the crack epidemic to stakeholders during the 1980s. He narrates the challenges of de-stigmatizing the images of addicts, and of defending long-term residential care to the public, funders and doctors. He then speaks on organizational culture and leadership.
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Conrad Levenson, 2015 January 16
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Levenson narrates his early childhood in Brooklyn and attendance at Columbia College and School of Architecture. He then describes his path into designing and overseeing low-income housing projects during the 1970s. Moving to Phoenix House, Levenson discusses at length his vision for the relationship between the therapeutic community method and the built environment of the facility, especially with respect to the Riverside Plaza Hotel. In this vein, he describes legal restrictions on this work by the state. He also speaks on his use of sweat equity with the Phoenix House residents.
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David Deitch, 2014 October 9
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Deitch begins by discussing his early drug use and exposure, as well as his struggle to get clean at Synanon. After narrating his experience with the Synanon group, Deitch explains how he tried to impact policy as an administrator at Synanon, and eventually again at Daytop. Through his connections with the rehabilitation world, Deitch met Mitchell Rosenthal before Phoenix House is established, and uses his knowledge to help advise Rosenthal. After leaving Synanon, Deitch discusses his subsequent involvement with Daytop Village and briefly touches on his time working for the New York City government.
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Frank Barron, 2015 March 6 and 2015 April 7
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Barron discusses the origins of Cravath, Swaine and Moore, LLP's relationship with Phoenix House. He explains his own exposure to the therapeutic community model. He elucidates Phoenix House's relationship to the justice system, which was its largest client, and his legal battles that allowed Phoenix to retain its treatment structure. Finally, he talks about more recent efforts to improve Phoenix's data management structure.
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George De Leon, 2014 September 8
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De Leon discusses his work in clinical psychology at the Veterans Hospital as both his introduction to therapeutic communities and to Mitchell Rosenthal. He discusses the international and national growth of therapeutic communities as well as the policies and research that have made them what they are today. De Leon also examines different training and rehabilitation techniques popular in Phoenix House, and the future uses he sees for therapeutic communities.
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Herbert Kleber, 2015 January 23
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Kleber describes his experience working at the "narcotics farm" in Lexington, Kentucky after completing his residency at Yale University. He then describes his return to Yale with a heightened interest in exploring pharmaceutical treatments for addiction, such as Naloxone. Kleber moves on to his tenure as the Deputy for Demand Reductions in George H. W. Bush's White House. Particular attention is given here to his struggle to secure more government support for methadone treatment, and the interaction of national and New York City politics surrounding substance abuse treatment. He recalls his convictions as a board member of Phoenix House. Finally, Kleber discusses the future of narcotics treatment, which, he asserts, will largely depend on the funding structure.
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Howard Friend, 2014 November 5
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Friend describes Phoenix House's Coney Island facility, where he initially entered treatment. He narrates how he became a resident director. He gives particular attention to the adolescent programs he opened for Phoenix House in California, beginning in 1982. He discusses some of the issues regarding work with adolescents. He speaks on Phoenix House's relationship with the Orange County government, and compares California populations to their New York counterparts. Finally, he deals with the effects of the increasing medicalization of substance abuse treatment.
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Howard Josepher, 2014 July 24
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Howard Josepher narrates his experience as a drug addict sent to Odyssey House on a court mandate. During his time at Odyssey House, the organization split, and Josepher and a group of other addicts ended up at Phoenix House as some of the first residents. Josepher recounts his time at Phoenix House in light of his past experiences of different detox programs. He describes his troubles with the legal system while hiding from American authorities in Britain. After graduating from the Phoenix House program, Josepher becomes regional director at Phoenix House. He then talks about graduating from Hunter College Silberman School of Social Work, and the formation of his private practice, which he still operates today. Josepher also discusses his quest for a greater purpose and his attempts to find it through a discipleship in India. Josepher moves on to his work during the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and how his experiences at Phoenix House influenced that work. Finally, Josepher discusses the methodology of abstinence-based rehabilitation programs and touches upon current debates surrounding drug treatment.
