One character tells how he went for a walk in the park with his girl. They sat down. He held her close. He held her closer. A bird shat in his eye. "What did you do then?"

"I let it slide,"

Confession humanizes and invalidates the image game they all played on the street, so that people can get close together. No matter whose tale is being told, all the players pantomime the story, react, peer, gasp or laugh, so the story teller seems still less alone.

At times The Concept crew acts almost prototypically like the family doctors recommend. Louie gives Augie positive reinforcements. "You got a lot out of your first group. That's good."

But people can't relate to each other only in generalized and public ways. Augie must ask Louie for love. Stephanie must ask Lance. Neither is allowed to merely speak the words. The Daytop group won't let them retreat and slide through the final Marathon encounter. They must scream and agonize until feeling comes through protective bravado.

And it is worth it. Gerry loves Nester, even though she used to "curse and react at him." Nester feels good about it, because it's the first time he's felt loved just for being himself.

Daytop Village, with its encounter-group therapy and treatment of ex-addicts by other ex-addicts, has a 90 per cent cure rate. The Federal hospital at Lexington, Kentucky is three per cent successful. The surrogate family, the supplemental love and caring seem essential. Methadone, government administered maintenance programs for addicts, and jails seem the kind of shortcuts on which everyone gets lost.