WEBVTT - Part One: Synanon: The Drug Rehab Program That Built Its Own Army 0:00:07.040 --> 0:00:11.560 In media res opening to a podcast like we were 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:14.080 having a fun conversation that we just let you win 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:18.200 on halfway through. Good times. I'm Robert Evans. This is 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:22.360 Behind the Bastards easily our best opening yet. Uh. My 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:25.479 guest again, as is always my guest when I actually 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:30.360 nail an introduction, Mr Paul F. Tompkins, Paul, Hello, everyone, 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:35.600 Oh did you enjoy that absolutely real conversation that we 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:38.800 left let the audience on halfway through. I haven't had 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:41.040 a conversation like that in such a long time, and 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:44.440 it's it's refreshing. It reminds me of my humanity again, 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:47.920 So thank you. Yeah you really bared your soul there, 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:51.280 um and and yeah you made it easy. I feel honored. 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:56.160 I feel honored. Paul. You are we had when we 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:58.600 had you on last time for our Rush Limbaugh episodes. 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:01.760 Somebody in the sub credit is like I didn't initially 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:03.880 recognize his name, and then I looked him up and 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:08.200 realized that he had entirely shaped my generation's ideas on comedy. Um, 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:13.480 just I feel accurate to you because you've you've you've 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:18.880 been in so many like uh, so many like Mr Show. Um, 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:22.640 you did a bit for the Daily Show. Back in 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:24.920 the day, you did some comedy bang bang stuff. You 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:30.920 were on did the Dead Author's podcast, Bow Jack Horsemen. Obviously, UM, 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:37.000 you just just just a just an an incredibly accomplished comedian. Um. 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:39.600 So thank you for dining to be on our show again. 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.800 It's Paul to start us off. I got a question 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:46.920 for you. How do you feel about drugs and alcohol? 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:53.760 M hmm. I think that in uh, when used responsibly, Uh, 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:57.720 that ain't nothing but a good time. Sure. And you know, 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:03.200 obviously sometimes people have problems strus are alcohol and And 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:05.880 what would you say about the idea like, obviously very 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:08.080 reasonable for a group of people, you know, especially if 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:10.560 they feel like the medical system may have let them down, 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:13.440 to come together and work together as like a community 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:15.760 to try to deal with their struggles with drugs and alcohol. 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:18.560 Perfectly reasonable, right, absolutely. I know many people who are 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:22.200 in such programs and it works very well for them. 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:25.320 It usually does. Now, Paul, I have a question for 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:27.240 you that relates directly to the subject of the article. 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:29.640 If a group of people were to do that, how 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:32.000 large of marine corps do you think they would need 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:37.200 to punish their enemies who I haven't thought about this before. 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:43.080 I my my instinct is to say, uh, they wouldn't 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:45.880 need one at all. They wouldn't need one at all. 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:48.600 You think most addiction recovery programs get by without a 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:50.720 Marine Corps. That's my I mean, look, I don't know 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:53.799 about all of them, but to my knowledge, they seem 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:57.440 to be doing just fine without them as far as 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:01.280 I know, as yeah, I would, that's accurate. Uh. And 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:05.480 obviously we're very pro people getting recovery here. We're talking, however, 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:09.480 today about an addiction rehab program that went as off 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:11.920 the rails as it is possible for one of those 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:14.640 things to be. This is like the twenty year journey 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:17.119 of a guy who wanted to help people get off 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:21.200 of heroin, uh, and eventually built his own army and 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:27.000 attempted to take over large junks of California. So, um, 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:30.760 have you ever heard of Sinnan on s Y N 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:33.760 A n O. Is That name sounds familiar to me, 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:39.040 but I don't know why. It is not the first 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:41.800 addiction recovery program, but the first probably the first large 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:46.480 organized narcotics recovery program. Right, Um, And for everything kind 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:48.040 of that happens in this episode to make sense, we're 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:49.680 gonna have to travel back in time a little bit 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:52.920 to talk about kind of the history of human understanding 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:56.160 of addiction and addiction recovery. Obviously, people have been doing 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:59.600 drugs longer than we've been doing anything else, including like 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:03.400 even being friends with dogs. Like we've been getting high forever. 