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Bob Meehan -- 60 Minutes Expose` |
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Transcript of 1979 60-minutes follow up story on Bob Meehan
"PDAP"
DAN RATHER: P-D-A-P, PDAP, stands for the Palmer Drug Abuse Program, founded nearly nine years ago in the basement of Houston's Palmer Episcopal Church. PDAP first became known outside Texas when People magazine printed a feature about 15-year-old Carrie Hamilton, the daughter of TV star Carol Burnett and producer Joe Hamilton. Carrie had become a drug addict, and her parents sent her to PDAP, where she kicked the habit. The founder and leader of PDAP when we first broadcast this story last January was a former addict and alcoholic named Bob Meehan. To some, Meehan was a miracle worker, bringing God and clean living back to young people's lives. Others said he just got the youngsters dependent on him and PDAP in place of their former dependence on drugs and alcohol For Meehan himself, the message was: Do it my way, or leave.
BOB MEEHAN: Now, I'm saying this is- this program works for a group of people. If it doesn't work for you, try another one. Don't tell me to change this one, because it's already working for this group of people. It's my way or it's the highway. Go find another program. There are 22 Mickey Mouse programs running around in our area. Go to one of them. You don't have to stay. We're not keeping you here. You're not in chains. You walk the doors, you live at home, you go to school. You're not in chains. You know, we're not controlling you in any way, shape or form. You don't like it, leave.
RATHER: PDAP operates in meeting rooms donated by more than 30 churches in Houston; has branches in nine other Texas cities, and Denver, Colorado; and starting next month, in Los Angeles. There are no membership fees. The two and a half million dollar budget is raised from the community through an increasingly necessary fund-raising campaign. It is not a residential program. Youngsters live at home or on their own, except for a small number from out of town, like Carrie Hamilton, who stay with volunteer families. A substantial number may spend a month or more in a PDAP-affiliated hospital.
PDAP is a drug-oriented, youth-oriented version of Alcoholics Anonymous. The members go to meetings: day meetings, night meetings; even a few times a year, 24-hour meetings. No drugs, no alcohol, as little contact as possible with anyone who uses either. It preaches a way of life, and that outside the chosen path lies disaster.
GIRL (at PDAP): This is my 29th day of sobriety. (Cheers, applause)
RATHER: The program's tools are peer pressure and peer support, laced with a heavy dose of getting yourself tight with God, with others and with yourself. All of it encouraged and directed by a staff of PDAP trained and paid counselors who are themselves ex-drug abusers.
COUNSELOR: It's real easy to get into a negative place, you know. So what we do up here is we learn how to be positive. Does anybody want to share?
RATHER: Members are told to steer clear of non-members, and to attend as many meetings as they can, meetings which combine the kind of public confessional popular in certain churches with a dose of amateur group therapy.
GIRL: And yesterday, I was in a car accident. I wrecked the only material thing that I had that meant anything to me, my car. And it was the only thing I had that could get me to California. And I- I just sat in the car, and I wasn't angry, where normally I would be angry for what happened. And I didn't want to go get high. For the first time in my life, I did not want to get high. As far as I'm concerned, this is my first day here, because this is the first day I'm giving a hundred percent. I led a meeting yesterday on risk, and I haven't been willing to take that risk. I haven't been willing. I have thousands of people in PDAP that love me, and they- they don't even know me, some of them. And I'm willing to give it all. I'm finally willing.
(Applause)
RATHER: Some of these PDAP members are well into their twenties. But much younger drug users, some only eleven or twelve, attend other meetings.
BOY: I've been having a lot- a lot of problems, because I- I didn't admit that mind-changing chemicals have messed up at least part of my life. And I know that they have, because I've been stealing from my brother, and doing anything just to get high, you know.
RATHER: At just about every meeting, someone gets a monkey fist-a braided leather ball at the end of a leather necklace.
GIRL: Get a 30-days fist by staying straight 30 days consecutively in a row.
RATHER: Kids who already have their fist bear witness.
