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VTW. Void or prohibited by law. See terms

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and conditions. 18 plus. 18 plus. What began

0:31

as a drug rehabilitation program soon

0:33

transformed into a controversial community. Its

0:36

unconventional methods gained nationwide coverage,

0:38

attracting celebrity interest and political

0:41

support. But over time,

0:43

its boisterous leader shifted the group's

0:45

focus toward profit-making endeavors to fund

0:47

his vision for a utopian society.

0:51

This week's episode is The Cult of

0:53

Sinonon, part one. Up,

1:00

up in the night,

1:02

your heart fills with dread. Probably

1:05

a murderer who wants you

1:07

dead. It could be

1:09

a ghost, a demon, or worse.

1:11

Perhaps you're the victim of a

1:14

witch's curse. It's hopeless, you're doomed.

1:16

You'd call a priest if you

1:18

could. You'd rather just listen to

1:21

who sinister who.

1:27

I'm gonna kill

1:30

you. Well,

1:32

today's the first day of the rest of your life. I

1:35

tell myself that every day when I wake up

1:38

and look in the morning. You wake up and

1:40

look in the morning, the mirror. And

1:42

that's how my week's

1:44

been going. I

1:47

feel like I've lived a lifetime in the

1:49

past week. I don't know

1:51

why. It seems like so. I know. It's so...

1:54

See, I didn't even realize today's Tuesday. Well,

1:57

the eclipse changes things. It

2:00

must have been the eclipse. Well shout out if anyone

2:02

was in the path of totality. We were some 99%ers

2:04

down here, like pretty close to

2:06

all the way. I was like, I'm not driving

2:08

anywhere. Although people that said they were in 100%

2:10

zones, they were like, it was so

2:12

different. But yeah, I think it

2:15

was just darker. It was, I

2:17

thought it was pretty 100% here, but I guess. It

2:21

was pretty dark. Especially, I mean,

2:23

we just went out into our front yard, which

2:26

it was awesome though. Like the

2:30

stillness right before, and

2:32

just how, and I had read how

2:35

birds and animals think it's

2:37

nighttime, so they'll start acting

2:39

different. So you really did, and then

2:42

the street lights came on, and

2:44

the temperature dropped so much, it

2:46

was, I was like, can we just stay like this?

2:48

Yeah, for hours. Now I wanted to come back, because

2:50

I know that we need the sun. We're not trying

2:53

to have an ice age situation.

2:55

But just a couple of hours

2:58

experiencing that would have been very

3:00

cool. And the videos from downtown

3:02

Dallas of people up high on

3:05

hotel balconies, and getting that vantage

3:07

point of the whole downtown just

3:09

going dark. In the middle of the

3:12

day. I know, I told Tommy, I was like, I didn't

3:14

want to deal with the crowds, but I do wish that

3:16

we had seen it from a higher up perspective

3:19

to kind of get the gravity of

3:21

it all. Right, because I was like, oh, being

3:23

on the ground, I'm looking up. We

3:25

have lounge chairs in our backyard that Paris was like,

3:28

no worries, I got the hornet nest out of it.

3:30

That's how often we use it. So

3:32

he's a champ. He cleaned the backyard so that we

3:34

could chill back there. But yeah, I didn't know that

3:36

it would, I mean, it makes sense that it would

3:39

be such a different vantage point, that that would be

3:41

kind of an advantage to be up

3:43

high. But I mean, I thought it was cool.

3:45

And we were both like, of course, that if

3:47

that happened in the year 1500, you

3:50

would be like, God has abandoned us. Oh,

3:52

he's back? It's over.

3:55

And then, yeah, and then when

3:57

it went away, you're like, what do we do

3:59

now? sacrifice half of

4:01

our tribe. Oh no. Yeah, yeah

4:03

it was super cool and

4:05

I hope that everybody got to experience

4:08

at least a little bit of it. Yeah some of

4:10

it or see it on streaming or

4:12

see like some of the pictures NASA

4:14

has put out and there's no shortage

4:16

of eclipse conspiracies, eclipse conspiracies

4:19

out there and that was the I got

4:21

on two TikTok algorithms related to the eclipse.

4:23

One I loved and it was indigenous beliefs

4:25

and cultural beliefs around the eclipse which you

4:27

gave me a lot to think about like

4:29

as it was going on of like the

4:31

concept that the Sun is a life giver

4:33

and while it's gone you should take a

4:35

moment to be grateful and then there were

4:37

people that were like CERN is firing off

4:39

rockets Obama told him to and it's

4:41

like all right CERN it's this that's

4:44

part of the deep state conspiracy

4:46

I think in real life it's

4:48

a laboratory that helps that

4:51

it's trying to do like particle physics

4:53

and like split the atom but in

4:55

conspiracy land it's they're trying to tear

4:57

a hole in the fabric of space-time

4:59

so that the elite cabal can time

5:02

travel and I don't even know well

5:04

I mean if you split

5:06

the atom and all that you might

5:09

accidentally just tear rip the

5:11

fabric of space-time now whether or not you

5:13

want to then let the Illuminati through that's

5:15

up to you so you got a judgment

5:17

call to make at that point funny you

5:19

say that that's definitely one of the conspiracies

5:21

is that in 2012 or 2016 that

5:24

they accidentally ripped a hole in our

5:26

fabric of space-time and that's why shit's

5:29

been fucked since then although I recognize

5:31

the irony discussing this wearing a Denver

5:33

Airport Illuminati shirt I don't really believe

5:35

it I just thought it would be

5:37

funny I like the shirt it's very

5:39

nice I'm

5:41

only on the eclipse

5:44

algorithm of just

5:46

people showing videos and screaming

5:48

wildly while they're taking it

5:51

like this is the coolest thing I've

5:53

ever said and it really is we

5:55

could hear like the schools around here hearing and I

5:57

was like this is it's one of those

5:59

things where you're like, everybody

6:01

is kind of watching this right now.

6:03

So you feel like you're all taking

6:05

place in this like unifying activity. And

6:08

those are always very bonding. We

6:10

were outside with I've met some

6:13

new neighbors never met before. Yeah.

6:15

So Simon, one of our neighbors

6:17

had this big tub of water and they were

6:19

like, this is how they looked at them in

6:21

the olden days. And Simon just proceeded to play

6:23

in it and throw rocks in it. So that

6:26

was good for him. Because like we were like,

6:28

buddy, you can't look up at the sky. You

6:30

don't have your little glasses on. Yeah, it is

6:32

a concern. Every time I saw school children, I

6:34

was like, good. How blessed the teachers out there

6:37

that are like, leave the glasses on. Don't take

6:39

them off. And that didn't go well. Uh,

6:43

yeah, I well, once I got to

6:45

like mostly totality, I think you can

6:47

at least I did 1245. I

6:50

had a look at him. I looked up. I was like,

6:52

that looks crazy. Lift glasses. Ah, oh

6:54

yeah. Yeah. One of my neighbors kept taking hers

6:56

off and I was like, well, this

6:59

Hank Green, like made this whole tic tock

7:01

about how it's going to be like the most

7:03

dangerous eclipse ever because so many people will be

7:06

looking up at it and you don't realize how

7:08

easily your retinas can burn. And that's like a

7:11

forever thing. Like you just have like a black

7:13

spot in your eye, which would be very annoying.

7:15

It was the guy on the news was like,

7:17

we want you all to remember this as a day that

7:20

you spent with your families, not because you have to think

7:22

about it every day because you have a spot on your

7:24

eye staring at it. And I was like, sounds good. And

7:26

then went outside and immediately did it. I was like,

7:28

I just, you know, it was, I wasn't even thinking,

7:31

but the rest of the time I wore my

7:33

glasses and I'm all good and I can still see.

7:35

I think the kiddos, they have them, they

7:37

taped them to a paper plate. Do that.

7:40

And then like put it around their head. So

7:42

like rubber banding, just take them off. Yeah. They're

7:44

kind of, it's like a fun thing and they

7:46

decorate them. And for your own sake, grab something

7:49

and it sounds like maybe you need that next

7:51

year. Yeah, I should have. I should have. It's

7:53

not happening again in our lifetime. 24,

7:56

I have 20 years to learn my

7:59

lesson. But. If you all want to,

8:01

you can look at us just raw. You don't

8:03

need any special glasses to see our eclipses on

8:05

stage for the Full Moon Energy Tour. Yeah,

8:08

our Full Moon. We

8:11

drop our pants halfway through the show. And

8:13

it's always at a different time. So even

8:15

if you've been before, you're

8:17

like, okay, here's where they moon everyone. We're not, we

8:19

mix it up to keep you on your toes. Yeah,

8:21

even if you think you know, you have no idea.

8:23

But if you don't know what we're talking about, you

8:25

probably do. You listen, but you're going to hear it

8:27

again. The Full Moon Energy Tour

8:29

is our comedy show. We're taking on the road. It's

8:31

all about the darker side of the moon, what it

8:33

does to us, what lurks up there, the fucking time

8:35

zone. We're going to add that to it. There's a

8:38

time zone on the moon and what

8:40

people really think happened during the Apollo

8:42

missions. So

8:44

from legend to lore and the mysterious and

8:46

the macabre, we just bring everything together in

8:49

one moon centered fun night. So bring a

8:51

friend. If a friend doesn't even listen to

8:53

podcasts, but they live under the moon, anyone

8:55

can like the show. Yeah. And

8:58

that means everybody. Yes. Everyone on

9:00

this planet can come to this show and

9:02

learn something about something we all rely

9:05

on every day. We do. But

9:07

especially if you're in

9:09

St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee,

9:11

Charlotte, Raleigh, Cincinnati, Cleveland,

9:14

Toronto, Kansas City, Oklahoma

9:16

City, San Diego, Phoenix,

9:18

Las Vegas, and Dallas.

9:21

And then TBD on perhaps a

9:23

few other cities. We're

9:26

figuring that out right now. But for now, these

9:28

are for sure. And you

9:31

can go to sinisterhood.com/live shows

9:33

for all the information on

9:35

dates, times, venues, and more.

9:38

Well, as today is the first day of our

9:40

life, the man who coined that phrase, it's

9:42

the first day of all y'all's life. If you don't

9:44

know about the person we're about to talk about today,

9:46

I was impressed

9:50

that he coined the phrase today

9:52

is the first day. I mean, that's a

9:55

colloquialism that most people know and have

9:57

heard of, but he did. It wasn't

9:59

invented that long. I go and also

10:01

I never know like where those things

10:03

come from you kind of just they're

10:05

like oh it's always been around so

10:07

it's interesting when you're like well that's

10:10

how we got that you're like that

10:12

guy yeah yeah I've never heard of

10:17

this and all of a sudden

10:19

there's a documentary on max docu-series

10:21

the first episodes out it's a

10:24

four-parter and there's also one on

10:26

Paramount Plus yes yeah yeah I

10:28

think two of the max have

10:30

come out I haven't I'm a two of now part of it

10:32

part of way through the second one but we're gonna talk

10:34

about more of that stuff in future parts so the

10:36

yeah the book came out in 2020 from the

10:39

lead singer of the Airborne Toxic Event

10:41

band as he was raised in this

10:43

group and so it's called Hollywood Park so I've been

10:45

listening to that he's very poetic so if you ever

10:47

want to you want a lighter not lighter side but

10:49

a beautifully written cult

10:51

memoir he's a lyricist so his

10:54

work is phenomenal but the this

10:56

group it's giving echoes

10:58

of many groups we've seen but it's

11:01

like different than I've

11:03

ever it's just like where it just takes left

11:05

turns right yeah okay all right

11:07

I'm doing that now it has

11:09

a lot of the cult

11:11

101 beginning but

11:14

you're you're right there are some surprises

11:17

that we'll talk about throughout

11:19

well well I'm Christy and

11:22

I'm Heather and let's get into it Charles

11:25

Diderick was born March 22nd 1913 in Toledo

11:27

Ohio to parents Charles Sr.

11:31

and Agnes Kuntz a classical

11:33

concert singer although named

11:36

after his father junior went

11:38

by his nickname Chuck throughout his life

11:41

from an early age Chuck faced

11:43

tragic hardships and losses his

11:45

father who struggled with alcoholism died

11:48

in a car accident when the young boy was

11:50

just four years old four

11:52

years later when Chuck was eight

11:54

he suffered another devastating loss when

11:57

his youngest brother died from influenza

12:00

When Chuck was 12 his mom remarried.

