I Never Had It Made: An Autobiography of Jackie Robinson Page 23

“This place is doing me absolutely no good,” he said. “You’re really just wasting your money. I’m the only addict here. The other people have mental problems. I need to be with some people who have the same kind of problems I have. That way we could learn from one another, help one another.”

  What Jackie was saying was sound. He admitted that he had become an artist at lying his way out of virtually any situation. He could simulate absolute sincerity.

  “I can tell those doctors anything and they’ll believe it,” he said. He was convinced that he could persuade the people in the hospital that he was cured. He did—and he was discharged and went right back to his addiction.

  When Jackie went to trial, he was given two alternatives—prison or enrollment in a rehabilitation program. That was when he joined the Daytop program. I don’t have the words to pay tribute to what the Daytop experience did for him. The people who run the house at Seymour, Connecticut, are ex-addicts, and their dedication to helping others who have become seemingly hopelessly hooked is total. They have gone through all the stages and phases and tricks of the junkie world, and it is impossible to pull the wool over their eyes as Jackie had done with the hospital doctors.

  Jackie was put to stiff tests. He was taken into the Narco Pre-induction Center, and his first assignment was to clean some latrines. All kinds of filthy, revolting, and menial tasks were given him to see how much he was prepared to help himself. The first night he went through the Pre-induction Center, he came home terribly discouraged. He didn’t think he could stand the trials. One of the things that hurt him the most was being told he would have to shave off his beloved beard and mustache. That’s what they do at Daytop. They find out what you like best and then they take it away from you. It is known as making an investment in the program. They are testing you all the time to see if you have enough stamina to face the awful task of curing your illness mainly through your own self-reliance. There was one time when they had him sitting on a stool for hours just to see if he could observe the rigid discipline he was going to need. He convinced them that he was ready and they took him in. That was only the beginning of his ordeal—and ours.

  Jackie was at first admitted to the Daytop installation on Staten Island. The people in charge there immediately warned us of a situation we would undoubtedly have to face. Within a few days or the first couple of weeks, they told us, Jackie would decide that he couldn’t stand the confinement and the regimen and deprivation of dope any longer. He would decide he was going to leave. In all probability he would call us up and ask to come home.

  “When he does,” they instructed us, “here’s the way we want you to handle it. This will be terribly difficult for you to do, but if you want to save your son, you will inform him that he cannot come home; that if he tries to, you will have him picked up by the police the minute he gets to Stamford. You will have his bail revoked and let him go to jail. You will have to say to him that if he refuses, at this point, to do what is necessary to help himself, he’s had it, as far as you are concerned.”

  The advice was chilling. We listened and just hoped the situation would not arise. It did. One night, sometime between midnight and one in the morning, we received the call. The Daytop people were on the line, informing us that Jackie was threatening to leave. We asked to talk to him. The answer was that he wouldn’t speak with us. We asked that the message be relayed that if he left, he would go to jail if he tried to come home. Can you imagine the anguish of being a parent and having to give that kind of a message to a son you love? Imagine the nagging fear that you might have made a terrible mistake—experts or no experts. After all, this was your son. Suppose he didn’t have the strength for this supreme test—the slamming of the doors that had been open to him all his conscious life. Suppose a sense of rejection drove him back out into the streets to find retaliation or temporary relief from hurt with a needle.

  There wasn’t going to be much sleep for us that night. But about three hours later, the phone rang. It was the Daytop people again. They had just finished a long talk with Jackie, and he had been persuaded that it was the wisest thing for him not to leave. We were grateful for the advance advice we had received, which had prepared us to be strong. Otherwise, we would have been right there at the Stamford station, waiting for Jackie to run away from his own salvation.

  Jackie told us much about the Daytop way of restoring life. It’s pretty obvious that a junkie is an individual on a suicide trip. Daytop uses methods that make it impossible to play games. The individual who has collided with the law because he has broken it to support his habit and whose motive to get into Daytop is to avoid prison very seldom gets away with it. He finds he has to commit himself to self-redemption or lose his opportunity of becoming a part of the program. Daytop is centered in a philosophy of the effectiveness of people with common troubles pulling each other up. Daytop is strict—terribly strict. While addicts are in that program they are constantly being taught to be thoughtful rather than thoughtless. They don’t drop a cigarette ash on a floor. They don’t leave lights on or forget to check out. And they don’t get any drugs to help them withdraw. It’s done the hard way—cold turkey. An addict can rant and rave and carry on and a Daytop man will tell him, “Come on, buddy, knock it off.” He can’t regard the man as a cynical, unfeeling person who doesn’t know how he feels. He knows how the addicts feel. Back in the Daytop man’s recent or distant past, when he was ranting and raving, somebody who had once ranted and raved had told him the same thing. The Daytop theory is that the terrible agony associated with withdrawal is not nearly as excruciating as it is pictured on the screen or reported in novels. Within seventy-two hours, Daytop people say, an addict is withdrawn—physically. The body is detoxified and can function without heroin. After that period of time, there are psychosomatic reactions—the runny nose, the watery eyes, the self-pitying conviction that it’s impossible to live without a fix. His weakness, his self-indulgence, no longer has free rein because he is in the presence of others who he knows know the score. In the past the addict, like a spoiled child, has been able to get others to do his will by persuading them that he is in a desperate state. The Daytop gospel is that much too often the roots of addiction are the result of receiving too little love—or too much—equally dangerous.

