My Time at Gateway Recovery System

Delusions of Self Importance and Over Inflated Ego's

My Counselor at Gateway (Rick Rose) a recovering drug addict (and Black) wasn’t fond of my attending the MCC of Greater New Orleans. He is in denial concerning his own bisexuality and went out of his way to force feed Heterosexuality down everyone's throat and especially mine. He is a power freak, has a very bad tendency to make a point and then bury it under tons of innuendo and outright "horseshit". The newly formed group Mental Health created by the NO VA Medical Center for non-substance abusers very soon became dubbed "Mental Anguish".

In the beginning the Mental Health was comprised of those who don't and never had an addiction and consisted of about 15 to 20 veterans. After Rick took over as leader, he slowly started filling the group with former Addicts and Alcoholics, with the assumption that you non-substance abusers "can get some good out of it". Former drug addicts should never be in charge of a non-substance abuse group. They will drag it down to NA (Narcotics Anonymous) and AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) every time. Actual non-substance abusers for various reasons became fewer and fewer. When I left Gateway Recovery in the later part of 2003 there were fewer than 5 actual non-substance abusers.

Rubble, Bubble, Toll and Trouble

It is interesting to note however all of the former addicts that Rick chose to put in Mental Help had their claims awarded in a few short weeks or months. When I left Gateway and Mental Help (A new Heterosexual Black member of Mental Health and Drug Addict) had his claim awarded with pay retroacting to 1968 and Rick Rose was literally crowing like a roster about it. I am not stating this here to be racist, I am stating a fact.

I don’t give a damned how it makes me sound here, but I hope every Damned one of those Addicts lost or does lose those awards. I feel betrayed, cheated and lied to, deceived, and outright fucked over. I consider this as discrimination and favoritism in it's most blatant form.

VA Claims Held Hostage

Of interest also to note here is that when I arrived at Gateway Recovery there were countless claims on VA books waiting for review. Veterans who arrived at Gateway long after I had were given PCG’s almost as soon as they arrived while I was still waiting for one to be assigned. Inexplicably all VA claims pertaining to drug addicts and alcoholics began to mysteriously sail right through to completion and awards. VA claims that were filed long after mine, while my claims were buried under tons of red tape and utter stagnation. I have felt in the past and feel to this day the VA knowingly placed my entire claims in a perpetual holding pattern of limbo.

Wrong Mailing Address & Excessive Amount of Time

My old address of 900 Wills St Morrilton AR became invalid in 1988 when my Mother passed away and I informed the Post Office of my new address as well as CAVHS. Interesting little side note was that when I applied for an appeal to a former VA decision while in LA the VA informed me that an instructions manual had been mailed out to me although they refused to tell me to what address it had been sent. That was on or about the early part of 2002.

The instructions manual finally arrived at my current mailing address here in Morrilton in the final part of 2004, meaning the material had been held somewhere in the Postal Service for over a year. By current postal regulations the material should have been returned to Baton Rouge marked with an invalid or wrong address. The address printed on it was 900 Wills Street, Morrilton AR. The Return address given was somewhere in Baton Rouge LA.