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:06.720 It's just something we've we were doing it, you know, 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:11.320 back before we were people people like getting wasted. Um, Yeah, 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:14.320 and primitive science meant that it was pretty hard back 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:16.359 in the day to have the kind of addictions that 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:18.440 we have now. Right, If all you have is like 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:21.680 beer and watered down wine, alcoholism is going to be 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:24.479 less extreme than when you have ever clear and you 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:27.599 know that kind of ship right one fifty one rum 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:31.480 means it's a lot easier to have like a serious problem. Likewise, 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:34.240 you know, the way indigenous tribes in North America, Central 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:38.040 America it used tobacco, It wasn't really unhealthy if you're 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:40.560 doing it occasionally as part of a religious ritual. That's 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:42.800 not nearly the same as as burning two packs and 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:45.360 Marborough's a day. Right, We're talking about a wildly different 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:49.960 kind of thing. Um. People obviously had drug problems five thousand, 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:51.760 ten thousand years ago, right, But it was a lot 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:56.080 less noticeable, and it was less noticed because especially in civilization, 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:59.400 everyone was buzzed a lot of the time because like 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.599 better was deadly, and especially if you're in a city, right, 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:05.720 like you're living in ancient Rome, you don't want to 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:08.680 drink that fucking water coming through the aqueducts. You're gonna 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:11.040 you're gonna pour it into wine, so the wine will 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:13.360 kill most of what's bad and you're not gonna be 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:16.040 wasted all the time because it's actually there were people that, 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:19.000 like you talk about like ancient Roman marias around intoxication. 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:22.080 It was considered kind of like ghosh to be too drunk. 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:25.359 Like obviously there were times celebrations, festivals, but most of 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:27.720 the time everyone's just kind of a bit buzzed, right, 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:29.719 And the same thing with beer and other cultures and 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:34.400 other parts of Europe. Um. The first documented use of 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:38.040 distilled liquor in Europe didn't come around until the twelfth century, 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:40.400 and that was not something you would have drunk for fun. 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:43.120 It was part of an Italian medical school textbook. Obviously, 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:45.280 liquor has a lot of medicinal benefits, like just for 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:49.080 like you can sterilize ship with it, you know, um 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:52.280 there were there's debate over who the first kind of 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:55.560 successful distillation where it was. Some people say that it 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:58.000 was in first or second century China. There's evidence of 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:01.640 that the earliest like recognizable still and I think it 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:04.480 was kind of similar to a modern reflux. Still Um 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:07.240 was probably developed in the eighth century a d by 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:11.920 an Arabic alchemist named Abu musa Ya Beer even highen um. Now, 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.680 whoever you give credit for the first distilled liquor, it 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:17.880 didn't become a common recreational product until the six hundred, 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:20.599 so pretty recent, right, people have not been drinking liquor 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:24.560 all that. Beer and wine or beer and wine were first. 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:28.080 Oh beer, we've had beer and wine forever. Be beer 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:31.920 dates back to the the very first human civilization. There's 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:35.720 anthropologists will argue that we started building cities to brew beer. 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:38.160 People would make beer as part of these like when 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:41.239 people were nomadic tribes to have these like big festivals. 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:43.880 But beer is a complicated product. You would need to 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:46.200 make bread because the first bread, the first beer was 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:48.720 made with a kind of bread called bapier as like 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:51.520 the basis of the beer, and it it requires a lot, 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:53.799 there's a lot of there's a logistical tail to making beer, 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:58.680 and so one of the anthropologists will make, yeah, that's no, No, 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:01.800 you're a straight wine guy. Just some rotten grapes. I 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:06.320 don't want. I don't want to make my own stuff. Yeah, 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:09.680 well that's why people started making cities, so that it 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:12.000 was easier to have someone else make the beer and 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:14.680 you just have plenty of it. That's an argument some 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:16.720 anthropologist will make. But yeah, it goes back a while. 