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Ira Mothner, 2014 August 19 and August 27
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In the first session, Mothner describes his career in magazine journalism, and, subsequently, in speechwriting for the Mayor of New York. He explains his prior connection to therapeutic communities, which led to his involvement with Phoenix House. He describes the process of writing the book Drugs, Parents and Children (1972) with Mitchell Rosenthal. He details the early therapeutic community methods, including tactics of humiliation. He speaks to his personal connection to addiction. Mothner describes his role in fundraising and crafting the Phoenix House narrative. He discusses the "academy model of treatment." Finally, Mothner comments on methadone versus therapeutic treatment for addiction, and recent marijuana legalization battles. In the second session, Mothner speaks on substance abuse among adolescents today. He discusses Phoenix House's changing treatment model, especially the role of adolescents in its evolution. He comments on the social aspects of working at Phoenix House, particularly his working relationship with Mitchell Rosenthal. He also comments on the Abraham Beame investigation and the plans for the Nancy Reagan Center in California. Finally, Mothner describes some of the major fundraising galas at Phoenix House.
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James Ferguson, 2014 October 6
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Ferguson describes Mitchell Rosenthal's vision for Phoenix House. He narrates his experiences as a Phoenix House board member.
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Jean Scott, 2014 November 3
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Scott details her pathway to Phoenix House as an addict, and how she quickly rose within the ranks to become assistant clinical director. She gives particular attention to the opening of prison programs in California, New York and Texas. She describes her professional partnership with Kevin McEneaney, especially with respect to prison programs and the development of the occupational training curriculum. She discusses in great detail the evolution and subsequent breakdown of the therapeutic community model during her long career at Phoenix House.
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Jerry Taylor, 2014 September 23
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Taylor narrates his early life in the US Navy and subsequently the advertising business in Chicago, which put him in contact with many celebrities and moguls in the music industry, and eventually brought him to New York City. Taylor details his pathway to the Phoenix House board, his role in fundraising, and the board culture at Phoenix House.
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John Bell, 2015 March 11
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Bell begins with a discussion of his initial turn to drug use as a coping mechanism for dealing with academic stresses. After multiple arrests and stints in jail, Bell eventually winds up at Phoenix House, having resolved himself to getting and staying clean. Bell takes great comfort in the therapeutic community, likening it to the community he grew up in. He discusses his growing attachment to Phoenix House and to the people there during his time in-program. Eventually, Bell narrates how he got a job at the payroll department in Phoenix House and the insights he has gained during his time in the organization.
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Kandy Latson, 2014 August 20 and August 21
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Latson describes growing up in Raccoon Bend, Texas, and his relationship with his family. He narrates his experience in the US Army during the Korean War, with particular attention to the racism he encountered there. He discusses his introduction to Synanon while living in Los Angeles as an addict, and his education in that environment. He also mentions his involvement with the Nation of Islam. Latson describes various stages of his spiritual awakening. Finally, he tells of his introduction to Mitchell Rosenthal and Phoenix House.
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Kevin McEneaney, 2014 October 1 and October 8
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In the first session, McEneaney chronicles his childhood and the beginnings of his drug use, resulting in a stay at the Morris J. Bernstein Institute. After moving to Phoenix House's Coney Island facility, McEneaney narrates becoming an increasingly integral part of the public relations team throughout the 1970s. He discusses his impressions of Phoenix House's board and its dynamics and prerogatives. In the second session, McEneaney discusses the therapeutic community model and the changes it underwent as Phoenix House's leadership became more professionalized. He describes his attempts to "codify" or standardize the therapeutic community method. He details the acquisition of the Yorktown facility. In terms of organizational culture, he discusses the distance between the operations and the public relations sides of Phoenix House. Finally, McEneaney speaks on Phoenix House's important relationship with Corrections and the prison system, and subsequently with various consulting firms
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Lawrence Lederman, 2014 September 17
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After detailing his early life in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Lawrence Lederman narrates his process of becoming a lawyer. He tells of his experience clerking for Chief Justice Roger Traynor of the California Supreme Court, and then entering as an associate lawyer at Cravath, Swaine and Moore, LLP. He describes the origins of Phoenix House's relationship with Cravath, moving on to the extrication of Phoenix House from New York City's Addiction Services Agency. He discusses his own move to Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz, LLP, in the context of the merger wave in corporate America. He explains the establishment of the Phoenix House Development Corporation, which handled private donations so that they would be separate from budgets submitted to the City. He discusses the nature and stature of the board among New York's elite, and the role of public service in the upper reaches of the law profession.