12:02

He didn't mince words when it came to how he

12:05

felt about his stepfather, telling

12:07

one publication that he loathed

12:10

the man. Still, his mother's

12:12

new maid had a significant hand

12:14

in a major life transformation for Chuck.

12:17

While she tried to raise her son as

12:19

a devout Catholic, the religious teachings didn't resonate

12:21

with him. 14 years

12:24

old, Chuck found his stepfather's copy

12:26

of the outline of history by

12:28

H.G. Wells, later telling the

12:30

New York Times that after reading it,

12:32

he became a militant atheist almost overnight.

12:36

Have you ever read a book

12:38

that that quickly changed

12:41

your life like a whole worldview

12:43

overnight? Not religiously, but I, it's

12:45

funny you say that when I was like this age, when

12:47

I was in middle school, my, I think I've said it

12:49

before on there, the book Tucson prints

12:51

on a corn dog by Mark Lerner was in- I've

12:54

never heard you mention this one. I haven't. I thought

12:56

I had maybe I haven't, but it's called Tucson prints

12:58

on a corn dog,

13:00

Tucson prints, Tucson in prints,

13:03

like the imprints of one's tooth.

13:05

Yeah. That made more sense. And

13:08

it was an, a collection of like absurdist

13:11

essays that were parodies of like New Yorker

13:13

essays, but I didn't know that at the

13:15

time. I just thought they were like outrageous

13:17

and funny as fuck. And I was like,

13:20

you could just like write stuff like this.

13:22

And I was like, and it was also

13:24

around that time that I discovered David Sedaris

13:26

books. So both of those, I was like,

13:29

Oh, I was writing kind of like, I thought you had to

13:32

be like once upon a time, like if you

13:34

were going to write a story. And then it

13:36

was like, you can just write a fun, weird

13:38

essay. And that was very like, like the switch

13:40

just flipped in my head. So I can see

13:42

how at that age, like, you're just like, God

13:44

damn it, I have to go to math again.

13:46

And then you get this book and you're like,

13:48

no, wait a minute. It's very, it's an impressionable

13:51

age, especially. I mean,

13:53

suffering such huge losses by

13:56

the time you're 14. I imagine you're. You're

14:00

searching a lot of places for something that

14:02

kind of sticks with you, that

14:04

resonates with you. So if that can come

14:06

from a book, that's great. In

14:09

the 1920s, people are just telling you everything happens

14:12

for a reason and you're not being like, hey,

14:14

let's process the trauma of the loss of your

14:16

dad and your little brother in such a short

14:18

timeframe. You're just like, well, if God is real,

14:20

he's an asshole because he took my family from

14:22

me and not like analyzing what happened

14:24

and why it happened and all that. So

14:27

I can see how you would just be

14:29

looking for something, an alternative explanation of what's

14:31

being forced on you. For sure. And

14:34

thus begins his decades of

14:36

what he calls, quote, bottled

14:38

up rage. Yeah. That's

14:41

right. What happens when we don't talk

14:43

about our feelings? They

14:45

don't go away. It's just like shaking a can.

14:48

No. And you're right. Back

14:50

then, that wasn't heard up. You know, I

14:52

mean, nobody, nobody talks about it. You went

14:54

to church. Yeah, you went to church. Exactly.

14:56

You prayed for it.

14:59

After already having endured a lost time of

15:01

pain by the age of 14, check

15:04

began turning to alcohol. His

15:06

drinking escalated during his high school years

15:08

and Chuck was already struggling with

15:10

addiction when he graduated. Having

15:13

been accepted into the prestigious University

15:15

of Notre Dame, check attended, but

15:18

dropped out after only 18 months due

15:20

to poor grades and his continuing bottles

15:22

with alcohol. When Chuck was 29

15:25

years old, he was faced with hardship

15:27

once again, after he contracted

15:29

meningitis. He survived the

15:31

often terminal infection, but was left with

15:33

permanent drooping on the right side of

15:36

his face. A disfigurement to

15:38

left him feeling like even more of

15:40

an outcast. Yeah, his, his

15:42

eye was permanently half closed. And they also

15:44

said the whole right side of his face

15:46

would be constantly kind of twitching, which

15:49

I imagine, I mean, that's just like chronic pain that

15:51

you're now left with in addition to kind of

15:54

how badly people not not just backed in,

15:56

but I mean, I think it's gotten better

15:58

now, but any difference in your appearance, you

16:00

were treated much worse back then. Yeah.

16:02

And if you're already struggling with an

16:05

addiction and then something like that happens,

16:07

that's going to send you into a

16:09

tailspin. I went to college with a

16:12

guy who got meningitis from an airplane.

16:14

Oh, wow. God. On the way

16:16

to his grandfather's funeral. Like, what

16:18

a bitch. Jesus. He got back

16:20

and like, he couldn't look

16:23

down. Like that intense neck pain that

16:25

everyone says is kind of like the

16:27

beginning. And he was in the hospital

16:30

for quite a while. And that

16:32

was in like late 90s.

16:35

So I mean, this was way

16:37

before that. And when the medical

16:39

stuff wasn't nearly as good. So

16:42

something like that could have easily taken him out,

16:45

especially with already being in poor health, but

16:47

he survived it. Yeah. And like you said, just

16:49

being, he was a social, he said, you

16:51

know, he drank a lot, but more, it was

16:53

more socially and for fun. And then after that

16:55

mastoidectomy, it was like you said, just numbing the

16:58

pain like, yeah, all the time. By

17:02

the late 1950s, he was drinking heavily

17:04

and working at Gulf oil in sales

17:06

and public relations. In the

17:08

book, the tunnel back check said he

17:10

roared up and down the countryside, drunk

17:12

for 20 years. It wasn't

17:14

until around 15 years later that things

17:17

started looking up for him. On

17:20

May 14th, 1956, Chuck

17:23

attended his first Alcoholics Anonymous

17:25

meeting. He was 43 years old

17:27

and had been living in Santa Monica, California

17:29

for the past three years. His

17:31

marriage crumbling because of his addiction. Indeed,

17:34

this was the second marriage for Chuck.

17:37

His first one having also fallen apart

17:39

because of his excessive drinking, leaving

17:41

his children, a son, Chuck Jr.

17:43

Nicknamed Dee Dee and

17:45

daughters Cecilia Jason, nicknamed Jady

17:48

to live with their respective mothers. Yeah,

17:51

and I think it was the second wife. It was kind of like you

17:53

got to do something. Just go to

17:55

a meeting at least just show me you're making some

17:57

progress. And

17:59

then she was tragically killed, which is

18:01

a whole other story. Yeah,

18:04

I mean, they were another ex-husband, so

18:06

that's kind of when her daughter, or

18:08

when their daughter went to live with

18:11

Chuck later. But yeah, just so much

18:14

tragedy in the one family. Yeah, I

18:16

mean, the daughter was 10 at the

18:18

time and was there when it occurred

18:20

outside of a doctor's office and was

18:22

kind of forced to tell police what

18:24

happened. And yeah, so she tried

18:27

to do right by Chuck, but I think rightfully

18:29

so, was like, you're not really working the program.

18:31

Like, I gotta get out of here. Yeah. Immediately,

18:35

Chuck took to the program, telling

18:37

psychiatrist and author Daniel Cassreel, that's

18:39

all I did. I was the

18:41

first one to speak, and I'd speak all night

18:43

unless they stopped me. Chuck

18:45

diligently attended multiple meetings per

18:48

week and sponsored other members to help them

18:50

get clean. Eventually though,

18:52

Chuck began attending meetings less and

18:54

less. He was barely getting

18:57

by on his $33 a week

18:59

unemployment checks. And the religious aspect

19:01

of AA didn't resonate with him.

19:03

Chuck's daughter from his second marriage, Jadie

19:06

Dietrich Montgomery, told filmmakers

19:08

for the Max docu-series, the synonym fix,

19:10

did the cure become a cult? That

19:13

AA just wasn't deep enough

19:16

for her dad. And also I'm

19:18

suspicious of him working the program

19:21

in this way, where he's not saying I wanted

19:23

to listen, I wanted to be a part of

19:25

it. He's like, I talked the whole time, I

19:27

talked all night. And another member who,

19:29

so he was in AA with some people

19:31

and then, you know, like they later on

19:33

followed him. And one of the women

19:35

that followed him kind of said, yeah,

19:37

in those AA meetings, he was boisterous,

19:39

he was obnoxious, and he would frequently

19:41

come with a woman on each arm.

19:43

The term she used was bimbos. But

19:46

then he was kind of like, to me the

19:48

whole, he gives PT Barnum vibes, like all

19:50

around. I always get a feeling he's trying

19:52

to sell me something. Everything feels

19:54

like he's crafting a story for the

19:57

purposes of selling and pushing a narrative

19:59

to somehow. benefit him, either morally

20:01

or financially and the same. He'll talk

20:03

to like interviewers and be like, A.A.

20:05

was everything. It was my life. I

20:07

was there every single night and people

20:10

were like, yeah, monologuing. Like, yeah, like

20:12

grandstanding, which that's not the

20:14

platform. If you want that and go

20:17

become a minister or something, we have

20:19

a congregation that's there. But A.A. and

20:21

programs of that nature, the

20:24

whole, one of the

20:26

best things about it is like

20:28

that community feeling where like everyone

20:30

is sharing and you learn from

20:32

each other and corroborate. You

20:35

learn from each other and commiserate with like

20:37

similar things you've gone through. So if you

20:39

have one person that's just leading the whole

20:41

thing and nobody else gets a word in, I, first

20:45

of all, we're watching a season of

20:47

traders right now that has a person like

20:49

this on it that just will not shut

20:51

up no matter who they're talking to, interrupts

20:54

everybody. Like nobody can ever get a

20:56

word in and I can't stand him.

21:00

I hope he gets, I hope he gets

21:02

murdered in the show, in the show. But

21:04

that's how this guy is like,

21:06

he liked to hear himself talk and he

21:08

really liked when other people listen to him

21:10

talk. Oh yeah. I mean, people would always

21:13

go. Well, one of the sociologists that wrote

21:15

the book, The Tunnel Back wrote

21:17

the book in the book, he goes in Chuck signed off

21:19

on everything in this. I was like, I ordered this book

21:21

from 1965. I was like, okay, it's like an

21:24

early analysis. And I was like, oh, this is

21:26

propaganda. Great. But in it, he's like, Chuck defies

21:28

description in capsule form. And then the next sentence,

21:30

he was like, he was arrogant. He was hostile.

21:32

He was like, okay, well, there

21:34

he is. He's like, he was 5'10", 240,000, he

21:37

yelled at people. And I was like, that's

21:39

a capsule. You did it. You did

21:41

it. He looked like he could be

21:43

a tough guy. He, you know, always,

21:46

even before the meningitis, he

21:48

just had this look about him.

21:50

Like he was kind of like a bulldog. Like

21:52

he would just very tenacious and always

21:55

smoking a cigarette. So he's always kind of,

21:57

you know, got this like gruffness about him.

22:00

A lot of times he's an overall switch

22:02

I guess was the fashion thing back then

22:04

because there's a lot of overalls in this

22:07

document I got obsessed with overalls and they

22:09

sort of became mandatory later, but it's sort

22:11

of and we'll see as we

22:13

go It's like at all times the group becomes

22:15

a reflection of him But the smoking with the

22:18

overalls with the attitude of screaming in the bottled

22:20

up rage But if I was gonna

22:22

cast him I would say rough up Nick Offerman and

22:24

give him like a crew cut And I

22:26

think he would do well and like if they were gonna

22:28

do a movie version of this Yeah, it would Nick Offerman

22:30

his suite has zero percent personality similarities

22:32

with this guy But physically kind of

22:35

has kind of like stocky

22:37

build like could it looks

22:39

like he was maybe could have been ex-military Or

22:41

something with the crew cut haircut and a lot

22:43

of screaming Yeah, yeah

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24:42

Having achieved the major milestone of one

24:44

year sober and longing for a deeper

24:46

connection, Chec decided to enroll

24:48

as a participant in an experiment at UCLA

24:50

in 1957. The

24:54

first of its kind experiment was

24:56

testing LSD as a cure for

24:58

alcoholism. Profoundly impacted

25:00

by the study, Chec later told an oral

25:02

historian in 1962 that it was the

25:06

most important single experience of my entire

25:08

life. Chec explained

25:10

how using the drug was a breakthrough moment

25:12

for him, unlocking a confidence

25:15

in himself he had never felt

25:17

before. I became a different person really

25:19

and truly. Everything that

25:21

has happened to me since, sending on

25:23

everything, dates from that point. If

25:26

I was one of his kids and

25:28

I heard him say that the most

25:30

important single experience my entire life was

25:32

when I dropped acid in an

25:34

experiment at UCLA, that would sting

25:36

a bit. It's a little

25:39

painful. But I'm glad that it worked out.