GIRL: You just came in my life at a real special time. You know, you kind of replaced a void that I was feeling, and I've just watched you grow a whole lot. You're real special to me, and I really like having a little brother. I love you.
(Cheers, applause...chanting)
MEEHAN: When one walks in the doors he must think that anybody that takes a drink, smokes a joint, is a complete loser. Pick winners is the- pick people that- that you respect, that you look up to, that- that offer you a way of life that you think you'd like.
(On phone): See if you can get me Larry Layden.
RATHER: Bob Meehan is a winner. From the depths of drunkenness and addiction, he has risen to head a multi-million-dollar program with a paid staff of more than 300 ex-addicts. Judges, ministers, company presidents, sit on his boards of directors and contribute to his programs.
Meehan's income has risen as his program has grown from nearly nothing to more than $100,00 a year - in salary from PDAP and from consultant fees from hospitals and corporations as an advisor on drug abuse and its cure. And he says he's worth it.
MEEHAN: I have a great head. I know more about this problem than anybody I know. I'm the most together person I know. And if anybody wants to know what to do about the problem in a business, they consult with me, they're going to get the right answers. And I am very expensive. If I wasn't making money, you wouldn't be here today, partner.
WOMAN: May we have a few moments of silence.
RATHER: Parents, too, are part of PDAP. Something less than half the parents whose kids are in the program are active. In PDAP parlance, these are the good parents. They also support the organization financially. Parents give 30 percent of the cost of PDAP. The other 20 percent comes from donations from corporations and foundations.
MAN: God, I love you all.
(Groups responds...applause)
RATHER: Does the program work? Do the kids get off drugs and stay off? Meehan and his colleagues have repeatedly said that they are 75 to 80 percent successful-but when they are pressed, they day that those figures refer only to the percentage of kids who stay straight for 30 days and get their monkey fist. And when Meehan is pressed further, even that doesn't hold up too well.
MEEHAN: What is success? What are we going to use as a definition for success?
To me, it's one who has become a dues-paying member of society, has returned to school, no longer has a chemical problem-okay?-is moving on to enjoy life to its fullest, and being part of what you and I consider society. In that area, we are more successful than anybody I know of. What about the bottom line dry statistics? Fine. Mr. Rather, 60 MINUTES, if you care to give me $75,000 to do that kind of study and hire the statisticians necessary to do it, I will.
RATHER: Are you saying to me that you don't have any data to back up your claim that you're 75 to 80 percent successful?
MEEHAN: We have- the data we have is quite different from data anybody else has. And see, we don't keep records on people. You- if- if your children came to us, they don't have to give us their right name. They want help, they stay. They don't, they leave.
RATHER: But- pardon me for interrupting-but that- that's part of the problem.
MEEHAN: No stats, yes. We-
RATHER: Again, you see, I find that an absolutely astonishing thing, that you would say, "Mr. Rather, I don't even know the names of most people who come into our place."
MEEHAN: That's right. We're not here for names. We're here to show people a better way to live.
RATHER: Okay, but-
MEEHAN: If you want it, stay. You don't, leave.
RATHER: You can't give me a figure: these are the numbers of people that we had come through our doors nationwide?
MEEHAN: No, we don't have time. We get 400 calls a day from all over the world.
RATHER: Okay. But you don't know how many are coming through the door.
MEEHAN: No.
RATHER: So, how can you day you're 75 to 80 percent successful?
MEEHAN: Because of the times that I ran groups, I knew, when I knew the kids in the group, when I saw how many came in-when I was running a group myself-I saw how many came in, and I knew what it was.
RATHER: Mr. Meehan, I don't doubt for a moment that you did that. But when you boil it down, what you've got is a guess.
MEEHAN: Oh, definitely. Oh, you're right. Definitely, a guess.
RATHER: Okay, so when you say you're 75 to 80 percent effective, you're guessing.
MEEHAN: I'd like to say 70.
RATHER: All right, let's say 70. Let's- let's take a conservative figure. Do you consider that to be conservative?
MEEHAN: No. Conservative, 65 to 70.