  The Daytop philosophy states firmly that no one owes the addict a living. He owes a lot to life. And the task of recovering his life is his alone. Daytop avoids what is called horizontal therapy; the addict goes to a hospital, stretches out and gets shot with dextrose for a certain number of days, and is soon back in the streets and back into heroin. Or he lies on a psychiatrist’s couch and equates his needle-sticking with his hatred for his grandmother. Daytop believes in the vertical theory. The addict’s therapist is an ex-addict and he challenges his patients to invest in their own recovery. In a Daytop group anyone guilty of the tiniest bit of hypocrisy gets a merciless tongue-lashing. The entire company jumps in. If a little lie has been told, they magnify it all out of proportion. The addict is made to realize the stupidity of being phony and taught that behavior is not as important as the attitude behind behavior. Drugs are not the problem, the Daytop philosophy says. Drugs are the manifestation and the symptom of the problem.

  All this Jackie learned. All this he absorbed.

  And while he was learning, we were learning that the Daytop philosophy is perhaps the one viable approach to the narcotics addiction problem. It doesn’t supply all the answers, but a check of the results it achieves would make any reasonable person wonder why this program receives so little support from government and private sources. Daytop is understaffed and underbudgeted; it has long waiting lists of people wanting to be helped.

  I was appalled when I learned how little was being done in the state of Connecticut about the narcotics situation. I wrote to Governor John Dempsey and suggested that a massive program be initiated and that such organizations as Daytop be given more help. Given the extent of the problem, the answer was most inadequate
. The governor bragged about all he was doing in the state to fight drugs. His solutions didn’t begin to sound the depths of the problem.

  I went to the baseball commissioner. I thought that, since the drug problem is a big problem among our youth and since baseball has many young fans, it would be a great idea for baseball to indulge in a creative and constructive program, at least an educational program. I thought that at times when games are not being televised—and even when they are—the baseball idols of young people could say a word about the perils of drugs. I was given great courtesy and attention by the commissioner’s office, and I was told what a wonderful idea this was. Later, an educational campaign was launched, but again, given the scope of the problem and the resources of the business, the campaign had not been adequate.

  Every moment of agony we had ever suffered, every fear we had ever experienced, seemed worthwhile on one special day—after Jackie had spent a year in the Daytop program. That was the day that Kenny Williams told us confidentially that he believed our son was out of danger, that he was cured. He didn’t tell Jackie this and he cautioned us against false hopes. It was necessary that vigilance continue to be observed to insure that Jackie did not backslide, as so many do; the fear that an ex-addict will revert to his old habits is genuine. One or two or, sometimes, ten years cannot guarantee that an ex-addict will not be driven back to addiction by weakness or by circumstance. Experts have found, however, that one of the most successful ways a former addict can keep himself cured is through deep involvement in helping others who are fighting addiction. Knowledge of this fact, added to his tremendous gratitude to his Daytop associates, made Jackie decide to become a member of the Daytop staff. He worked at the same Daytop house where he had been helped and did group work on the outside. He gave talks at schools, to young people’s groups, to social clubs, and to church groups. He also conducted a rehabilitation group. We attended some of his activities and felt extremely proud of his development. After Jackie’s death we learned from others whose lives he touched how much of an impact he had been having. He had been clean for three years, and he spoke with authority about all that he had been through—about the way he had become an addict, the reasons for it, the hell into which he had been plunged as an addict—stealing, robbing, pushing dope, pimping—anything to get the money for dope. He had learned at Daytop that the core of the cure was in being absolutely and utterly honest with himself and with others. As a result, when he appeared before audiences, he didn’t spare himself. He was merciless in laying his own soul bare, and because he was willing to be so open about it, he had a conviction and a sincerity which had a powerful effect on those who heard him talk. Jackie, who had learned to love himself properly, was now able to love others adequately. His capacity for loving had opened up.

  Rachel and I had been trying to think of ways to show our appreciation to the Daytop staff. One day, on a holiday late in May, we invited all the members of the Daytop family, perhaps about fifty of them, to a picnic on the grounds surrounding our house in Stamford. They arrived about ten in the morning. Seldom have I seen a more organized group. They had a kitchen crew which went to work and prepared some great salads. They had brought along chickens, watermelons, and other fruits to add to the food we were providing. They had work squads assigned to take care of every detail. Some of those who didn’t have an assignment for the moment were out on the grounds playing ball.

  We were delighted seeing Jackie’s pride in his friends and sensing how much our warmth toward them and their warmth toward us meant to him. He was like a mother hen, supervising the whole affair—the preparation of the food, the games, the cleaning up they did at the end of the day. About four-thirty in the afternoon, they were ready to return to Daytop, and all of them came to Rachel and me saying what a fabulous time they had had, some of them declaring it was the greatest day of their lives. As that line of kids dwindled down, our son Jackie was the last. There was a proud look on his face that put a lump in my throat because I remembered. . . .