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Leslie Bennetts, 2014 March 4
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Bennetts chronicles her experience profiling Mitchell Rosenthal for Vanity Fair. She also discusses Nancy Reagan's reneging on the Lake View facility, and her involvement with "the drug issue" more generally. The interview is peppered with details about being a female journalist during the 1970s-1980s.
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Mitchell Rosenthal, 2014 November 6 and June 26 and July 10 and 2015 February 19 and April 15
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In the first session, Mitchell Rosenthal discusses his childhood, and formative moments in becoming a doctor and a successful politician. He then speaks to the impacts of organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Synanon on the creation of Phoenix House. Rosenthal also discusses therapeutic methods used in Phoenix House and in drug rehabilitation overall, and his use of these methods as a doctor in the Navy. He highlights challenges in beginning to work with the therapeutic community model, and his eventual move to New York City to work in drug rehabilitation government services after his naval career. Rosenthal concludes with a story about the origins of Phoenix House.
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Morty Sklar, 2014 September 25
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Sklar describes formative years serving in the US Army during the Korean War and, subsequently, on the poetry scene in New York City. He describes various stages of drug use and bouts of shock therapy. He narrates the creation of Phoenix House at Morris Bernstein Institute, the move to 85th Street, and eventually his own to Hart Island. He details some of the methods involved in therapeutic communities. Finally, Sklar discusses his writing career in Iowa City and beyond after "graduating" from Phoenix House.
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Nancy Hoving, 2014 October 1 and 2015 February 5
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In the first session, Hoving discusses her professional relationships with therapeutic community pioneer Efrén Ramirez and with Mayor John V. Lindsay, both of which were instrumental in Phoenix House's evolution. She speaks on drug rehabilitation policy in New York and nationwide during Phoenix House's inception and the cultural stigma surrounding addicts. She waxes on her impressions of the self-help method. She also talks about Phoenix House's expansion into California. In the second session, she discusses the transition at Phoenix House, which resulted in Howard Meitiner's departure, and segues into a broader discussion about leadership at the organization, especially the roles of Mitchell Rosenthal, Alfred "Tony" Endre, Andrew Kolodny, and the board. She identifies issues of succession. Hoving speaks to the intersection of social services, medical services, and business.
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Norwig Debye-Saxinger, 2015 January 7
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Debye-Saxinger tells of his involvement with Rockefeller's Narcotics Control Commission beginning in 1971, and the state's effort through that agency to contract out the provision of direct services for addicts to third party agencies. Phoenix House's practice of "hiding" privately raised funds in sister organizations is discussed. He chronicles two major policy changes he helped orchestrate that were critical for Phoenix House-welfare checks could be signed over to a residential institution directly, and money from the sale of a facility owned by an institution could be reinvested within a year and not counted against funds provided by the state. He narrates a shift in addiction treatment from forming a part of the criminal justice system to a more medical issue. The waning of appreciation for the therapeutic community model affected both his and his colleague Julio Martinez's roles in state government and his role in Phoenix House in the ensuing decades.
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Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney, 2014 November 19
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Peterson and Ganz Cooney discuss their philanthropic life histories, which include fiscal policy reform, and youth education and digital learning, respectively. They then discuss their friendship with Mitchell Rosenthal. They speak to their role in supporting Phoenix House through fundraising efforts via their own donations, connecting the organization to a number of influential donors, and encouraging innovative fundraising strategies that catapulted Phoenix House into the world of the New York elite.
