Upon our arrival, the “rap” in progress was briefly interrupted, and Judy and I were made to stand in front of the group to be introduced by our name and the drugs we had done. When it was my turn, the rap leader said, “And this is Marc. He says he’s only done pot.” The group then greeted us in unison with a resounding “Love ya, Judy and Marc!” and we were led to seats in the front rows of our respective sections.

We stayed there until ten that night. At the end of the day’s final rap, the rap leader said, “OK, all oldcomers picking up newcomers, pick ’em up.” The program had no overnight facility, and “newcomers” were not allowed to live at home, so they went home with “oldcomers” who’d been in the program a while and were deemed trustworthy. My first night I went home with Aaron, who was fifteen. I tried to explain to him that I was not a druggie, but he insisted that I was, even if I had smoked pot only once — or, for that matter, even if I just had a “druggie attitude.” When I told him I thought my attitude was fine, Aaron replied, “Listen. Don’t argue with me. Your attitude sucks.” I don’t think he was being mean. At the Seed it was an indisputable tenet that any newcomer’s attitude sucked, and there were only three roads a person could travel after his or her first puff on a joint: prison, insanity, or death — unless he or she was saved by the Seed.

I slept on the floor of Aaron’s bedroom. He had removed the handles from the windows, and he slept with his bed blocking the door. I still felt this was all a big mistake and entertained hopes of getting home soon. The Seed was probably a good place for some people, I thought, but I obviously did not belong there.

As a “Seedling” I lived by a strict schedule. Until the Seed determined you were rehabilitated enough to sleep at home and go to school, you had to spend twelve hours a day at the warehouse. Even after they’d returned to school, Seedlings were required to be at the Seed from the time school ended until ten o’clock at night. In the final stage of the program, attendance was required only three evenings a week, and one day on the weekend.

The Seed day began at 10 a.m. with the “morning rap,” which lasted more than two hours. The rap leader sat on his stool and called on people to stand and “participate.” Everyone who had been in the Seed more than a few days had to raise his or her hand to be called on or else be accused of “copping out.”

There were a limited number of topics for raps. Some were about how you and your old druggie friends had used each other for drugs or money or status and had only pretended to be friends while secretly despising one another. “Honesty” was a standard topic too. Being honest meant admitting you’d been “full of shit” before coming to the Seed, that all your relationships had been “bullshit,” that you had been horrible to your parents, who loved you, and that you’d been a dishonest, insecure, unkind, thoroughly worthless mess.

On my first day the morning rap was on “conning,” which meant parroting the Seed philosophy without really subscribing to it. No one could successfully con the Seed, I learned, because “everyone knows just where you’re at.” Seedlings were so supremely “aware” they could spot a con a mile away. This was when I realized that the Seed was after a different, more fundamental change than I’d imagined. Now I was scared.

Just as bad as conning were “analyzing” and “justifying.” “Analyzing” was just mixing up the facts and making them more confusing. “Justifying” was what you achieved by doing this. You analyzed your past actions to make it seem as if you’d had good intentions, or you analyzed what the Seed was telling you and tried to twist it in such a way that it seemed as if the Seed were wrong and you were right, though you knew in your heart that the Seed was right and you were an asshole. In fact, everyone was an asshole before he or she came to the Seed. Most of us had to proclaim this before the group at least once before we got to go home. Occasionally there were feel-good raps about “love” or “happiness,” which inevitably elicited ecstatic comments about the “vibes” in the room, but even these came back around to how you had never truly been happy when you’d been “on the streets.”

Sleeping during raps was strictly prohibited, though virtually everyone was sleep deprived due to the long days at the Seed, followed by extended carpool rides to the homes of oldcomer hosts and after-hours “rehabilitation” with oldcomers. If you saw someone sleeping nearby, you were supposed to shake him or her awake. Even daydreaming was forbidden. If you looked as if you weren’t paying attention, the rap leader or a staff member would shout, “Hey, get out of your head!” “In your head” was a bad place to be caught at any time. Private reflection and introspection were counterproductive, because they inexorably led to analyzing and justifying.

During raps, a person who’d been unwilling to be “honest” might be “stood up”: made to stand before the group while everyone else took turns saying how appalling he or she was, using name-calling, derision, and profanity. Boys were “twerps” and “pussies.” Girls were destined to become prostitutes if they didn’t shape up.

On my second day a young man named Jerry was made to stand up in front of the group. Apparently he had turned eighteen and had decided to leave the Seed, as was his legal right. A staff member said dryly, “I think we should try to talk him out of it.” One by one, members of the group told Jerry what they thought of him. The boys said things like “If I had met up with a guy like you on the streets, I would have used you for what I could get from you, walked all over you, and then beaten the crap out of you.” The girls emphasized that he was pathetic and ridiculous and unmanly. When the rap leader asked, “How many of you chicks would have had anything to do with a guy like this when you were on the streets?” no girl raised her hand. After the group was finished with Jerry, he was crying and had to beg to be allowed back into the Seed. The rap leader contemptuously told Jerry the precise words to say, and Jerry dutifully repeated them through his tears.

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