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:19.960 Liquor much more recent because you have to like have 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:22.600 no head to do some science to make liquor. You 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:24.480 gotta have like a still. They're not it's not. I 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:26.400 mean it is pretty I used to make liquor, and 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:29.920 I was always wasted when I was making liquor. Caught 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:32.040 my kitchen on fire five or six times, which is 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:35.400 why stills are illegal. Um, it would just be spurting 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:37.840 ever clear basically out of these like gaps in the 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:46.440 welds because we welded it well drunk and um so yeah, 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:50.120 six hundreds we get liquor, and um it takes off. 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:53.520 People are real big fans of liquor. I'm sure that's 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:56.240 a surprise to anyone who I don't know lives in 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:59.080 California where you can buy liquor, anywhere you can buy 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:03.200 a scratch off to This is not like a Barcelona 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:05.800 story where one guy did this one thing and then 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:08.920 everybody else did it to be cool. This was immediately 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:12.160 it was popular with everyone. Yeah, at one it was 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:15.840 popular with everyone. And it also immediately becomes a problem. 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:19.640 As soon as there's liquor, you have for a long time, 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:22.520 people don't. There's not really a mass cultural conception of 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:25.960 alcoholism is an issue. Then liquor comes around, and by 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:29.080 the seventeen hundreds, people are talking about alcohol addiction as 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:33.280 a serious social problem, like it's that quick. UM. The 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:38.000 first alcoholic recovery program where sobriety circles, that's what they 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:41.440 were called, UM, which were kind of alcoholic mutual aid society, 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.920 so communities of sufferers working together to deal with and 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:47.360 try to get over their addiction. And they seem to 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:51.160 have been created first by members of various Native American tribes. Right, 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:55.040 alcoholism becomes a serious problems introduced by Europeans, becomes a 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:58.560 big problem with indigenous tribes, and so the first organized 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:01.360 attempts addiction recovery. We're indigenous in nature, and they would 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:05.720 often use traditional indigenous healing practices, both like natural metal, 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:09.320 both like indigenous medicine, but also um like rituals to 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:14.000 kind of treat alcoholism UM. Now in in seventeen eighty four, 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:16.160 the first kind of European white I don't know, whatever 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:20.160 you call it physician, Western physician to acknowledge alcoholism was 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.000 Benjamin rush Or. He'd not the first to acknowledge it, 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:25.160 but the first to call it a disease, right, which 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:28.400 is basically our modern understanding UM as opposed to like 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:30.880 a moral failing, this is an illness that a person 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:35.000 has UM. His work helped to create the modern temperance movement, 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:37.679 which why the early nineteen hundreds had evolved into the 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:40.480 prohibition movement. Now throughout the eighteen hundreds. In the early 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:43.760 nineteen hundreds, society gradually gained an understanding that drug abuse 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:46.360 of all kinds could be problematic, right, that it wasn't 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:48.240 just alcohol. You could be addicted to a bunch of 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:52.840 shit um And virtually every like Western attempt to treat 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:56.720 drug and alcohol addiction was horrible. Uh. Up until the 0:09:56.800 --> 0:09:59.840 modern day. Those indigenous sobriety circles were probably like the 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:04.840 still the most reasonable program ever created. UM. One common 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:08.160 treatment for addicts was to throw them into facilities patterned 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:11.560 off of insane asylums. Basically, they were like, Okay, drug 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:14.400 addiction is the same as being insane. Uh so we'll 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:17.400 just we'll lock you in a prison. Um, that'll solve it. 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:21.440 What for like forever? Or was it like until you 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:25.439 dried out, you went through the all the horrible detoxing 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:27.840 on your own, and then you were fine to leave. 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:31.880 I think it would depend. Some people certainly didn't get out. 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:34.760 And also we're talking the eighteen hundreds, so a lot 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:36.760 of people just died there of diseases due to the 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:40.560 horrific conditions you know, Um, because a prison is basically 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:44.280 a ptreot dish I mean, still is um. The New 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:48.200 York State Inebriate Asylum opened in eighteen sixty four, and 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:52.040 that was like the first Yeah, I know, right, not great. UM. 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:54.960 Other doctors treated addiction with a variety of snake oil 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:58.360 medications like doctor Killey is double chloride of gold KIV 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:02.920 and drunkenness. Um, take some gold that'll stop you from drinking. 