Psychology & Buddhism.pdf

208 Leonard A. Jason and John Moritsugu
In our daily work, we are more likely to deal with every day problems such
as drug abuse. An important question involves how might the Buddhist and community
perspectives enable us to develop more engaging and transforming interventions.
Below, we will provide a case examples of current community-level
interventions, and we will show how attending to the Eco-Transformational
issues might allow an integration of Buddhist and community psychology so that
our interventions are more enduring and significant.
Oxford House
Oxford House was founded by Paul Molloy and a group of men recovering
from alcoholism (Jason et al., 1997). While living in a halfway house in
Montgomery County, Maryland, he saw 12 fellow house members forced to leave
the house because they had reached six months residency, the maximum length
of stay. Of these 12 men, 11 relapsed within 30 days. Paul and the other residents
then received word that the halfway house had lost its funding and would close
within 30 days. After considerable confusion and exchange of ideas with members
of the Alcoholics Anonymous community, the residents decided to rent the
house themselves. Although they initially had wanted to hire a staff person, they
were unable to do so because of the cost. They decided to run the house in a democratic
fashion. They named their community Oxford House, after the Oxford
Group, an organization that inspired the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous.
In discussing the way the house should operate, local A.A. members urged
the residents to keep the house simple. Many had disliked the old halfway house’s
rules. One house member spoke about his experience in a college fraternity,
which had housed 16 men without a house manager. A plan for organizing the
house emerged from these discussions. Members agreed that one positive aspect
of the halfway house had been its reinforcement of sobriety through the immediate
eviction of residents who used alcohol or other drugs. The basic rules of conduct
for Oxford House were, and remain, simple: operate democratically, with
each member paying his or her rent and doing all assigned chores; and stay sober.
Deviation from these rules is cause for immediate eviction. There are no professional
staff members at Oxford Houses, and all costs of the program are covered
by members of the Oxford Houses.
Six months after the first Oxford House was formed, it had accumulated
enough resources to begin a second; members of the second house, in turn, worked
to form a third. Within thirteen years the number of Oxford Houses had grown to
more than twenty. In July of 1988, Congressman Edward Madigan asked residents
of Oxford House for ideas for legislation that would help promote the Oxford
House concept nationwide. After residents testified about their experiences, new
legislation was introduced to help spread this innovation. A provision within the