25:41

This is a whole other subset

25:44

of things that we

25:46

can't even dig into all of it. But

25:49

people just did all sorts of shit back then.

25:51

It's a very kind of test because

25:54

Timothy Leary and nobody knew what

25:57

the long term effects of

26:00

stuff. So if

26:02

you know, yeah, but it's, it's

26:05

taking one drug and using it to

26:07

replace another drug. And

26:10

then you still run into the

26:12

same problem of addictive behavior or

26:14

becoming addicted to now, a

26:16

potentially even more harmful drug. Yeah, and I

26:18

wasn't sure if it was the

26:20

test was like a one time use and like

26:22

they try to talk you through something while you're

26:25

under or if it's like, here's micro doses for

26:27

you know, however long, but I

26:29

do think it's not shocking though that the

26:31

folks back at the AA group was like,

26:34

Oh, yeah, you can't do that. Like, no,

26:36

we're sober here, man. He's like, no, wait,

26:38

listen to me. And they're like, nah, it's

26:41

a slippery slope. After

26:44

the experiment, Chuck began reading everything he

26:46

could get his hands on that delved

26:49

into the subject, the philosophy and psychology

26:51

being especially fond of Emerson, Skinner

26:54

and throw no longer attending

26:56

a meetings, current members would stop by

26:58

Chuck's apartment to check on him. Check

27:01

use these drop ins as a way to host

27:03

his own type of meetings, waxing

27:06

philosophical for hours to the small

27:08

group. There's more of that salesman shit.

27:10

Like it's reversed though, like it's reversed door to

27:12

door, you come to his door and he sucks

27:14

you in and starts telling you his new idea

27:16

that's better than AA. It's like he can't he's

27:18

never not selling something. Right?

27:21

You just go over to see like, Hey, how

27:23

you doing? We haven't seen you in a while.

27:25

And four hours later, you're like, Oh,

27:27

guess I'll call it a night.

27:30

Yeah, it's like nothing is not a pitch meeting

27:32

to him. But you know what, you're all juiced

27:34

up on Henry David Thoreau, you got to dump

27:36

it somewhere. And the poor schmuck from your

27:38

AA group is the one that knocked on your door.

27:42

The meeting numbers began to grow, as

27:44

did the intensity of discussion. JD

27:47

explained to filmmakers, my dad

27:49

wasn't the kind of guy that was gonna like go through

27:51

all the steps and then you know, do that for the

27:53

rest of his life. There Was a truth that

27:55

he wanted. a kind of confrontation that he wanted.

27:57

And He said, you know, I have this life.

28:00

Kind of bottle that braids. And he

28:02

just started talking to everybody in the room like

28:04

they were horrible. You know, telling him you know, whatever

28:06

kind. Of asshole he thought they were in and

28:08

they lost it. Isn't actually

28:10

serious footage of church so him explaining

28:13

that these meetings with a group process

28:15

that later became known as the Sin

28:17

and On game. Before.

28:20

The Sun and On game came said in

28:22

on itself. The first residential drug addicts and

28:24

program of it's kind in the U S.

28:27

Sets. Apartment no longer big enough to

28:29

hold the meetings, he moved the group

28:31

of quote don't Seem to a rundown

28:34

storefront on ocean parts that he rented

28:36

for a one hundred dollars a month.

28:39

Newcomers. That were struggling with addiction and one

28:41

it helps would show up at the building. Here.

28:44

They. Were treated with respect and understanding.

28:46

Something. They rarely. If ever received

28:49

from the outside world. Insect.

28:52

Wasn't the only one that like the term

28:54

dope fiend I've found in the earth that

28:56

tunnel back but they do case studies on

28:58

early residents like from the Nineteen Fifty Nine

29:00

to Nineteen Sixty Five era and one of

29:02

them kind of push back the sociologists cuts.

29:04

Will you know? Wouldn't you rather call yourself

29:07

an addict in the guy was like no,

29:09

no, my addiction with so bad that there's.

29:11

No other word for it and seemed like. I

29:13

was a bad person. My wife was in labor

29:15

and all I could look over with the dem

29:17

are on the tray and was thinking how can

29:19

I steal the demerol on the trace and then

29:21

I can deal with whatever is going on with

29:23

the babies. That's how bad it I was. I

29:25

am a dope fiend and I will always the

29:27

one and I'm always gonna be in recovery. Not

29:29

like I'm not one to be like you can't

29:31

use that word. Season one that was another guy

29:33

had been doing opiates and seem like and nineteen

29:35

twenty was a Guinness sixties by this point and

29:37

he was like that's the only word for it

29:40

like actually it's only thing I think about so

29:42

events such sure like to. Be like these,

29:44

don't see that unlike lot different when

29:46

you say you've never been one of

29:48

the and he. even

29:51

though he had an addiction with

29:53

alcohol he it was kind of

29:55

this weird like he thought he

29:57

was above them because he wasn't

29:59

a don't faint, his addiction was

30:01

alcohol. So he treated them in this

30:03

kind of like childlike way. And even

30:05

a lot of the younger members would

30:07

call him like dad. Yeah. And

30:10

stuff, which that made me

30:12

start teetering on, OK, we're

30:14

getting into real, about to

30:16

be problematic territory. But it's

30:19

just this weird mindset of

30:21

like, well, I'm trying to help these people. But

30:24

also, they're totally beneath me in like the

30:26

scum of the earth. He's treating them better than

30:29

anybody else was. And they're providing a

30:31

place where they can like detox and

30:34

get help and talk to other people

30:36

that are going through what they're going through. No,

30:38

I mean, you're exactly right. He did treat them

30:40

better than going to jail or being sent to

30:42

a mental institution and literally putting a straitjacket

30:44

for however long the court said you had

30:46

to be there. But you're right, the mom

30:48

and dad thing was strange. An early woman

30:50

was named Adeline Anway. And

30:53

she became a board of directors member of

30:55

synonon. And her dad had been the governor

30:57

of Nebraska. She had married a doctor. And

31:00

her addiction to opiates was she was taking

31:02

her husband's drugs out of his bag. So

31:04

she looked really presentable and very not like

31:06

sort of the average dope thing that was

31:09

shoeless, walking down the beach with a 5

31:11

o'clock shadow just sort of mumbling. I mean, she

31:13

was a functional hype was another term

31:15

that they used. And they called her

31:17

mom. And they called Chuck dad. And in these

31:19

old articles, he would just be like, they're like

31:21

infants. They come to me like babies. They lay

31:24

on the couch. They can't feed themselves. They

31:26

soil themselves. They throw up. I

31:28

am there for them. And then I raise

31:31

them to become our kids will grow. And

31:33

we will grow our kids until they can

31:35

become self-sufficient and leave. But you're right. It's

31:39

like, there's a reason why mental health

31:41

practitioners don't do that and personalize

31:43

it and be like, not just a

31:45

professional can help you, but I am

31:48

the one to help you. I'm your

31:50

dad. Yeah. And also, in finalizing someone

31:52

to where, I mean, yes,

31:55

they're soiling themselves and throwing up

31:57

because they're withdrawing from these drugs.

32:00

And they call it kicking it a lot.

32:02

I never heard that term, but that's one that

32:04

most of the people use that have gone through

32:06

this. So to

32:09

kind of tout yourself as

32:11

like the person

32:13

who's allowing all of this to

32:15

happen and I'm the giver

32:17

and the provider, well, again, that's Colt101

32:20

practicing. Yeah, that like I'm your life

32:22

giver. And he would say like, you're

32:24

free to leave any time. But

32:26

one of the guys said every night when

32:28

he said goodnight to me, he wouldn't say goodnight to me.

32:31

He would say, I'm going to say goodbye to you tonight because you won't be here in

32:33

the morning. And then in the morning

32:35

he would go, oh, well, goddamn, are you

32:37

still here? And the guy said, this presented

32:39

a challenge to me. And

32:42

I believe that I had to stay there. And

32:44

I'm like, I think that we would call that

32:46

nagging. Like we're like, you're such a loser. You're

32:48

probably going to leave tonight. Anyway, goodnight. And then,

32:51

oh, wow, you stayed. Hmm. Interesting.

32:54

And it's like, very manipulative. Yeah.

32:57

A lot of like psychological

32:59

warfare that he, when

33:03

you start doing that stuff and I mean,

33:05

I guess he's read these books or whatever.

33:07

But when people start messing with your noodle

33:09

and they don't know what you're doing, like,

33:12

they don't even understand the gravity of like

33:14

the damage that they're doing that might not

33:17

ever be able to be undone. It's the

33:19

Dunning-Kruger effect in overalls is Chuck Dietrich.

33:21

Like he just was like, I read enough books.

33:23

I can do this. Nobody else is doing this probably

33:25

because they're stupid. I'll do it. And

33:28

it's like, you're not doing it. A Brokebox write

33:30

twice a day. Some people it worked. Not all of

33:32

them. Not many of them. A lot of

33:34

people loved it. And in the docuseries, a lot of people

33:36

say it saved their lives. And I

33:38

think for a lot it did. That can't

33:40

be discounted. For a lot though, it

33:43

hurt them and then later hurt their kids. Mm-hmm.

33:48

Laying on a dingy couch in the middle

33:50

of the room, residents would stay until they

33:52

kicked or detoxed. There

33:54

were no doctors or psychiatrists present or

33:57

medications or drugs given to help with the pain

33:59

and disorder. comfort. Rather,

34:01

those addicted had to kick on their own,

34:04

always surrounded by fellow syn-Anon members.

34:07

This approach spoke to the core

34:09

tenant of syn-Anon, that people struggling

34:11

with addiction needed, quote, tough love

34:13

in order to get clean and

34:16

stay clean. Yeah, they just

34:18

had people watch them in like six hour

34:20

shifts, just making sure they were okay. It

34:22

did throw me off at one point

34:25

in that tunnel back book, they said

34:27

they quit cold turkey with sympathy, massages,

34:29

eggnog and observation. Oh,

34:35

man, I can't ever imagine a case

34:37

in which eggnog is the right answer

34:40

for somebody that's violently

34:42

ill. I thought I was like, was that

34:44

a typo? No, it was not a typo.

34:47

Oh, yeah. No, later on, they said, yeah,

34:49

they gave them eggs, pancake syrup, unless

34:51

they will ask for something else. But like that was,

34:54

again, it's just a guy being like, because one

34:56

person probably did well with eggnog. And he's like,

34:58

well, that's the stuff we got to give it

35:00

to everybody now. Like, I think that's the problem

35:02

is that the sample sizes here of what he

35:04

was doing was always so small, that he'd be

35:06

like, Oh, it works for everybody. You're like, I have

35:09

heard before that, I think

35:12

I ran into this working at

35:14

the domestic violence shelter, because

35:17

there was a woman that was detoxing

35:20

from heroin. And I believe her

35:22

caseworker would get

35:25

chocolate for her because there

35:27

was something about chocolate that like made

35:29

some of the withdrawal symptoms a

35:32

little less bad. So maybe

35:34

it's something with high amounts of

35:36

sugar or something that yeah,

35:38

maybe I don't know. That's

35:40

all just speculation memory. Combining

35:43

the words seminar symposium

35:45

and anonymous one member

35:47

coined the word synonym.