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:07.400 They did not know about gold schlager. Um. I'm sorry 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:12.360 that's that's just not work. So in the eighteen eighties, 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:15.640 Sigmund Freud turned his genius mind to the problem with 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:18.920 alcoholism and morphine addiction, and he eventually came up with 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:21.480 a genius solution for treating both of these addictions. You 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:26.439 want to guess what it was, oh, locking people away? 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:31.280 I don't know what would Floyd's approach be. He gave 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:40.360 them huge doses of cocaine that has no addictive potential. 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:46.679 Cocaine at least addictive drug evert a miracle drug. Absolutely, yeah, 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:53.440 cocaine the drug with no problems. So by the eighteen 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:56.560 nineties the worm had fully turned and like Benjamin rushing 0:11:56.559 --> 0:12:00.480 on the sev being like, this isn't this is an illness? 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:03.040 By the eighteen nineties they're like, now, this isn't a 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:06.440 fucking illness. This is a criminal behavior and it needs 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:10.200 to be punished as such. Inebriate homes and asylums closed, 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:14.040 and alcoholics were sent to drunk tanks or foul wards 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:20.280 of hospitals. Ward what I know, right? Why everything was 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:24.760 so everything was titled so mean back then they were 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:28.720 real dicks back in the day. You don't have to 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:33.000 say you have to call it the foul ward. No, 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:35.440 now it is the eighteen hundreds. We're going to be 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:42.120 shitty about everything now. Of course, these kind of treatments, 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:46.000 the insane asylums, the prisons, the foul wards, these were 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:49.280 where we you sent poor addicts. If you had money 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:52.439 and an addiction, you would go to the first celebrity 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:55.960 rehab facilities. And the very first celebrity rehab facility was 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:59.600 the Charles B. Town's Hospital, which opened in nineteen o one. 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:05.960 It treated alcoholics with belladonna, which is a poison. Like 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:09.240 what was the what was the They must have known it, 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:15.000 like what yeah, yeah, I don't know. Maybe there were 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:16.880 maybe it just they were trying to make you sick 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:18.840 enough that you drank it with the alcohol and it. 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:22.000 I didn't do enough research into belladonna therapy, but I 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:26.360 don't recommend taking belladonna um. And it was again, this 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:29.080 was for really rich people. It cost three hundred and 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:31.480 fifty dollars a day in nineteen o one, which is 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:34.160 about fifty six hundred dollars a day in modern currencies, 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:37.640 like Betty Ford clinic type ship right, Like like I 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:39.280 don't know if it worked or not, but you're not 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:42.599 going there if you're not rich. Now, one of Charles's 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:45.959 most frequent patients was a fellow named Bill Wilson, who 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:49.520 would go on to found an organization called Alcoholics Anonymous, 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:51.839 which you can drive a direct line and you know, 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:54.679 Alcoholics Anonymous. There's a lot of really valid criticisms of 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:56.480 the organization. I know a lot of people who say 0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:58.040 it saved their life too. I'm not going to make 0:13:58.080 --> 0:13:59.880 a determination one way or the other on it, but 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:02.520 you can draw a real direct line between the basic 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:05.800 idea of a A and those indigenous sobriety circles, which 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:08.760 I do find interesting. This basic idea that a community, 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:11.320 a communal environment is the best way to deal with 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:17.040 addiction and probably is. And support, yes, empathy, just just 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:19.840 you knowing that someone else understands what you're going through 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:25.600 and that they've been there themselves. Um, not institutionalization, not criminalization, 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:29.600 but a community support. Yeah, and maybe not poison and 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:34.680 maybe not maybe maybe that's not got to help. Um. Now, 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:37.040 by the time a A was created, and it wasn't 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:38.520 just Bill Wilson, I think there were four or five 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:41.640 guys who started it. It was created nineteen thirty five, 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:43.920 and at that point the criminalization of addiction was at 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:47.280 a very advanced stage. In the nineteen tens, U s 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:50.800 States had started passing laws that legislates that legislated the 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:58.080 mandatory sterilization of alcoholics and addicts. Um. Yeah, one of 0:14:58.160 --> 0:14:59.840 the fun things this is you're going to get a 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:01.640 it out of this, Paul, This is this is fun, 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:04.360 some fun history, real real good yucks in this this 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:07.800 bit of history. After World War Two, when they found 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:09.880 out about all of the horrific crimes of the Nazi 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:13.280 concentration camps and they were starting to try to punish people. 