RATHER: All right, 65 to 70.
MEEHAN: Okay.
RATHER: I note that we're already down from 75 to 80 percent down to 65 to 70.
MEEHAN: I- do- you haven't talked to me.
RATHER: All right, you- you say 65 to 70. But I say, is that your guess as to how effective you are?
MEEHAN: That's my guess.
RATHER: When we talked to someone in Dallas, who was very complimentary about the program, but they noted that, in Dallas, that your people had said they had 2,000 PDAP members in the Dallas area, but when they actually got down to counting heads, it turned out to be 500. Is that true?
MEEHAN: Very true.
RATHER: You can understand how someone in my position, trying to be an honest broker of information, would come away with at least the impression, number one, their success figures are inflated; number two, their overall membership figures are inflated.
MEEHAN: Yes, sir.
RATHER: But it's not the truth?
MEEHAN: It's really not. It's really not.
RATHER: Your success figures are 65 to 70 percent?
MEEHAN: At least. At least.
RATHER: If Meehan's figures on how many come in, how many stay, and how many actually kick the habit are wobbly, that makes equally suspect his statement to us that he only spends an average $500 per year per member. And that dollar amount doesn't even include the huge hospital costs of an estimated 550 youngsters referred last year by PDAP to this hospital and other hospitals run by the same management company, a company which pays Bob Meehan $50,000 a year as a consultant. Average length of stay in the hospital: four to six weeks. Average cost: at least $10,000 per youngster. That's not paid by PDAP. It's paid by parents and medical insurance. That alone is twice the entire PDAP budget. In the hospital, the PDAP patients get bio-feedback, psychotherapy and other medical treatment. Few of them need detoxification. But what they also get is a concentrated dose of PDAP. PDAP counselors, whose salary is paid indirectly by the hospital, hold PDAP meetings daily. And they treat and manage patients right along with the more highly trained staff. Are all these youngsters really sick enough or addicted enough to need to be hospitalized? Susie Waters was a PDAP counselor at the hospital for five months last year.
SUSIE WATERS: I think that the reason why most of those people were in there was so we could make a big impression on them right from the beginning. It's a way of isolating them, to only get PDAP from the very front. It was the troublemakers that ended up in the hospital. It was the people that wouldn't go by the normal rules, that wouldn't stick with winners, or that wouldn't stop going to concerts. It was the troublemakers that ended up there. And a lot of them were just little kids. You know, they were just out having fun. I remember thinking a lot of times, why is this person here?-you know. They weren't- I was just the same as a lot of them.
RATHER: The hospital management flatly denies that the PDAP patients they admitted didn't need the medical treatment they got. And they said the consultant fee they paid Bob Meehan was for his advice on drug abuse, and had nothing to do with the fact that PDAP referred so many patients. Meehan couldn't see the connection, either.
And they pay you $50,000 a year.
MEEHAN: At this time.
RATHER: What do you mean "at this time"?
MEEHAN: Well, I plan to tell them I'm worth a lot more, because they've made an awful lot of money at what they- what- because that they listened to me. And- and I think I'm worth more.
RATHER: Right on the surface of it, there is a conflict of interest. On the one hand, you sit at the top of the PDAP pyramid. On the other hand, you have a personal service contract with the hospital for whom you are directly-not just in effect-directly supplying patients.
MEEHAN: No, sir, I am not. The counselors that work for me are going to put their patients, or are going to refer, to hospitals that they think are doing the best job.
RATHER: You don't see a conflict of interest?
MEEHAN: I really don't.
BOB GAFFNEY: Bob Meehan is just- sits on the right hand of God to most of those people. And to me at one time, that's the way I looked at him.
RATHER: Bob Gaffney was a staff counselor for PDAP. He spent five years in the group. This man, who asked that we not give his name, was in PDAP four years, rising to the high staff post of director of the Dallas branch.
Does the Palmer Drug Abuse Program prepare these young people for reality?