35:50

It seemed fitting that a member was

35:52

the one to name the group given

35:55

its functionality with one former resident Mike

35:57

gimbal telling filmmakers for Macs the program

35:59

was helping addicts. The concept

36:01

was new and revolutionary. Indeed,

36:04

Sydenon was fundamental in helping to

36:06

change the stigma surrounding people struggling

36:09

with drug addiction and their ability

36:11

to be helped. Not only was it

36:13

free, but prior to Chuck's approach,

36:15

many people in need of these services were

36:17

left to die on the streets alone. And

36:20

that's what Chuck's theory was. Addiction is

36:23

contagious and non-addiction is contagious. So he

36:25

wanted to facilitate this empathy, but he

36:27

also said addicts are pathological liars. They

36:29

can make a psychiatrist climb the walls,

36:31

but they can't lie to us because

36:33

we've been there. And so we have

36:36

the answers. We invented those answers. We

36:38

don't moralize and tell people they're wrong.

36:40

We're just trying to help people find

36:42

themselves. So he always had these phrases

36:45

that sounded so good and

36:47

so helpful. And I can

36:50

see why on the surface if the other

36:53

option is, I think they said one treatment

36:55

program nearby was kind of new, but it

36:57

was like $500 for five weeks, which was

36:59

so expensive at

37:01

the time. So only really wealthy people could afford

37:03

it. And if you're not, you just ended up

37:05

in jail, a mental institution or on the streets.

37:08

And so for him to come at it with

37:10

this, he's a salesman. He's selling it so great.

37:12

Like facially, all of this,

37:14

you're like, good for him. Wow, he's great.

37:16

But it was also working for a lot

37:18

of people. I mean, you know, at the

37:20

time it was what

37:23

some people needed. And the only place

37:25

where they felt accepted and they

37:28

knew that they could go back, even

37:30

if they like relapsed or as

37:32

we'll see later, they really did feel like I

37:35

got to stay here if I want to stay clean, which

37:38

can often lead to another

37:40

form of control. If you convince people

37:42

that the only way you're ever

37:45

going to stay clean is if you live here forever,

37:47

which just isn't, that's not

37:49

sustainable. You have families to go back to. You

37:51

got jobs, you got to go to and everything. So that's

37:54

when you need some doctors and

37:56

psychiatrists and people that know how to work

37:58

these things long term. and to

38:00

transition from one area

38:03

to a sober living house

38:05

and then living on your own, et cetera.

38:07

But yeah, you're right. And I think the

38:09

problem was he made all these claims of

38:12

at first it was a 43% success rate I found in 1959, but

38:16

they had 52 total members. It's such

38:19

a small sample size. And

38:21

it also means that a majority

38:23

goes back to it. So it doesn't work for a

38:26

majority of people. They start to change the numbers. And

38:29

it was like 75% people on drugs and

38:31

then 25% people just with alcohol

38:33

problems. But he would just

38:35

make all these claims of like, I'm the only one doing

38:37

anything and what I do works better than anything.

38:39

And you're like, well, does it?

38:41

Like it statistically doesn't. You

38:44

get it working for a number of cases. But for

38:47

those people that it did help, it truly did save

38:49

their lives. Multiple interviews where people are like, I would

38:51

be dead. So it's again, it's like broke clock thing.

38:53

It's like, okay, we'll work

38:55

for those folks. But in

38:58

July of 1959, an incident occurred called

39:02

the Big Cop Out, according to

39:04

the Tummelback. Many in

39:06

the group admitted to Chuck they had been

39:08

using drugs in secret. The

39:10

term copping out in Sennon-Lingo was

39:12

adapted from prison culture. Members

39:15

were encouraged to tell on themselves and

39:17

one another or cop out. As

39:20

opposed to prison culture, this type

39:22

of copping out was looked favorably upon

39:24

at Sennon-Lung. Chuck had impassioned

39:26

and frank discussions with the members

39:28

about their failings and his disappointments

39:30

in them. These talks

39:32

evolved into what he had first

39:35

called the Sennonon and later called

39:37

the game. Yeah, some guy

39:39

was caught using

39:41

on premises and was just gonna leave. And two men

39:43

like confronted him and started yelling at him. And then

39:45

he's like, well, I'm not the only one using that

39:47

guy's using. And then the other person goes, well, he's

39:49

using too. And they're like, well, so is that guy.

39:52

And the one telling you not to leave and talking

39:54

shit to you. And then it literally everyone started just

39:56

screaming at each other that someone went and woke up

39:58

Chuck. And he was like. We're dealing

40:00

with this now everyone's staying like sit around in

40:02

a circle and then really just started

40:04

one one by one Saying

40:07

okay. We're gonna start with you. Kenny. You're the one

40:09

that was leaving everybody. What do you what's your problem?

40:11

It was like a fucking festivus. It's like an airing

40:13

of grievances. Yeah, or lord of

40:15

the flies. Yeah, it it's and

40:18

when Drugs are involved

40:20

intentions are high and everyone's given just

40:23

a pass to yell and say whatever

40:25

they want That is a recipe for

40:27

a lot of shit. That's gonna

40:29

start getting stirred up. Oh, yeah Sisterhood

40:34

will be right back Well,

40:37

it's that time again, it's spring it's

40:39

gonna be summer from we're all wearing

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sandals we're wearing flip-flops We're walking around

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do the kids say these day sleek brand's

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40:58

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41:02

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your first mani

43:02

system. Chugs

43:05

treatment was centered around the game.

43:08

A type of attack therapy that

43:10

involved yelling, swearing, and expressing your

43:12

deepest feelings. Players were

43:14

to be completely honest regardless of

43:16

how painful it was to oneself or

43:19

other participants. If someone was

43:21

not being honest, they were attacked

43:23

mercilessly by the group and called

43:25

out for any perceived hypocrisy. Sessions

43:28

were similar to AA meetings where the

43:31

participant sat in a circle. The

43:33

player who was being gained would be

43:35

the target of the group's ire. I

43:39

don't have the thick enough skin

43:41

for this. No, this

43:43

isn't for me. I'm a words of affirmation

43:45

person by reverse, like

43:47

negative words. I'm crushed, I

43:50

can't. No, yeah. Especially

43:52

I don't do well with being yelled at either. Like,

43:54

not at all. But that was

43:56

part of it. They said basically like, you could

43:58

swear all you want. during the game but

44:01

nobody really swore outside of it and in fact you could

44:03

get in trouble for swearing outside of it. But

44:05

you had to be in the hot seat. Like if you

44:07

were gonna participate in the whole syninon deal, you couldn't be

44:10

like, well I have, but I don't really do the game

44:12

part, I just do the rest of it. It was like

44:14

mandatory and it was mandatory to

44:16

take your licks and be in the hot

44:18

seat and get fucking screamed at and being,

44:20

once a dumped emotional garbage gets dumped out.

44:23

Oh yeah, it's just like a trauma

44:25

session. I don't love that it's

44:27

called the game either because that just has

44:30

an implication of, it's

44:33

a literal game to you. Not even

44:35

fun but it's like this mind

44:38

fuck, like a mind game type

44:40

of thing and none of this

44:42

is a game. Addiction isn't a game, trying

44:44

to get help after addiction. So

44:47

that alone I find

44:49

problematic and then when

44:51

the game is you

44:53

being told you're a huge piece of

44:55

shit for like 20 minutes straight but

44:57

then you walk out of

44:59

there feeling, honestly I wrote down in my

45:01

notes, I was like, it's like Fight Club

45:03

but with words. Yeah, people just

45:06

wanted to like, wail

45:08

on each other. Yeah and just had

45:10

all this anger and saying to them

45:12

because talk therapy wasn't a big thing

45:14

then or these

45:16

people are down on their luck, they

45:18

can't afford stuff like that. So they

45:21

have an outlet to just scream and

45:23

get all this rage and anger out

45:25

with no repercussions. It's

45:27

like a rage room. My only problem

45:29

is in a rage room

45:31

you're like throwing plates and using hammers to

45:34

bash out windows and stuff, this

45:36

is directed at another human being

45:38

that has feelings. No,

45:41

you're right and it was brutal, it was

45:43

horrible to watch them do it. It's hard

45:45

to watch, yeah. But Chuck, his

45:47

argument was, surgery

45:49

and amputation are brutal too but you

45:51

have to do these things to get better and

45:54

to heal and so it's necessary. I would argue,

45:56

I think he liked it. I think he liked

45:58

screaming and I think he got. someone

46:01

called it sadistic gratification, I would agree

46:03

with that. He said, you have

46:06

to just trust me that my

46:08

motivations are pure and that I'm

46:10

doing it, I'm immune to sadistic

46:12

gratification. He said, probably more

46:14

so now than the early days, I'm like,

46:16

so you admit it, you admit it that

46:18

you liked it. Also, how is anyone immune

46:20

to something like that? I guess

46:23

he'd done it so much, but he's like, I don't enjoy,

46:25

he called it giving someone a haircut when he would holler

46:27

at him either in the game or like in person. He's

46:29

like, it's really hard work to do that. I'm

46:31

like, you fucking love it, you love it.

46:33

It is hard work, it is exhausting

46:36

to yell at someone because it doesn't

46:38

feel good for most people. So

46:41

that's why most people don't do it. Yeah,

46:43

it's true. I mean, the argument everyone

46:45

made was like, if I can take it, because some

46:48

people loved it and were like addicted to it, ironically,

46:50

like they couldn't wait to go back,

46:53

they couldn't wait to do these sessions.

46:55

Well, it's that addictive personality, if you

46:57

have an addictive personality, it's not limited

46:59

to just drugs or alcohol. I mean,

47:01

that's a big scope. So yeah, you

47:03

get addicted to the adrenaline rush and

47:05

getting that feeling of like, rared up,

47:08

raring to go, you're

47:11

saving up all your stuff all week for what

47:13

you're gonna say. And I

47:16

get it, I get how it could be helpful.

47:19

I wish instead of yelling at other people, it

47:21

was kind of just like yelling

47:24

at an empty chair about all of the things

47:26

that are going on with

47:28

yourself. Yeah, you don't have targets or

47:30

not making it personal to others. Like everybody's

47:32

just kind of talking about

47:34

themselves. Yeah, it was very personal.

47:36

And I didn't think about

47:39

this, because I was like, oh, everybody

47:41

just like to yell. No one wants

47:43

to be yelled at. But one of

47:45

the residents said to the sociologist Yablonsky,

47:47

he said, you

47:49

like to be, he hollered at a little bit, because it

47:51

makes you feel like somebody cares. Like if

47:53

you're, everyone in your family is like, I don't give a

47:55

fuck about you, go die on the streets. And

47:58

then all of a sudden someone's like, come on Jake, why? You just work

48:00

in the program. We're all here for you, man. You're kind

48:02

of like people care about me They

48:04

are all here for me so I can see

48:06

why there's just cuz I was at first like

48:08

I'm not trying to get yelled at But if

48:11

you are kind of rock bottom desperate for some

48:13

feeling like somebody to feel something about you and

48:15

you feel isolated You probably like it.

48:17

Yeah, I mean this guy did at least yeah And

48:19

I mean if you've been numb for a

48:21

long time like a breakthrough like

48:24

that. I could be helpful for some

48:27

And it definitely was I because

48:30

the crazy thing about the max docu-series

48:32

is most of it

48:35

is Actual footage that was

48:38

from when it was going on.

48:40

So seeing these recorded meetings of

48:42

the game happening are Wild

48:46

and I wrote down some

48:48

quotes. Yeah, that people were

48:50

just screaming at each other One

48:53

person to another you are a

48:56

minimum daily motherfucker, which is such

48:58

a roast That's a good one. And then

49:00

he replies that is bullshit. And then she

49:02

says you're gonna grow up you old asshole

49:05

So I mean and this is like that's

49:07

a tame kind, you know Yeah at

49:10

the top of their lungs you're saying it.

49:12

We're not bursting people's eardrums out. It's just

49:14

like they're screaming Yes, everyone's

49:16

smoking just constantly I

49:19

mean no one doesn't have a cigarette Everyone

49:22

has a cigarette at all time The

49:25

three rules where you can't do drugs or alcohol You

49:27

can't hurt anyone physically assault or threaten assault and

49:29

there were free cigarettes Like that was like they

49:32

would be like you can have as much cigarettes

49:34

and coffee as you want Well,

49:36

I mean, yeah in that again

49:38

that addiction, you know goes it goes

49:41

in hand in hand One

49:43

person yelled you cheap fucking

49:45

pompous cocksucker. You fucking cheap

49:48

motherfucker this fucking guy. I

49:52

Got kids in the next room. So I'm trying not to

49:54

scream No, I'll it's

49:56

gonna be like is everything. Okay. Hey

49:58

mom, who's a cheap motherfucker? and you're

50:00

like, listen, this guy in 1959. But

50:03

it's funny because these are things

50:05

that we might yell at allowed

50:07

in our car alone after something,

50:09

somebody fucks our order up or

50:11

something. But to have an open

50:14

door to yell that at a person, there must

50:16

be a type of catharsis, I don't know. I

50:18

think there is. I think that, I

50:21

think tutors can be held

50:24

at the same time. And for many, this was

50:26

cathartic. And the

50:28

first time they had felt these emotions,

50:31

and they get out that bottled up

50:33

rage that they've had for so long.