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:16.040 One group of people they didn't punish were the Nazi 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:19.360 doctors who would sterilize the mentally ill and drug addicts, 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:23.720 because that was being done in the US too, so 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:26.160 they were like, we can't punish these guys were doing 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:29.080 the same thing. A lot of Nazi doctors got off 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:35.400 scott free because yeah, it's it's it's history. It's always telling. 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:39.360 The lesson is, well, we're not gonna stop doing that. 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:45.120 We're we're looking at monsters and seeing what they do. 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:47.800 We also do one of those things. So we're just 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:49.880 gonna look the other way rather than stop. So we're 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:53.120 just gonna We're fine with that part. I mean, it 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:58.240 is it is kind of like the fact that, um uh, 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:01.360 when they were liberating the con centration camps, in a 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:04.880 lot of cases, they didn't free the homosexuals because that 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:07.360 was still a crime in the societies. That we're freeing 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:11.680 the concentration camps anyway, time, you should never be looking 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:15.840 at the Nazis and saying even a broken clock. Yeah 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:18.840 exactly if you're thinking, well, maybe they had a point 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:25.960 about that, maybe that I agree with. So um nineteen tens, 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:29.080 you know, states are sterilizing alcoholics and addicts, and doctors 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:31.120 and asylums in prisons were Actually the way this was 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:34.640 phrased is that doctors um had the authority to a 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:38.440 sexualized individuals with drug and alcohol abuse problems. That's what 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:42.760 they called it, a sexualization UM. Now, Alcoholics Anonymous was 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:44.760 in many ways, as I said, a throwback to these 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:47.320 sobriety circles. But while where those were kind of very 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:51.040 based in Native American religion and medicine, a A was 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:55.200 based around the Emmanuel Movement, which was a psychologically based 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:58.560 approach to religious healing that started in nineteen oh six. 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:02.240 The primary ust of a manual movement treatments and thus 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:05.879 a A we're individual in group therapy. A A in 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.280 particular came to reject the clinical and institutional treatment for 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:12.560 addicts in favor of a bottom up structure. But the founder, 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:17.520 Bill Wilson described as quote benign anarchy. UM. The thrust 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:20.399 of this was that the individual branches of a A 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:23.480 were all self governing. They didn't have to report back 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:25.680 to a home office, they didn't have to follow identical 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:29.080 treatment methods, and they didn't have to have leaders. Usually, when, 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:31.000 especially when you have guys in this point like refer 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:33.400 to something as anarchy, they're kind of getting it wrong. 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:35.280 In this case, he's not because he is saying, we're 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:37.879 trying to dissolve power relationships. We don't think that the 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:40.120 right way to treat an addict is a situation where 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:42.040 a bunch of people are in power over them and 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:44.520 they're incarcerated or they're kind of under the thumb of 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:46.560 the state. We also don't think that there should be 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:49.400 leaders of this. It should everyone should be working together. 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:52.040 You know, it's a community effort. So really he's not 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:54.920 wrong when he when he says that this is when 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:58.199 he uses that term UM and his stated reason for 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:01.119 this bottom up approach was to prevent the formation of 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:05.080 cults of personality, which were very common and alternative medicine 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:09.159 at the time and also now. Unfortunately, in practice this 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:12.600 did not work today. One of the main valid complaints 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:15.400 against a A is that it can act as an 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:20.320 incubator for strongman and gurus who often engage in profound mental, physical, 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:22.679 and sexual abuse of their group members. This is a 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:24.760 problem that has been noted on a number of different 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:28.520 occasions in different a A A groups, and today the focus 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:30.480 of our episode is going to be on one of 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:36.000 those gurus. A man named Charles Dedoric now Charles Edwin 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:40.520 de Orck, was born in Toledo, Ohio, on March twenty nine, thirteen. 