MAN: No. As a matter of fact, we're led to believe that we can't make it without the program, which I think is a- one of the greatest disservices that's done to anybody that goes through the program. Because I think many people who leave, who naturally leave and who could be considered successes of the program, basically fail because the message is there: I cannot succeed without these people and without this program.
RATHER: Is that what is said on the inside, from Bob Meehan right on down?
MAN: Yes.
RATHER: That you cannot succeed without the program?
MAN: Yes, yes.
RATHER: Well, that makes it never-ending.
MAN: Yes.
RATHER: They are two of dozens of former PDAP staff members with whom we spoke. They are all sober and straight and feel the program helped them; but equally, they feel, the program has serious flaws.
MAN: Power has become as intoxicating to some people as perhaps drugs were several years ago.
RATHER: By "some people", do you mean Meehan specifically?
MAN: Yes.
MEEHAN: I don't even like power. I am a powerful person. That is to-- personal power.
RATHER: Well, among the strongest powers is the power to persuade.
MEEHAN: That's right. I have that power. I certainly do. I've been a con all my life. I've just- now I'm using it in a good way. See, that's the only difference. (Laughs) People come in to me and want to sober up, I don't say- they say, "Boy, it hurts when you do that." I don't say, "Don't do that." All right? They come in and they try to act cool, I say, "Hey, don't come in here acting cool. Cool people never get to see me, partner, you know. Cool people out there are making it, so don't come in here telling me you're cool. You know, you got problems or you wouldn't be here. Mama didn't bring you in by the back of your neck because you're cool." That's a con. It's using words he's going to understand. It's communicating. What is my purpose? To get him to think for himself, to be his own man, and make him see where he really is. In that way, I am powerful.
GAFFNEY: They don't look at it like you're coming into this program to recover and move on. They look at it like you have stepped into a better way of life than everybody else in the world has. That's the problem. And if you want to leave, you know there's something wrong with you. Bob, I think, thought that I was really going to be in the gutter with a needle in my arm or something because I was leaving, you know. And they really think that way, you know. To them, when you get to PDAP you have arrived.
MAN: It comes down that major decisions in people's lives-you know, continuing an education, getting a job, getting married, going steady-all involve other people and what they think about it. Basically, you can- you can lead your whole life in the program and never have to make a decision, except that you're going to let somebody else make decisions for you.
MEEHAN: That's a lie. It's very upsetting. I don't know if these people are getting high again and have the need to somehow knock us. I don't know what their situation is. I think if you go and talk to some of the people that are making it and doing fine, you would hear another story. But remember, they're out there making it. They're not sitting around chewing on my tail. They're doing their thing. They don't have time to sit around and talk to 60 MINUTES, because they're trying to stay on the dean's list. You're going to have to hunt them down. Well, you don't have time to hunt them down. So who do you pick on? The losers that are lurked around hoping to get on 60 MINUTES.
RATHER: Well, I gather that you're concerned about the line of questioning?
MEEHAN: Oh, yes.
RATHER: Why?
MEEHAN: It's my baby. It's my baby. I know that everything that happens here is the most positive- one of the most positive moving forces in this whole nation today. I know that, without a doubt in my mind.
I know that just from the shows we did with Carol Burnett and some people, the calls that we've gotten, that people finally took back control of their homes, told their children love does not mean accepting wrong behavior, threw the dope out, took some hot- positive moves in this country that haven't been done in years. You know, I know what we're doing. My problem is, and my mistake is, I've gotten too successful.
RATHER: Being too successful did turn out to be a problem for Bob Meehan. After we broadcast our story, the PDAP board of directors decided Meehan should no longer be the head of the program, although they continue to pay him in his new role in setting up a branch in Los Angeles. The board also banned consultant fees paid to Meehan and other officers of PDAP by the hospitals to which PDAP refers youngsters. However, the organization did accept a-quote-"loan"-unquote-of $325,000 from the owners of those hospitals, a loan which PDAP will pay back by charging the hospitals for counseling their outpatients. They continue to maintain that there is no conflict of interest.
As for young Carrie Hamilton, she has returned to her home in Los Angeles and is active in the PDAP chapter there.
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