Synanon-The People Business

[christine2448]

http://www.synanon.org/synanon/

[christine2448]

Children of Synanon (http://www.rickross.com/reference/synanon/synanon3.html)


One big dysfunctional family (http://www.rickross.com/reference/synanon/synanon2.html)


Her Life With One Big Brother (http://www.rickross.com/reference/synanon/synanon4.html)

[christine2448]

Escape from Utopia: My ten years in Synanon (Unknown Binding)
by William F Olin

For Sale at amazon.com

The Light on Synanon: How a country weekly exposed a corporate cult--and won the Pulitzer Prize (Unknown Binding)
by Dave Mitchell

Availability: Available from these sellers.


10 used & new available from $1.90

(From Shadow's post # 32, Thread # 1)

[christine2448]

She visited a ranch in Tomales Bay. She describes the place as beautiful and peaceful. She also called it a Boot Camp. She was interviewed to be sent to live there but only wanted to visit. She lived at the Center.

Rose and a girl named Ruth were the youngest ones in Oct 15, 1972. They visited the ranch together.

Fall of 1972. William "Buckwheat" Thomas from the Little Rascals visited the Center. She makes reference to this in another letter. Buckwheat dedicated most of his life to help kids on drugs around the CA area.

Heart of TX, post # 64, Thread #1

[christine2448]

HeartofTexas


Quote:
The treatment efforts provided legitimacy, and juveniles were often sent to Synanon by the courts.

Unbelievable that Judges would send juveniles to a place they knew so little about.

http://synanon.biography.ms/

[LisainWV]

I know it has been mentioned that there are boxes of records about, or from, Synanon at a library?

Has anyone had time to take a look at those??

I would think there would be fairly detailed records of who was living there... and so forth.

I'm in WV and a little out of pocket for this chore, but it would be interesting to do.

[KarlK]

Unbelievable that Judges would send juveniles to a place they knew so little about.

They don't do it anymore but for judges who had been raised in pre-1960 decades the notion that organizations whose stated purpose was to treat substance abuse problems could be abusive cult-like groups whose real reason for existing was to fulfill the megalomaniac yearnings of mentally disturbed individuals was unthinkable. Now they know that lifetime enslavement in insane cults is no way to treat addicts and they also know that it takes more than a teen being caught drinking a beer or toking a reefer to make a junkie. Parents are catching up as well, I guess because many of them belong to a generation that was victimized by these idiocies. Also, government agencies now audit treatment facilities more thoroughly before licensing them and even though a few of the freakazoid groups still exist courts tend to send youths to regulated facilities.

[christine2448]

Found a great article on Synanon:

http://www.ptreyeslight.com/stories/apr15_04/synanon_story.html

Point Reyes Light - April 15, 2004
Light to celebrate 25th anniversary of its Pulitzer
By Dave Mitchell
This Friday, April 16, will be the 25th anniversary of The Point Reyes Light’s winning a Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service. It was the fourth time in the 61-year history of the Pulitzers that a prize in any division had gone to a weekly newspaper instead of a daily.
The prize was for an expose of the Synanon cult, which was then headquartered in Marshall. A reformed alcoholic, Charles Dederich, started the group in Santa Monica during 1958. Dederich had learned to hold an audience as a speaker for Alcoholics Anonymous, warning about Demon rum.
Dederich, who was living on unemployment benefits, allowed his apartment to become a crash pad for a number of derelicts, but while they were under his roof, they had to obey his directives. For their meals, he scrounged old food from grocers.
The group contained several drug addicts, who were not welcome at AA meetings, so Dederich pulled his faction out and started his own organization, Synanon. A master of self-promotion, Dederich managed to convince the public he was doing something no one else could do: cure drug addicts. In fact, 90 percent of those he admitted left before receiving rehabilitation, and of those who completed rehabilitation, only 10 percent demonstrated long-term abstention from drugs.
In 1968, Dederich abolished the idea of residents ever "graduating" to the outside world. Synanon then became an "alternative-lifestyle community," with former addicts providing a low-paid workforce for the Synanon corporation, which ultimately was focused on a $10 million per year Advertising Gifts and Premiums business. Synanon members simply acted as middlemen between manufacturer and retailers who wanted their logos on promotional knickknacks.
Synanon remained minimally in the treatment business, in part by providing juvenile authorities with a cheap place for dumping troubled kids, but the targets for its recruitment became members of the middleclass, such as doctors, lawyers, and architects. Most turned over all their wealth when they joined Synanon, believing they would be taken care of forever.

Entire article here:

http://www.ptreyeslight.com/stories/apr15_04/synanon_story.html