On July 30, 1957, Father William B. O'Brien, a young parish priest from Tuckahoe, NY on duty at St. Patrick's Cathedral, was fatefully drawn into the seamy world of drug abuse and crime. The mother of a gang member frantically came to the priest for help when her son, along with seven others, was accused of the murder of a rival gang leader. Father O'Brien quickly realized that the common denominator in this, and most other street crime, was drugs. Deeper inquiry revealed an appalling scarcity of programs treating substance abuse with any measure of success.
In the 1950's, the public attitude was "once an addict, always an addict." Neither jail nor hospital stays seemed to make a bit of difference to an addicted person. Father O'Brien started researching other means of treating addiction. One of the places he looked at was Synanon. In 1958, Charles Dederich, himself a recovering alcoholic, started Synanon as a community of recovering people. This system was based on group encounters and addicts confronting each other, demanding self-revelation and responsibility.
Concurrent with Father O'Brien's search, a group of learned men from the Brooklyn Court system was on a similar quest. 
Dr. Alexander Bassin, Chief Researcher for the Kings County Supreme Court Probation Department, was perturbed by the disheartening results of turnstile sentences given to addicts. Dr. Bassin's strength of purpose spurred his boss, Joseph Shelly; criminologist Herbert A. Block; and Dr. Dan Casriel, a consulting psychiatrist with the Brooklyn Court, to a nationwide search for an effective response to the addicts who showed up in their courtrooms. They also saw possibilities in Synanon.
By a fortuitous turn of fate, Father O'Brien and Dr. Casriel chose the same day to visit the Synanon intake center in Westport, Connecticut. What they saw there convinced them that they were on the right track.
Dr. Bassin's team from the Brooklyn Court, based on their findings, applied for and were granted $390,00 from the National Institute of Mental Health on April 15, 1963. This grant led to the founding of Daytop Lodge at Butler Manor, Staten Island. This first rehabilitation facility was designed for 22 male probationers from the Brooklyn corrections system.
The basics of the treatment program were group therapy sessions, role modeling, job assignments and a hierarchy of peers. As residents progressed, they received more responsible duties, and earned more privileges. Those coming after them could see that others like themselves were gaining respect, and that life without drugs was possible. These basic elements have remained, as the therapeutic community evolved to meet the changing populations and needs of the clients.
The early days of Daytop Lodge were stormy with shifting leadership, which culminated in its absorption into Daytop Village, Inc. in October 1964 at Prince's Bay, Staten Island. The Staten Island community was adamantly against Daytop's presence in their neighborhood, and hundreds of residents picketed, and managed to block funding for the new agency for many months.
By now Daytop Village was a full-fledged therapeutic community, whose residents included men and women, arrestees as well as voluntary referrals. As Daytop's success in drug treatment became known, the need for treatment centers grew. Father O'Brien and his Board of Directors began to look at Sullivan County in the Catskill Mountains of New York State for more space. By moving treatment centers out of the city, they also would remove the residents from the temptations of the city. The first such residential facility was Daytop Swan Lake, which opened in June 1966.
In the next couple of years it became evident that there was a problem with more casual drug users, as well as hard-core addicts. In response, Daytop developed its first outpatient center. This facility (or outreach), located in Mount Vernon in Westchester County, New York, opened in 1968 and served residents of the community.
In the late 1960's conflict over the Vietnam war and drug use as rebellion surged throughout the youth population of the country. There was more and more need for rehabilitation programs. Daytop expanded with more residential facilities, and more outpatient centers throughout the New York Area.
As each center opened, there was initial community opposition, but as Daytop proved to be a good neighbor, this attitude changed. Still political resistance continued, sometimes opposing and delaying funding. In 1972 Daytop was completing negotiations for the building that is now Daytop World Headquarters, and funds weren't available for the down payment. Daytop turned to its Family Association, which is an organization of concerned family members of Daytop clients and graduates. Through an incredible effort, they raised the $100,000 needed for that down payment in less than thirty days!
Community support has come and gone and come again. The profile of our clients has changed over the years. The numbers of adolescents using drugs keeps going up, and their ages keep going down. Parents recognize that early treatment can save much pain and trouble later, and so these adolescents are getting help sooner. Employers recognize that trouble on the job may be a sign of substance abuse, and refer their employees to programs for help. Medical, educational and other services have been added to treatment programs to meet the needs of new populations. But Daytop has kept the basic tools that proved successful so many years ago and adapted them to today's changing population. And Father, now Monsignor, O'Brien, still passionately presides over this miracle of amazing change and growth flourishing at our treatment centers.
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