50:36

And then others, probably

50:39

there was, you know, sadistic,

50:42

voyeuristic kind of enjoyment of getting

50:44

to see other people maybe get

50:46

yelled at. And maybe, and some

50:48

do, like the feeling

50:50

of being yelled at. I mean, even there

50:52

are people that pay for that kind of

50:54

stuff today. I'm not trying to kink

50:57

shame here. Yeah, no, I think it can and could

50:59

be helpful. I

51:03

just think with anything like this,

51:06

there has to be regulations in

51:08

place. So, yeah, so it

51:10

doesn't get out of hand and then, you

51:12

know, horrible shit starts happening.

51:14

No, you're right. I mean, I think for some

51:16

of them it felt good to get it out because like we

51:19

said earlier, when you had trauma, it was just like, oh, I

51:21

don't know, just go to church. Also, could you just not talk

51:23

about it? Just get over it, follow it down. And so by

51:25

1959, people were like, I've been

51:27

swallowing shit for decades. They were ready

51:29

and this gave them that

51:31

out that they needed. But then they also

51:34

did that pickup afterward where they would like,

51:36

I mean, they were friendly. They're eating donuts

51:38

together afterwards. Like having coffee. The

51:40

immediate switch from

51:43

being screamed at and screaming at someone

51:45

to just like, all right,

51:47

and now that's over and we're all cool is

51:50

something that I struggle

51:52

with. Like I'm not capable of just

51:54

switching my emotions that quick, but

51:57

they, maybe that was one reason.

52:00

it was kind of called the game. And so it

52:02

was looked at as like, no, it's over. This is

52:04

the thing that we do, that we play right now.

52:06

And then when it's over, we don't

52:08

do that anymore. And then you have to go wait again

52:10

until we play it to do that. The

52:14

other one I had was a male member to

52:16

a female member and a

52:18

pretty aggressive and threatening tone was like,

52:20

I want you to get honest. And

52:22

I mean the demand that you get

52:24

honest. You want to live around here.

52:27

You want to live in synonym. Start

52:29

to play the game. Mm hmm. And

52:31

it has that. It was a challenge

52:33

for people. A behavioral modification

52:36

as well. I was like, you got

52:38

to do this as hard as possible

52:40

or we will throw you out. Yeah, yeah. And

52:42

that kind of became like a bullying

52:44

thing too, of like, oh, you don't want to play it

52:46

where we're going to kind of force you. And

52:49

then when the children

52:51

get involved, that's when I noped

52:53

out of the documentary because it is one thing

52:55

to watch a bunch of adults go at each

52:58

other who want to do it to 12 year

53:00

olds that are being forced to do it. Oh,

53:02

that's just heartbreaking in there. Their psyches

53:05

aren't made for that. That's what's up.

53:07

No, yeah. And they'll tell you that

53:09

in their memoirs. And yeah. One

53:15

technique called the carrom shot allowed an

53:17

attacker to mention the issues of not

53:19

only the player being gained, but also

53:21

others in the circle with similar problems,

53:24

Chuck encouraged pile-ons and what he

53:27

called. Backing the play. The

53:29

nastier, the better, as he said in

53:31

synonym materials, the introduction of obscenity and

53:34

blasphemy into a meeting is what made

53:36

the synonym game. That was the big

53:38

deal getting that lack of inhibitions. Everything

53:42

was fair game except physical

53:44

violence. This would be like

53:46

if me and you and Tommy and Paris were

53:48

playing this and you were yelling something at me

53:50

that I did, but that also Tommy or Paris

53:52

did. And you'd be like yelling it at me

53:54

and you'd be like, did you hear what I

53:56

just said to her, Tommy? Did you hear like

53:58

that? So it's just like a path. aggressive

54:00

way of like it's like

54:02

when people like vague book and it's like who's

54:04

this intended for because we all know that you're

54:07

talking directly to one or two people with this

54:09

post and then other people yeah then other people

54:11

in the group would be like yeah tommy did

54:13

you hear and also paris you might want to

54:16

think about that as well just a little bit

54:18

and it's like this i'm just sitting here everybody's

54:20

catching the straight yeah members

54:24

would spend at least three nights per

54:26

week in these so-called synonym sessions playing

54:28

the game for a total of around

54:30

30 hours per month chuck

54:33

told a news reporter in archival footage

54:35

the meetings provide an emotional catharsis an

54:37

emotional release which can result in insight

54:40

into the problem because the answer to

54:42

the person's problem is within himself in

54:45

synonym literature chuck mused the game is

54:48

a big emotional dance and it's like

54:50

a dream it's random some

54:52

dreams are nightmares some dreams are awfully

54:55

pleasant sinister

54:58

hud will be right back well we

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persuasion, and brain washing. Those

57:29

who deviated from the group's norms were

57:31

pursued aggressively until they complied

57:34

with the community's values. Well,

57:36

it's like that quote of like, you got to play this game. And

57:40

this is when it's not a game anymore.

57:42

It's becoming a requirement

57:45

to receive this quote unquote

57:48

treatment at this facility. Like

57:50

some people might just want

57:53

respite, like a night, a place to like

57:55

crash on a couch for a couple nights

57:57

where they don't think they're going to get

58:00

you know, harmed. And then it's like, well, if you

58:02

want to stay here, you got to come to this

58:04

meeting, we're all going to tell you what a piece

58:06

of shit you are. Yeah, they had like daytime

58:08

meetings where they had to learn like, they

58:10

would put a quote from like Nietzsche on

58:12

the board and be like, or Henry David

58:14

Thoreau or Ralph Waldo and everything and be

58:16

like, we're going to discuss this all day.

58:18

And then you had to basically like debate

58:20

not screaming, but it's like an intellectual debate.

58:22

So it's like now it was all about

58:24

this like proving debating and I genuinely think

58:26

it's because Chuck Dieterich loved that he wanted

58:28

to be the smartest person in the room,

58:31

just like his AA but now everybody has to do

58:33

what he says all the time. This is like his

58:35

dream come true. It does

58:37

seem a bit self serving. It also

58:40

reminds me of the Sarah

58:42

Lawrence guy, Larry Ray, who just like

58:45

wanted to just wax poetic

58:48

and wax philosophical all night

58:50

with these college students and would force them to

58:52

talk and it's that's

58:54

you're doing this for the wrong reason. You're doing it

58:57

for you. Yeah, you're doing it for you.

58:59

And you're like masquerading

59:02

it in this way, like it's beneficial

59:05

and helpful for all but really, it's

59:07

just like a lot of the

59:09

things you're interested in all jammed into one game.

59:11

Yeah. And also like getting convincing people at this

59:13

point, it was all free, but shortly here in

59:15

a minute to like give you money to do

59:18

the thing that you want to do. All

59:20

right, that's a good scam. We figured that

59:22

one out. Thanks, guys for listening. We've seen

59:24

that one a million times. The

59:27

Cendon Foundation was incorporated as a non

59:30

profit foundation in September of 1958 and

59:33

granted tax exempt status in 1960. While the

59:37

Cendon program was technically free, new

59:39

residents were encouraged to donate as much

59:42

money as they could to help keep the

59:44

organization operating. Though if

59:46

someone had no assets, they weren't turned

59:48

away. With very little

59:50

revenue, the residents ate lean and solicited

59:52

donations for food and basic needs.

59:56

Residents spent all their time together, both

59:58

socially and while up necessities

1:00:00

for the group. Daily morning

1:00:03

meetings began with the synonym prayer, which

1:00:05

was adapted from the writings of St.

1:00:07

Francis. Please let me first

1:00:09

and always examine myself. Let me

1:00:11

be honest and truthful. Let me

1:00:14

seek and assume responsibility. Let

1:00:16

me understand rather than be understood. Let

1:00:19

me trust and have faith in myself and my

1:00:21

fellow man. Let me love

1:00:23

rather than be loved. Let me

1:00:25

give rather than receive. There's

1:00:29

a lot of nice things in there. Yeah, I

1:00:31

mean he stole a lot of good like text

1:00:33

like Emerson was great. He had a lot of

1:00:35

great quotes from Emerson and Thoreau. It's just that

1:00:37

he was like, and then also scream at each

1:00:39

other and give me all your money. Yeah, that's

1:00:41

another part of it. But he I think frame

1:00:44

this up as this is he that's why the

1:00:46

book is called a tunnel back because he said,

1:00:48

synonym is a tunnel back to the human race.

1:00:51

And in the first like two or three years, he was

1:00:53

like, you're going to get in here. We're going to help

1:00:55

you save money. He talked about like, they gave a lot

1:00:57

of their money to us to operate the facility, but

1:00:59

we encourage them to have savings accounts and we would

1:01:01

have them get jobs and we would help them figure

1:01:03

out, okay, here's how you're going to get a car.

1:01:05

And within two or three years, he'd be like, my

1:01:08

kids will be able to graduate. And you're like,

1:01:10

my kids, they're not your kids. You also

1:01:12

go be a dad. Your

1:01:14

actual kids might have something to say about that.

1:01:17

And who you never see at this point.

1:01:23

In August of 1959, the

1:01:25

Ocean Park building was condemned and

1:01:28

bulldozed after multiple code violations. Seeking

1:01:31

a new home, Chuck and his fellow

1:01:33

65 members moved into the former

1:01:35

National Guard Armory Building located

1:01:37

on the beautiful Santa Monica beachfront.

1:01:40

For rent of $500 per month, they had

1:01:42

plenty of space for all residents and

1:01:44

a large enough kitchen to feed them

1:01:46

all cheat meals. Though Chuck

1:01:49

didn't have the revenue yet to support the

1:01:51

venture, he believed it would come. His

1:01:55

new neighbors in this nicer part of

1:01:57

Santa Monica weren't very welcoming. The

1:02:00

concept of a residential treatment facility for

1:02:02

substance use problems didn't exist in the

1:02:04

1960s. Drug

1:02:06

addiction was seen as a moral failing,

1:02:08

and the common belief was once a

1:02:10

drug addict, always a drug addict. Plus

1:02:13

Santa Monica was still racially segregated,

1:02:15

and Sennanon's willingness to admit anyone,

1:02:18

regardless of race, also upset

1:02:20

residents. The armory's location

1:02:22

directly on the beach meant all

1:02:24

residents of any race had full

1:02:26

access to the beautiful coastline, while

1:02:29

the beach remained segregated in other

1:02:31

areas. Angry neighbors

1:02:33

campaigned against Sennanon, upset that

1:02:35

an integrated facility for dope

1:02:38

fiends was in their backyards.

1:02:41

The other thing about Sennanon is it's always like, they

1:02:43

do something that are like, we're here for racial

1:02:46

integration, we like interracial marriages, and I'm like, great,

1:02:48

me too, and then they do something else, and

1:02:50

you're like, yeah, I don't agree with that, or

1:02:52

like, we want to treat people who have substance

1:02:54

use problems as humans that deserve kindness and love,

1:02:57

and I'm like, yeah, and they're like, and also

1:02:59

should give us all their money, I'm like, uh oh, oh

1:03:01

no. There's a, you know,

1:03:03

like with any beginning

1:03:05

of a cult, there's all these good things that

1:03:07

you're like, yeah, we all agree with that, I

1:03:09

mean, that's how everybody gets drawn

1:03:12

in and then things start

1:03:14

to unravel a bit. But yeah, I imagine

1:03:16

if you got like a nice beachfront house,

1:03:18

and then they're like, without knowing like, the

1:03:21

Sennanon residents were actually very peaceful, they didn't like,

1:03:23

cause trouble, the problem is that like, if someone

1:03:26

wanted to quit, and then like, went right out

1:03:28

there on the street, but the crime rates and

1:03:30

drug rates were what they were, Sennanon didn't bring

1:03:32

crime or drugs there, but they were like a

1:03:34

big ass building you could point to and be

1:03:36

like, that's why there's hypes everywhere. Yeah.

