Oral history interview with Ronald Williams, 2014

Biographical Note

Ronald Williams is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Stay'n Out. In 1967, he, along with five former addicts, left the detoxification unit of Morris Bernstein Institute (now Beth Israel), moved into 205 West 85th Street and started what would become Phoenix House. He is the author of the Phoenix House philosophy still read today. Williams has continued to develop and work with the therapeutic community approach pioneered at the Phoenix House and is a leader in the field (particularly in prisons)

Scope and Contents

Ronald Williams narrates his early life in a West Indian neighborhood in Harlem and his pathway to substance abuse, incarceration, and, eventually the Morris Bernstein Institute. He describes leaving the Institute with a group of addicts to found Phoenix House. He gives particular attention to the therapeutic community method as it was conceived during Phoenix House's initial stages, and its predecessors. Williams also speaks on Phoenix House's importing of Synanon personnel, and that strategy's effect on the organization

Subjects

• Drug abuse--Treatment--United States.
• Drug addicts--Rehabilitation--United States.
• Harlem (New York, N.Y.)
• Imprisonment--United States.
• Interviews.
• Murphy, Kristin L., interviewer.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Phoenix House (Organization)
• Substance abuse--Treatment.
• Synanon (Foundation)
• Therapeutic communities.
• Williams, Ronald--(Substance abuse counselor)--Interviews.

Access Conditions

Copyright by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, 2014