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Peter Kerr, 2014 November 24
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After an overview of his life and career prior to his arrival at the New York Times, Peter Kerr reflects on his writing on the "crack epidemic" of 1985 and 1986 in New York City, which was a key moment in his career. He discusses both his own process in as a journalist—how he found stories and which sources he trusted—and his journalism's motivations and social impact. He describes his perspective on Phoenix House as an outsider using it as an expert source on drug matters. He also discusses his later employment there, which ended after two years of struggling to find a vital and new brand for Phoenix House. The interview closes with Kerr's thoughts on the challenges Phoenix House faces at the time of the interview, the routes it has not taken, and a larger reflection on change and continuity in New York City.
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Phoenix House Foundation oral history collection, 2014-2015 183 Gigabytes 433 digital files (Born-digital transcripts and audio) 1.5 Linear Feet 3 boxes (Transcripts)
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- Phoenix House (Organization)
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Phoenix House was founded in 1967 as a therapeutic community to treat addiction in an 85th Street apartment in New York City. In the following decades, Phoenix House expanded to locations throughout New York City and ten states. At the time of the interviews, Phoenix House was serving over 5,000 individuals and remained committed to supporting individuals and families by providing a wide range of services including prevention, early intervention, treatment, continuing care, and recovery support. The Phoenix House Oral History Collection documents three periods of Phoenix House's work: origins, growth, and established leadership. In the first period, spanning from 1967 to the 1970s, narrators detail the founding of a therapeutic community, the dynamics of this community, and the influences of other self-help drug treatment organizations such as Synanon on the program. In the growth period, narrators speak of opening up new facilities, and designing and launching new programs. Topics covered include the political and funding challenges of expanding Phoenix House's reach, increases in medical and mental health staff, and partnering with state departments of corrections to provide the Phoenix House program as an alternative to incarceration. In the final period, narrators describe changes in the therapeutic community model, further expansion of programs across the United States, acquisitions of competitors, new funding challenges, and transitions in leadership.
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Ronald Coster, 2015 April 15
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Coster discusses his "conversion" to the self-help model and his experiences managing increasingly complex financial matters in Phoenix House, whose largest sources of income at that time were government contracts. He explains tensions with the New York City government, which resulted in an eviction from Hart Island, among other issues. Coster chronicles the expansion of the organization including how it gained national stature, the various consulting firms it hired, its relationship to Corrections, the maintenance of government donors, and increased medicalization.
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Ronald Williams, 2014 July 17
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Ronald Williams narrates his early life in a West Indian neighborhood in Harlem and his pathway to substance abuse, incarceration, and, eventually the Morris Bernstein Institute. He describes leaving the Institute with a group of addicts to found Phoenix House. He gives particular attention to the therapeutic community method as it was conceived during Phoenix House's initial stages, and its predecessors. Williams also speaks on Phoenix House's importing of Synanon personnel, and that strategy's effect on the organization.
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Sara Ann Fagin, 2014 November 12
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Fagin discusses her tenure as Mitchell Rosenthal's executive assistant and her subsequent role in fundraising and development. She narrates her own avenues to understanding addiction. She talks about moving to Hazelden, comparing its environment with Phoenix House's and assessing the translation of her skills from a nonprofit to a for-profit setting. Finally, she reflects on the state of the therapeutic community method given increased state regulations.
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Tony Endre, 2014 September 30
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Endre discusses the evolution and subsequent decline of the therapeutic community model. He details the establishment of Odyssey House in 1967. He chronicles his tenure at both Phoenix House and New York City's Addiction Services Agency, describing life as a City employee. He narrates his involvement in setting up new facilities, and how he ran them.
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William Fusco, 2014 October 15
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Fusco describes the working class community in Sunset Park during the 1950s and 1960s, and his entry into Phoenix House on 88th Street in Manhattan. He narrates his role in establishing new Phoenix House locations like East 116th Street. Moving to acquisitions, he worked at Phelan Place, Prospect Place, and Putnam Valley. He then speaks on the establishment of Dynamic Youth Community in Brooklyn, his own therapeutic community venture for adolescents. Particular attention is given to the changing therapeutic community model.
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