1:03:40

Within months, enough residents complained that the

1:03:42

city brought an enforcement action. That

1:03:45

believed the group was being unfairly persecuted.

1:03:48

A five month long trial began in October of

1:03:50

1959, with

1:03:52

Sennanon and its board of directors

1:03:54

facing charges of running a hospital

1:03:56

without a license and related zoning

1:03:58

violations. After three years

1:04:01

of appeals, Chuck was finally convicted

1:04:03

and sentenced in October 1961. He

1:04:07

was given two options, probation,

1:04:09

conditioned on his stepping down from

1:04:11

synodon and it vacating the premises,

1:04:14

or jail. Chuck

1:04:16

chose jail, in a move that positioned him

1:04:18

as a martyr in the eyes of the

1:04:20

group's residents. He was sentenced to

1:04:22

90 days, but was released in 25. During

1:04:26

his time away, member and Chuck's girlfriend,

1:04:28

Betty Coleman, stepped up and kept the

1:04:31

group running. Residents

1:04:33

grew even closer with this new

1:04:35

us versus them mentality, feeling

1:04:37

persecuted by both outsiders and the

1:04:40

local government. This

1:04:42

drug on and on,

1:04:44

but they had this trial where they

1:04:46

would have UCLA psychologists coming in and

1:04:49

saying, like, synodon is great and it's

1:04:51

changing lives. Then they had allegations from

1:04:53

certain parts of the neighborhood, didn't like

1:04:56

them because of potential crime. Other parts

1:04:58

was like, people sitting around in

1:05:00

a circle talking about their feelings sounds like

1:05:02

communists to me. I was like, all right,

1:05:05

not everything is communist. Also,

1:05:07

are they talking about their feelings? Or

1:05:09

are they just screaming at each other?

1:05:12

Kind of, maybe that's more like communism

1:05:14

because they're all just sitting around really

1:05:16

angry and yelling at each other. Then

1:05:19

they would have former members come in

1:05:21

in a negative way and say, well,

1:05:23

actually, it's not just a rehabilitation facility.

1:05:26

There's a bunch of sex stuff going

1:05:28

on, including just

1:05:30

allegations that sexual relations were a

1:05:32

regular part of treatment. Those

1:05:35

in recovery were urged to participate in

1:05:37

sex acts with members of the opposite

1:05:39

sex to get closer. They

1:05:41

said that Chuck controlled all sex acts between

1:05:43

even married couples that the board of directors

1:05:46

and Chuck had to approve it. I

1:05:49

know. Imagine going to him tonight. I'm

1:05:53

trying to fuck. I'd like to have sex with

1:05:55

my husband. Is that okay? And he's like, tell

1:05:57

me how you're going to do it. And you're

1:05:59

like, okay. Again, this is no self-serving.

1:06:01

This is no longer like we're trying

1:06:03

to help people. It's like we're trying

1:06:06

to get, like

1:06:08

people's deep dark secrets, you know, for

1:06:10

our own self-gratification and control. And gratification,

1:06:12

I think he loved it, but they

1:06:14

said they had a quote unquote TV

1:06:16

room with this broken television in it

1:06:19

so that whenever like psychologists or politicians would come

1:06:22

and tour, they would be like, and this is

1:06:24

our TV room. The TV's broken right now, but

1:06:26

it's no big deal. Anyways, okay, we're gonna take

1:06:28

you over here. But secretly the TV room was

1:06:30

like the fuck room. The smush room?

1:06:32

And the smush room and you had to make. And that's what they

1:06:34

called it in Jersey Shore? Yeah, the smush room and you

1:06:36

had to make an appointment. Oh.

1:06:40

Yeah. You gotta sign up for

1:06:42

the smush room. The smush room's booked. Sometimes it's

1:06:44

booked and you gotta wait your turn. You

1:06:46

gotta wait that, Chuck said, absolutely not,

1:06:49

that would never happen. Quote, we're not

1:06:51

that stupid, but I don't know. He

1:06:53

seems like he was pretty loose with stuff and

1:06:55

pretty controlling. Stupid or not, I

1:06:57

think you get a

1:06:59

bunch of consensual adults together,

1:07:03

things are gonna happen, relationships are gonna

1:07:05

form. I mean, it's human nature, so

1:07:08

it's not surprising that that goes on. Which is

1:07:10

fine with that. I think, although I think that

1:07:12

some would say if you're in certain stages of

1:07:15

treatment, you shouldn't be engaging in romantic relationships so

1:07:17

that he gets in the way. I don't know.

1:07:20

Yeah. I'm okay with everyone hooking up

1:07:22

if they want to. The part that

1:07:24

I don't like is him having control

1:07:26

over it and you having to get

1:07:28

permission. Again, he is a

1:07:31

leader, a deity. A dad. Yeah,

1:07:33

a dad, ooh. The a

1:07:35

dad that you gotta go ask

1:07:37

if you can have sex. Yeah, and

1:07:39

someone alleged there's a lot of mentions

1:07:41

of like, edible complex and stuff in

1:07:44

the group. So they were basically framing

1:07:46

it, some of the angry neighbors at the

1:07:48

trial were framing it as like, there's weird sex stuff going

1:07:50

on in here. They're telling us

1:07:53

it's helping people kick their addictions, but

1:07:55

we think it's probably a

1:07:57

little bit more and guess what? They weren't wrong. weren't

1:08:00

spot on. It was more than just

1:08:02

rehabilitation. Sinisterhood

1:08:06

will be right back. Okay,

1:08:10

round two. Name something that's

1:08:12

not boring. A laundry? A

1:08:15

book club? Computer, a

1:08:17

scapula chair, huh? Ah,

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chumbacasino.com and live the Chumbalife. Politicians

1:09:12

across the country, including John F.

1:09:14

Kennedy, were defending Chuck and praising

1:09:16

Sinonon as a miracle. Its

1:09:19

reputation as a new cure for

1:09:21

the scourge of drug addiction began

1:09:23

attracting celebrity attention. Guest

1:09:25

speakers included Twilight Zone creator Rod

1:09:27

Serling, author Ray Bradbury, and original

1:09:29

host of The Tonight Show, Steve

1:09:32

Allen. Other celebs stopped

1:09:34

by like Star Trek actor Leonard

1:09:36

Nimoy, Jane Fonda, Charlton Huston,

1:09:38

and Milton Burrell. Chexaras

1:09:41

garnered donations from its celebrity

1:09:43

supporters. The governor of California

1:09:46

even signed a bill that exempted

1:09:48

the group from registration for providing

1:09:50

addiction treatment. Corporate donors

1:09:52

chipped in as well, including Chrysler

1:09:54

and Dow Chemical. Man,

1:09:56

Chuck was good. He knew to get celebrities.

1:09:59

You're in California. Yeah, and

1:10:02

a lot of celebrities that were struggling

1:10:04

with their own addictions would also go

1:10:06

there. They had a certain dance move

1:10:09

called the hoopla, the synonym hoopla. And

1:10:11

these famous jazz musicians at the time

1:10:13

who were struggling with their own addictions

1:10:16

would come there and then just play. And

1:10:19

so you have this private concert, so everybody's just

1:10:21

up and dancing and the hoopla would be like,

1:10:24

just let yourself go. And

1:10:26

then you have this different

1:10:28

expression and nobody's judging you. Honestly,

1:10:30

watching that part, I was like, this

1:10:33

sounds a lot like improv. A place where

1:10:35

you feel like you can be yourself,

1:10:37

like everyone's going to support you. Somebody

1:10:40

would do some crazy dance move

1:10:43

and everybody would start doing it.

1:10:45

And I can understand having been

1:10:47

in a place where you want

1:10:49

that camaraderie in that community, like

1:10:51

how important and inviting that can be. So

1:10:54

I get that people would

1:10:56

want to be there. And they started hosting

1:10:58

every Saturday night. They opened it up to

1:11:00

the public. So it wasn't just the hottest

1:11:02

ticket. Yeah, you could just go. And I'm

1:11:04

sure there's probably people that

1:11:07

want to go and see what it's all about from a

1:11:10

kind of morbid curiosity standpoint as

1:11:12

well. And I think too, Chuck

1:11:14

was like, yeah, we're having this

1:11:16

amazing, famous jazz musician play every

1:11:18

Saturday. Come hang out. Did

1:11:20

you want to join? Like, don't you struggle with something?

1:11:23

You've had a couple of drinks. Everything

1:11:25

became recruitment. But he was

1:11:27

a marketing guy. His

1:11:30

original job was marketing and sales. And

1:11:32

so the whole time it was like

1:11:34

bringing in. He had the reason

1:11:36

why the governor signed that bill. He had one

1:11:38

politician that he convinced to come and visit and

1:11:40

then explained it was so good. And

1:11:42

that one politician helped him whip up support.

1:11:45

He had a whole ass bill passed just

1:11:47

for his organization. That's how smart and powerful

1:11:49

he was with this whole framing. He would

1:11:51

just frame it as like this amazing thing.

1:11:53

No one else is doing this to get

1:11:55

JFK to be like, we all should be

1:11:57

as good as Donald David like

1:11:59

that. You did. So like you did something he's

1:12:01

doing something at least right. Yeah, but again like

1:12:03

the numbers don't back it up He made all

1:12:05

these claims that it was like we have 90%

1:12:07

like there's 90% success and like

1:12:09

no you don't like that Yeah, patently false,

1:12:11

but also you couldn't really test it So

1:12:13

people just believed him and like it was

1:12:15

the drug addiction problem was so bad that

1:12:17

the state parole board I think it was

1:12:19

the director of the state parole board said

1:12:22

I will literally try anything that's reasonable and

1:12:25

This is fine. Like the state doesn't have to pay

1:12:27

for it. The people seem happy They get to go

1:12:29

to jazz shows like whatever let them go there. That's

1:12:31

what I was gonna say I

1:12:33

think a lot of the success he found

1:12:36

is because of the time that it

1:12:38

was the first of its kind and in

1:12:41

a time where like people were like We

1:12:43

got this problem. We don't know what to do it and then

1:12:46

some guy comes along and he's like, hey I

1:12:48

got this new radical thing and it

1:12:50

seems to be working and I you

1:12:52

know am a former addict myself So

1:12:55

I know what I'm talking about and everyone's like,

1:12:57

okay Well, let's throw all of our eggs

1:12:59

in this basket for a while and see

1:13:02

how that works out It's all about like

1:13:04

the timing was like, it's like, of course

1:13:06

now people I mean, I don't know

1:13:08

some people would still be into this and there are

1:13:10

probably groups like this that do exist but I don't

1:13:12

think it would be as Widely

1:13:16

positively covered in the media. Yeah,

1:13:18

and definitely not as unvetted by

1:13:20

politicians who were like, oh,

1:13:22

oh, there's a drug treatment thing Okay, just like

1:13:24

we'll just send everyone there now and you're like,

1:13:26

oh you didn't really even vet that at all

1:13:28

I get they just went he said it worked

1:13:30

and we toured it and everyone seemed really nice

1:13:32

and everybody there on the tours wanted it To

1:13:34

succeed because that's where they live So they were

1:13:36

all great on the tours and they put on

1:13:38

a really great face because he had whipped up

1:13:41

with this whole like the neighbors hate us thing

1:13:43

he I mean he went on to sue the

1:13:45

mayor of Santa Monica because Even

1:13:47

though they were allowed to stay in their place.

1:13:49

There was just the residents didn't like them There

1:13:51

was always complaints at City Council meetings and Chuck

1:13:53

used such hyperbolic language. He's like these nuts are

1:13:55

trying to kill us Like using

1:13:58

terms like that to whip everyone to

1:14:00

this very cohesive, like if you know, you know community. And

1:14:02

it's like Rod Serling stopped by last week just saying, and

1:14:04

it was like, well now I want to be a part

1:14:06

of it. And it's like, we don't have an addiction. So

1:14:08

it's like, fine, I just wanna, can

1:14:11

I come to a party? And he was like, yeah,

1:14:13

come to the party. So you just get, it just

1:14:15

starts getting more exclusive feeling that people wanna join. That

1:14:18

us versus them again. In

1:14:21

1963, Chuck married Betty Coleman,

1:14:24

a former sex worker who had once

1:14:26

been addicted to heroin. The

1:14:28

marriage between Chuck, a white man,

1:14:30

and Betty, a black woman, was

1:14:32

controversial. And though legal in California,

1:14:34

remained illegal in several other states.