  When Jackie had left home to go into the service, we drove him to the train and I suppose I had the thoughts any father has watching his son leave for service. I was proud of him and I was concerned because I knew quite well there was a chance he might never come back. I was worried because I knew that telling him good-bye was rough for Rachel. As he was about to leave us, Rachel reached out and took him in her arms in a loving hug. Impulsively, I wanted to do the same thing. But just as I raised my arms to embrace him, his hand shot up and stopped me, and he took my hand in his in a firm handclasp. In our unspoken language, I knew that the love was there but what he was telling me was that men don’t embrace. And I understood. That had been several years ago. . . .

  Now on the lawn of our home, on the evening of the picnic, our confused and lost kid who had gone off to war, who had experienced as much life in a few short and turbulent years as many never do in a lifetime, that same kid had now become a young man, growing in self-esteem, growing in confidence, learning about life, and learning about the massive power of love. He stood in front of us, the last on that line of thankful guests, and reached out and grabbed Rachel and hugged her to him. His gratitude and appreciation were a tremendous sight. I stuck out my hand to shake his hand, remembering the day of his departure for the service. He brushed my hand aside, pulled me to him, and embraced me in a tight hug.

  That single moment paid for every bit of sacrifice, every bit of anguish, I had ever undergone.

  I had my son back.

  Immediately, after that picnic, began a new era of closeness for the family. Jackie was open in talking with us. He could talk about the shadows of the past because he had faced them and was walking away from them and because he knew who he was.

  We had learned that we had done the right thing in closing ranks as a family. This is what families must do when crisis strikes. Forget about the whispers and stares of neighbors. I especially appeal to black parents because there is a special paranoia in the black communities when it comes to drugs. Most of the kids at Daytop with Jackie were white. Not because Daytop practices any kind of racial discrimination. But black kids are harder to reach because, in general, they grow bitter younger.

  There is another phase of addiction that hits blacks the hardest. That is the addiction which either begins or accelerates while our GI’s are in service. Blacks who volunteer are in proportion higher than their percentage of the population. This seems to mean that more of them proportionately are falling victims to addiction. Jackie appeared to testify before the United States Senate Sub-Committee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency. The date of his testimony was October 30, 1970. Here is Jackie’s statement:

  STATEMENT BY JACK ROBINSON, JR.

  I joined the United States Army for three years in March, 1964. My first duty station was at Fort Riley, Kansas. I was only seventeen years old, and because of my age I couldn’t get into a lot of the military clubs or entertainment establishments the other fellows went into.

  I really didn’t like the types of recreation that were provided by the Army. I found myself very much alone and bored in my off-duty hours. So during these hours I found myself searching for something that would give my time and my life some kind of interest, some kind of meaning. In my searching for these things, I met other people who were pretty much in the same bag that I was in. They were also pretty much lost and looking for something. So we turned to the use of alcohol. We drank quite a bit and began to use drugs occasionally. I guess the only reason we only used them on occasion was because there weren’t really that many drugs out in Kansas at that time, or at least that I knew of, so we didn’t have that much contact with them.

  When we did have contact with them we used them. It was mainly marijuana and a few different types of pills.

  I had smoked marijuana infrequently before going into the Army and during the time just prior to that I didn’t smoke at all. It was in the Army that I got most heavily into drug use, where it became an everyday th
ing with me.

  I got to use marijuana and opium as well as various different types of pills which I got from the medics as often as not.

  In Vietnam we landed at a place called Camranh Bay, and there was no military action for the first couple of months. This is when we started smoking pot kind of slowly. We didn’t really jump into it. We smoked like twice a week in the beginning. And then after a while our use picked up, and as our use picked up there were a lot more people that started using. A lot of people that had never smoked any pot or marijuana when we were in the States started to smoke it then. I guess this was because it was more prevalent over there. There was more marijuana growing wild, and in any village you could get as much as you wanted to. So besides the added tension and added fears that people have to deal with I think the fact that it was so readily available was another reason that started people using so heavily.

  I was in the infantry the entire time I was in Vietnam. I was wounded in action and I saw quite a few different combat missions. Drugs were used on these missions.

  At first when I got over there the drugs were much more powerful than those I had been used to in the United States. I thought at first that I wouldn’t use them when I started pulling guard duty or when I was on combat missions. But as I got used to the more potent high that was created by these drugs I started taking them with me everywhere I went and after a while smoked marijuana or the opium-dipped marijuana regularly. Anyway, it didn’t matter to me if I was on guard duty or going out on combat duty mission. And with me it kind of intensified all the feelings that I had. I was fairly aggressive when it came to fighting anyway.

  I think that the use of marijuana made me want to get into it more. I found myself wanting something to happen, hoping the fighting would start. And I was always looking around, very anxious, very tense. It seemed from what I saw of it, everybody was using drugs.