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:43.280 He was named for his father and was called Chuck 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:47.040 by his family. His namesake dad was a horrible alcoholic 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:49.320 who died in a drunk driving accident when Chuck was 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:52.080 four years old. When he was eight, his younger brother 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.760 died of influenza. Charles felt guilty and responsible for his 0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:58.000 brother's death. I think it was the survival guilt thing, 0:18:58.080 --> 0:18:59.720 and it was noted that he was never able to 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:03.160 ball with children again, even his own kids, which rough 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:07.400 upbringing here not an easy set of cards to draw. 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:13.000 Uh So, when he was twelve, his mother, Agnes Kuntz, 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:16.720 married a man that he despised. Now, Agnes was Agnes 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:18.800 was a prominent singer, and I don't think the family 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:20.920 had huge financial issues as a kid like they seemed 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:25.320 to have gotten along. Okay um, But he's really unhappy 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:28.280 with this guy she marries. And he's also stifled by 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:31.240 his upbringing because she is a devout Roman Catholic and 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:34.479 she raises him that way. He later recalled quote, I 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:36.879 believed literally that I would go to Hell if I 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:41.639 didn't go to church on Sundays. Um. So, when he 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:44.359 was fourteen, Charles comes across a copy of H. G. 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:47.440 Wells is the Outline of History that had been owned 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:50.000 by his stepfather. Are you familiar to all with this book? No, 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:53.080 I've never heard of it. It's an interesting it's an 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:55.399 interesting book. It was an attempt by H. G. Wells 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:57.800 to chronicle the entire history of the world from the 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:01.320 Neolithic period up to World War One. Now, in the book, 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:04.359 Wells claimed, quote, the history of mankind is a history 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:07.520 of more or less blind endeavors to conceive a common 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:10.240 purpose in relation to which all men may live happily 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:13.080 and to create and develop a common stock of knowledge 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:17.000 which may serve and illuminate that purpose. Um. And it's 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:18.920 so it was kind of a it was an optimistic 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:22.320 but also atheistic look at human history, right, Like, he's 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:25.240 not looking at this through religious lens, and he's I 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:27.680 think it still was a Eurocentric lens, but I don't 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:30.960 think he was trying to look at it that way. Um. 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:33.200 And one major theme of the book was the development 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:37.560 of free intelligence, which he credited originally to bards common 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:40.840 to all the quote aryan speaking people's who extended the 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:43.560 power of the human mind by traveling and thus expanding 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:46.920 the development of language. This book has a huge influence 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:49.679 on debt Oric, who later later claimed that after reading it, 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:54.400 he quote became a militant atheist almost overnight. So he 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:57.520 reads this book and it just it pills him to 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:01.479 he used the violence of the time. Um. And the 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:05.119 downside of this is he starts drinking almost immediately after 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:07.440 he reads this book, Right, he kind of goes whole 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:10.440 hog against his upbringing. Right, Yeah, I'm an atheist time 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:13.760 to get That's that was sort of how I went 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:16.960 to I think I think I think about it now. 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:18.920 It was it was a little slow, it was a 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:22.680 little more gradual, but definitely that was the line. No. 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:25.840 I mean, within about six months of realizing I was 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:28.920 an atheist, I was taking hallucinogens every weekend, so I 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:37.920 can't relate. Um, yes, it's not this, yeah, exactly. At 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:44.480 this point, he's a thoroughly sympathetic character. Um. Now, yeah, 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:46.919 let's remember this, this is the show that it is. 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:51.200 Let's let's just stop a moment and really enjoyed this 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:56.119 time with this guy before we continue. Yeah, and you know, Paul, 0:21:56.280 --> 0:21:59.200 let's stop a moment while we're enjoying this time before 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:04.359 the horrible ship happens, and also think about products and services, because, Paul, 0:22:06.440 --> 0:22:11.080 you know what else is the result of human beings 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:13.840 engaging in more or less blind endeavors to conceive a 0:22:13.840 --> 0:22:17.159 common purpose in relation to which all men may live happily. Robert, 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:20.040 I wish you would tell me the products and services 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:24.760 and support this podcast. That's what they all do. Mm hmmm, 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:36.920 here we go. Uh we are back, and Paul, before 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:40.000 we get back into this story, there's a matter of 0:22:40.200 --> 0:22:44.840 serious importance that I have to discuss with you. Have 0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:49.439 you looked at your Wikipedia page recently. Oh no, I 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:54.440 have not. I there's a photo of you from two 0:22:54.480 --> 0:22:56.960 thousand twelve on it, and you look a lot like 0:22:57.000 --> 0:23:01.080 Burt Reynolds. I mean, that is the high possible compliment 0:23:01.119 --> 0:23:06.880