1:14:37

In archival audio, Betty explained. The old

1:14:39

man and I started going together. People

1:14:42

were just in shock. I was a

1:14:44

dope fiend and I was prostituting. It

1:14:46

was an interracial relationship. We kind

1:14:48

of made a statement to the world. We refused to

1:14:50

hide our light under a barrel. To

1:14:54

increase revenue for the organization, Chuck

1:14:56

began sending residents out to so-called

1:14:58

hustling jobs. Residents would

1:15:01

go to businesses and homes, explain

1:15:03

how Syninon had saved them from

1:15:05

addiction and solicit donations. One

1:15:08

former resident, Mike, told the Syninon

1:15:10

Fix, "'People gave us everything.' The

1:15:13

residents received items ranging from

1:15:15

cowboy boots, soap, cotton, and

1:15:17

sheepskin, to live fish, Christmas

1:15:19

trees, and a Cadillac convertible.

1:15:22

So much beef was donated, they

1:15:25

needed a full-time butcher department. People

1:15:28

were giving them whole ass cows."

1:15:30

Oh yeah, it

1:15:33

was a wild time. And I guess, and

1:15:35

they said, Mike said, when

1:15:38

you go in and give this

1:15:40

spiel, like who's not gonna donate

1:15:42

to that now again? Now, probably

1:15:44

fewer people, if they were approached in

1:15:46

this way. More cynical. Back

1:15:48

then, it wasn't as common.

1:15:50

So, I mean, somebody came in with this

1:15:53

story and you were like, well,

1:15:55

I got all these Christmas trees that

1:15:57

haven't sold. Y'all want some of these? They're

1:15:59

like, sure. We'll take whatever. I

1:16:01

have 5,000 live sardines and they're like, all

1:16:04

right, in the sit-in-on movie, which we'll talk about

1:16:06

shortly, he takes the phone call and he's like,

1:16:08

uh-huh, all right, sounds good. And

1:16:10

he hangs up and he's like, they're giving us

1:16:13

25 tickets to Disneyland. And

1:16:15

it was just like, because people would do that. They

1:16:17

would just wanna donate something in kind. And I think

1:16:19

in the, I can't remember if it was the

1:16:21

second or third year, they took in $200,000 in cash, but

1:16:24

$800,000 in donated services and goods. Yeah,

1:16:30

that's a lot, a lot.

1:16:32

Mm-hmm. Hustling worked.

1:16:35

Although the organization was an officially

1:16:37

registered 501c3 nonprofit, Chuck

1:16:40

told the company's chief financial officer, accountant

1:16:42

Ron Cook, I run sit-in-on like a

1:16:44

business, like Gulf Oil, referring

1:16:47

to his former employer. In

1:16:49

just a few short years, sit-in-on

1:16:52

went from its residents subsisting on

1:16:54

peanut butter sandwiches to owning multiple

1:16:56

gas stations and apartment buildings. All

1:16:59

were soft by sit-in-on residents who worked

1:17:01

for room and board. In

1:17:04

1964, the group opened a new location

1:17:06

in West Marin County, just

1:17:08

across the Golden Gate straight from

1:17:10

San Francisco in Northern California. And

1:17:13

so he was trying to open places

1:17:15

in New York and Detroit and like having

1:17:17

these new, having the groups pop up all

1:17:20

over the world with the money and revenue

1:17:22

coming right back to Santa Monica where he was

1:17:24

at. That's kind

1:17:27

of how we've seen most of these that

1:17:30

like open up branches and it's like,

1:17:32

well, but it's all coming back to

1:17:34

one person. Yeah. Yeah, he lived

1:17:36

all right. He lived pretty good. I think he was taking a

1:17:38

couple million bucks a year. Chuck

1:17:41

touted sit-in-on's enormous success rate for

1:17:43

the formerly addicted, claiming that 80

1:17:45

to 90% of participants remained

1:17:48

drug-free after leaving. However,

1:17:50

he avoided soliciting donations or grants

1:17:53

from government entities who

1:17:55

often had stringent evidence requirements for

1:17:57

such claims. For instance, a... 1964

1:18:00

study by the New Jersey Drug

1:18:02

Study Commission found synonym success rates

1:18:04

were actually around 10 to 15

1:18:07

percent in line with federal

1:18:09

hospital programs. Former

1:18:11

synonym president Liz Masakian later

1:18:14

testified that 90 percent of

1:18:16

newcomers quit within a year. So

1:18:18

yeah, again, you have these grand claims and then when

1:18:21

it's like, okay, can we see the documentation? He's like,

1:18:23

I don't want your money. It's

1:18:26

that's for sure. Yeah. I

1:18:28

mean, if you can just make up whatever numbers,

1:18:30

then I mean, there's no

1:18:33

accountability. How do you know what's, you

1:18:35

can't believe anything. No. And

1:18:37

that 1964 study I got out of, it's called

1:18:39

The Light on Synonym and it's by, we'll get

1:18:42

to him in a later, a Pulitzer Prize winning

1:18:44

publication, but they broke down every single number and

1:18:46

that was over, it was a study of a

1:18:48

thousand different participants. So it was like a thousand,

1:18:50

one thousand and seventy two or something like that.

1:18:52

So it was a pretty good sample size as

1:18:54

opposed to like the 50 or so he

1:18:56

was originally touting. So he's like, 90

1:18:58

percent of people, they stay, they stay drug free

1:19:00

forever. You're like, I don't think they do. No.

1:19:04

And I think we've already learned that because you

1:19:07

found out from your, the residents

1:19:09

that are there that most

1:19:12

people are doing drugs in the house, like

1:19:14

while they're doing drugs and coming back. So

1:19:16

I think a lot of people were

1:19:19

not drug free and he, you

1:19:21

know, I mean, everyone in that

1:19:23

position is going to lie to get the

1:19:25

funding that they want. Mm

1:19:29

hmm. Nevertheless, Synonym received a flood of positive

1:19:31

attention in 1965. It

1:19:33

was featured in a productive light on

1:19:35

the national TV program, CBS

1:19:38

reports, further boosting public

1:19:40

awareness and support. Later

1:19:42

that year, a major motion picture called

1:19:45

Synonym, fictionalized Chuck's life and

1:19:47

the group. The movie

1:19:49

frame, synonym is a life saving program.

1:19:52

Academics, journalists and psychology experts

1:19:54

were all touting synonym as

1:19:56

the greatest breakthrough in psychology

1:19:59

since Freud. In an

1:20:01

era marked by the human potential movement,

1:20:03

Chuck was front and center providing a

1:20:05

cheap alternative to other treatments. But

1:20:08

soon, his attention shifted from

1:20:10

these so-called dope fiends who helped

1:20:12

him build his empire to wealthier

1:20:14

members and increasingly violent intentions well

1:20:17

beyond any rehabilitation. So

1:20:21

what do we think? Well, first I

1:20:23

watched Cenon on today, the 1965 movie. With

1:20:26

Eartha Kitts? He was, first of all,

1:20:28

I wrote my notes. I wrote her hair is impeccable. Her acting

1:20:30

is a 10 out of 10. She is

1:20:32

an icon. She plays Betty. Chuck

1:20:35

plays, what's something, Edmund O'Brien plays Chuck.

1:20:37

He was a famous actor back then.

1:20:40

It was filmed at the actual armory. So it's

1:20:42

like you see the inside of it. The screenwriter

1:20:44

lived with them while he wrote the script. I

1:20:47

would just like to say 100% is propaganda. Nothing

1:20:50

but propaganda. This movie is

1:20:52

centered around this main character. Oh,

1:20:54

well, yeah. The main character

1:20:56

guy is on, he's doing heroin very

1:20:59

viscerally, literally boiling it, shooting it up

1:21:01

on... The one who's Chuck? No, no,

1:21:03

no. There's a lead guy that's

1:21:05

kind of like Mr. Everyman, like Mr. Guy off

1:21:08

the street. So he and his friend, they happened

1:21:10

to overhear a meeting where Chuck says, we cure

1:21:12

people. We drink a hell of a lot of

1:21:14

coffee. We smoke a hell of a lot of

1:21:16

cigarettes, but we cure dope addicts. That's what

1:21:18

he says. So the guy goes, of

1:21:20

course, there's a beautiful woman named Joni who's been

1:21:23

10 months sober. She's watching over him. He's like

1:21:25

his owl shift or whatever it's called. And

1:21:28

he hits on her relentlessly. He's like, I'm

1:21:30

a great lover. And she's like, oh, and

1:21:33

they sign up. So the

1:21:35

spots are going fast. Tell me what time

1:21:37

you're available. But then it's funny because it's

1:21:39

like, if you come to Sennon

1:21:41

on everybody's nice. They give you peanut butter sandwiches.

1:21:43

Though she literally says, you want a peanut butter

1:21:45

sandwich? And he goes, no. And she goes, there's

1:21:48

two kinds of dope beans. Those that'll take the

1:21:50

peanut butter sandwiches and those that end up dead

1:21:52

on the streets or something like that. They go

1:21:54

right back to it. So it's basically like get

1:21:56

in, get in or get out. Like do what we're

1:21:58

all doing. So of course. They end up

1:22:01

sneaking up to the rooftop and banging. I

1:22:03

mean, he begins to like, the lead character

1:22:05

begins to like, kind of do all this

1:22:07

stuff like, he lets them cut his hair,

1:22:09

he shaves off his mustache, he's participating. But

1:22:12

then this guy, I called him Lurch in my

1:22:14

notes. He was just really tall and looked

1:22:17

like Lurch. It might've been the actor, I don't know, it was back in

1:22:19

the day. But he rats her out to Chuck for

1:22:21

fucking, and so the lead character

1:22:23

and Joni get in trouble, and the lead

1:22:25

character starts juicing, which is what some members

1:22:27

would do, which would be to go to

1:22:29

get cough syrup from

1:22:31

the drug store and would drink cough syrup

1:22:33

with each other. So Chuck goes

1:22:35

ape shit and yells at the guy. The

1:22:37

guy ends up leaving. He then, because he

1:22:39

ignored the rules, he goes back to the

1:22:41

mean streets. It's very much an afterschool special.

1:22:44

He's back on drugs. Yeah, sorry

1:22:46

guys, spoiler alert for this 1965 movie. Joni

1:22:49

comes in and she's like, catches

1:22:51

him, he overdoses. Meanwhile, Lurch was

1:22:53

following Joni the whole time, follows

1:22:55

in, and he's like, Joni, he's

1:22:57

dead, leave him. So she's all

1:22:59

upset. She's also gone back to doing drugs because she

1:23:01

wasn't listening to Chuck like she should have. So then

1:23:03

she's like, I'm gonna go turn a trick right now

1:23:06

so that I can get some dope. How do you

1:23:08

like that? And then she runs off through the park.

1:23:10

Lurch runs after her, and I was like, this is

1:23:12

menacing. I know it's for a good purpose, but he's

1:23:14

chasing her down. But then at the

1:23:16

end, she acquiesces. She goes back to sending on

1:23:18

with him, and the final scene is they're all

1:23:21

literally in the room together, which is the actual

1:23:23

room where they would play music at. Singing and

1:23:25

like, swaying with each other. And it

1:23:27

looks like the end of It's a Wonderful Life. And

1:23:30

then the end card says, Chuck

1:23:32

Dieterich spent 25 days in jail

1:23:34

for violating a local zoning ordinance.

1:23:36

Seven parolees living drug-free in Sinonon

1:23:38

were ordered out by the authorities,

1:23:41

out on the streets. And the next

1:23:43

card says, but Chuck returned to

1:23:45

build Sinonon into a national movement.

1:23:47

Today, there are hundreds of people

1:23:49

working and growing with Sinonon, living

1:23:51

because of Sinonon. Columbia Pictures

1:23:54

is grateful to Sinonon for the opportunity to

1:23:56

film this picture, where it all began. Well,

1:23:59

yeah. That definitely sounds like propaganda. It was

1:24:01

all just like it's a movie about what

1:24:04

it's like. I was like, yeah, bitch. It

1:24:06

was Yes,

1:24:08

it was Chuck was a genius the book the

1:24:10

Tunnelback was an advertisement this is so you can

1:24:12

see why if you were just like a Brush

1:24:15

familiar with it. It's like oh, yeah, I saw

1:24:18

that movie or like oh I heard of that

1:24:20

You would be like they should stop he's being

1:24:22

persecuted. So then for the people that are in

1:24:24

it in this microcosm They're like see everyone's on

1:24:27

our side. Columbia Pictures made a film about us

1:24:29

this very if Kim kiss John

1:24:31

F Kennedy endorses it that's what I was

1:24:33

gonna say is like The

1:24:36

donations from like these

1:24:38

big corporations and these celebrities I'm

1:24:41

sure that a lot of them were

1:24:43

well-intentioned But also it's giving a little

1:24:45

self-serving like everybody wants to jump on

1:24:47

the cool thing like the new trend

1:24:49

the bandwagon And so it's like oh

1:24:51

well Lucille

1:24:53

Ball stopped by cuz she would stop by

1:24:55

really well then I gotta go like, you know

1:24:57

And then like it gets out to we'll

1:25:00

talk about in the second episode squares Which

1:25:02

are people that do not have addictions, but

1:25:04

they just want to be part of the

1:25:06

game. He gets out to them It's like

1:25:08

Lucille Ball sir. Okay. Well, I'll

1:25:11

go down I'll go down and get yelled

1:25:13

at and scream if it means I might be you

1:25:16

know rubbing shoulders with Rod miller Oh,

1:25:18

yeah, like you know that if I could hang out with

1:25:20

Rod, Sterling, I'll say that that's my ticket Yeah, that's my

1:25:23

like level. You're like you told me I'm

1:25:25

just Exactly.

1:25:27

I'm Disassociating but no he

1:25:30

would take photos with them too And so

1:25:32

then in the entryway there would be photos

1:25:34

of him with all these celebrities So again,

1:25:36

you're just like oh I'm just here for

1:25:38

like a Friday or a Saturday night, you

1:25:40

know concert They also started in the early

1:25:42

1960s throwing these concerts at like non They

1:25:45

weren't at the synonym houses what they called it.

1:25:47

They weren't at the Armory where everybody lived

1:25:49

They would have concerts at like actual

1:25:51

bandshells, which of course the city got pissed

1:25:54

off about But you can't have content-based restrictions on

1:25:56

speech because you're the government first amendment yada yada.

1:25:58

So you had to let's send it on and have these

1:26:00

like benefit concerts. So then you're going to

1:26:02

these like very cool benefit concerts and that again,

1:26:04

we'll see in part two, even

1:26:06

if you did not have any addiction, it became this

1:26:08

like, if you know, you know, like, oh, you're a

1:26:11

gamer too, I'm a gamer too. You're being the cool

1:26:13

club. No, it's because

1:26:15

of marketing, because he framed it as being a

1:26:17

cool place. He turned a drug rehab place into

1:26:20

like a cool club that everybody wanted to join.

1:26:23

It reminds me of, I

1:26:25

can't remember what Chuck Polonic

1:26:27

booked where it's like the

1:26:29

rich people get their

1:26:31

kicks by going

1:26:33

and dressing

1:26:35

as unhoused people, people experiencing homelessness

1:26:38

and then like living on the

1:26:40

streets because

1:26:42

they're so rich that like that's

1:26:44

how they, it's like the most dangerous game. It's

1:26:46

like, well, when you have everything, what are you

1:26:48

going to do? I'm going to hunt a man,

1:26:50

you know? And it's like, oh, okay,

1:26:53

well, this is the cool thing to be doing right now.

1:26:55

Well then, okay, we're all going to be involved in this,

1:26:58

no one's really like sussed it out to

1:27:00

see how legit it might be. You

1:27:02

just kind of hear like, oh, well, if

1:27:04

JFK is supporting it, it's gotta be great.

1:27:06

That's a good point. It's giving Connie

1:27:09

2012 vibes where it's like, perhaps there's

1:27:11

like a real underlying

1:27:13

cause, but it's sort of been like, bogarded by

1:27:16

a person for like personal gains. And it's been

1:27:18

made to be this like hip thing that people

1:27:20

don't even go read past the headline of like,

1:27:22

this place saves lives and helps people. Today is

1:27:24

the first day of the rest of your life.

1:27:28

And you're like, oh my God, it saves

1:27:30

lives and it helps people. I should give

1:27:32

them a million dollars, which one woman later

1:27:34

did. Like, because she, I think she was

1:27:36

like the heiress to something, but it's like,

1:27:39

you get so wrapped up in the

1:27:41

story of Sinonon, which is propaganda based

1:27:43

from the movie, from the books, from the

1:27:46

interviews on CBS. Like he would just

1:27:48

be very like different than anybody you

1:27:50

would think of a psychologist as of

1:27:52

like, normally when they would be on

1:27:54

these daytime shows, it was like, I'm

1:27:56

gonna tell you, you have this boisterous

1:27:58

guy out talking. like that's very

1:28:01

different. I saw advertisements for specials about

1:28:03

it on like the equivalent of

1:28:05

what would be like the Kelly Clarkson show or

1:28:07

like a daytime talk show that you know

1:28:09

filled on a Hugh Salle but in the

1:28:11

60s it was Jack Linkletter of like a

1:28:13

two-part series and Jack Linkletter was like billed

1:28:15

as like the daytime show for housewives. So

1:28:17

talking about how great this was some housewife

1:28:19

in Kansas is like sitting

1:28:22

on that's the place that helps people they're

1:28:24

so great and you don't know what's

1:28:26

actually going on. Yeah it

1:28:28

seems like with the heiress thing

1:28:30

too that's I mean we saw

1:28:32

that with Nexium we see like

1:28:34

with Scientology they want celebrities to

1:28:37

be like they're part

1:28:39

of it people in the face of their

1:28:41

whole thing so then it's like oh well

1:28:43

Tom Cruise is in it? I want to be it

1:28:45

John Travolta's part of it well I want to be

1:28:47

part of it too and it becomes like I think

1:28:51

for a lot of people that donate it's

1:28:53

like almost like it scratches that

1:28:55

itch of you wanting to be a savior.

1:28:58

Yes and part of the the synonym program

1:29:00

was that you had to go out on

1:29:02

speaking engagement so they would coach you particularly

1:29:04

but then became like this crew of people

1:29:06

would coach you to go out to like

1:29:08

the rotary club the PTA meeting colleges and

1:29:11

universities to talk about how great synonym was

1:29:13

and how it changed your life so like

1:29:15

you said again the rotary club's like we're

1:29:17

gonna do that big cell fundraiser and we

1:29:19

were gonna give it to the Boy Scouts

1:29:21

but don't you think we should do it

1:29:24

synonym that man that came and spoke with us

1:29:26

about how they're doing we drugs are such a

1:29:28

problem now and synonym's the only one doing anything

1:29:30

about it because they were coached to say that

1:29:32

in their speech so you're exactly

1:29:34

right are we doing altruism

1:29:36

for altruistic sake or because it is the hot

1:29:38

popular thing and then also you get to feel

1:29:40

good about like but also I'm helping too but

1:29:43

it's also the thing that Lucille Ball does so

1:29:45

it's cool. I think it's a

1:29:47

little from all of that but it

1:29:50

gets real the waters get real

1:29:52

muddy when you got that many

1:29:54

things dumped into it. Well this

1:29:56

is uh the swinging 60s of

1:29:58

synonym is pretty much It

1:30:00

swings a little bit more in part two, but

1:30:03

then we're taking a hard left in part two.

1:30:05

We're getting into the Sin

1:30:07

in 70s. Yeah Yeah,

1:30:10

swing in 60s sin in 70s and boy

1:30:12

did they sin in a multitude of ways

1:30:14

so they do that Yeah, and

1:30:17

in the meantime Go check

1:30:19

out the max docu-series if that's

1:30:21

available to you And then the

1:30:24

other one on Paramount Plus is

1:30:26

called Born into sin and on

1:30:28

in sin and on yeah It's fascinating.

1:30:31

She's a great filmmaker. Yeah. Yeah,

1:30:33

they're all they're all eye-opening and I

1:30:35

my favorite type of documentary is one

1:30:37

That's a mixture of

1:30:40

archival footage that shows exactly

1:30:42

what was happening with whatever topic the

1:30:45

Documentary is about mixed in with

1:30:48

present-day Interviews reflecting back on

1:30:50

their time and that's what this whole

1:30:52

docu-series is and it's wild

1:30:54

to see like this

1:30:56

footage of The game and

1:30:58

how people were living and everything because

1:31:01

it's not just somebody telling you the

1:31:03

story You're seeing it with your own eyes.

1:31:05

Like this is how it was like first.

1:31:07

It's not yeah It's not exaggerated how how

1:31:09

these things went. No, we like an egotistical

1:31:11

cult leader who's like film all of this

1:31:15

It'll be great. Fill it all in shape

1:31:17

not understanding that he's like create some evidence

1:31:19

for later. Mm-hmm. Yeah So no,

1:31:21

yeah did not have that type

1:31:23

of foresight for sure Well,

1:31:26

we will bring you part two next week.

1:31:28

Oh people always ask it's probably three

1:31:30

parts Oh, yeah, I know I

1:31:32

probably know a lot of people like to binge

1:31:34

them, but I think we'll do it in three

1:31:36

Yeah, I think we'll we'll do it in three

1:31:38

but Yeah, at

1:31:41

least at least three. So if you're

1:31:43

trying to save them all up, we'll see anything,

1:31:45

sir Well,

1:31:53

if you like our free episodes you'll love our

1:31:55

patreon bonus content You can join for free to

1:31:57

see what we're up to next and you also

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get once a month archival

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bonus content. Just for

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signing up. Yeah. And it's,

1:32:06

let me just briefly say, fucking go to

1:32:08

Patreon this second. It's one of the worst ones

1:32:11

we've ever, most bizarre. Which one is it right

1:32:13

now? It's one of

1:32:15

the food tampering ones, but it's

1:32:18

like... Oh my god. Bananas. So

1:32:20

it's, ooh. Yeah. I think

1:32:22

about those too often. Like those are

1:32:25

some things that I wish I could unhear. Yeah,

1:32:27

but also, but you want to hear it and be

1:32:29

a part of it with it. Yeah, you

1:32:31

have to know. So instead of going to

1:32:34

Reddit and reading it yourself, listen to us on the journey

1:32:36

and we'll all go on the journey together. I might go

1:32:38

and read, listen just so I hear it again like it's

1:32:40

the first time, but it's completely free. It's not even like

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a free trial you have to put your credit card in.

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That's just, you got to punch in your email, but then

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you download it and it's all, that plus the other

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throwback stuff we've let out. You can

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also join at one of our tiers to dive

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into over 800 hours of bonus

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content. Mm-hmm. And like Heather

1:32:57

mentioned, we have a deal going right now.

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We're offering free trials. You can join for

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a week totally free. You can

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membership because you get one month free and then

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those ad free episodes, our monthly Q and A's,

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as well as our merch clearance sale where We're

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getting rid of the very last tiny bit of

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our 2023 shirts to make room for

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2024 full moon energy shirt So

1:34:06

take them. Yeah, okay them. Okay, so

1:34:08

we can stop I

1:34:12

We actually need to ask what are sold out?

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I need to go ask Okay, maybe they

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are and then we can because at

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this point I'm just gonna buy them because I We

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gotta get the new 2020 for

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baby 2024 and next time

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we are gonna have years on our we're

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gonna show full moon It's gonna happen just

1:34:32

though and we already know what the subject

1:34:34

of our next tour is gonna be so

1:34:36

we're good Which that is

1:34:38

the story for another time when Heather

1:34:41

and I performed a miracle. Yes in

1:34:43

front of Paris and

1:34:45

Tommy and then we later were

1:34:47

like, I don't think y'all appreciate it Happened

1:34:50

and I wanted you to acknowledge it I felt

1:34:52

like Samuel Jackson in a pole fix in a

1:34:54

miracle happen, but that's all for our 2025 tour

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Which we've got cooking in the hopper But

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for full moon energy get your clearance deal

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me. Hell yeah, Christie Greer Alexander

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heard Brie Cassidy Sarah

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are Christian and I

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that's very nice of you. We all love

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you all so much for supporting the show.

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you.