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Speaker 1: You learn to use the needle to actually increase the

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Speaker 1: high because you can pull it back and push it in,

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Speaker 1: and pull it back and push it and every time

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Speaker 1: you do that, you get this warm rush through your body,

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Speaker 1: heating it up, making sure it's clean, putting the strap

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Speaker 1: around your arm, finding a vein. I mean, that's all

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Speaker 1: part of like a ritual. I was addicted to heroin,

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Speaker 1: but I went into Synanon on October first, nineteen seventy two,

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Speaker 1: and that was the last day I've ever used drugs.

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Speaker 2: You're probably wondering what exactly is Synanon, and I guess

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Speaker 2: it really all depends on who you ask. Some people

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Speaker 2: would tell you that it's the reason they're still alive.

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Speaker 3: They took me down to As soon as they put

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Speaker 3: me in a cell, I took off my blue jeans

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Speaker 3: and I hung myself. Synanay saved my life.

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Speaker 2: To people like my mom, it was a cutting edge

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Speaker 2: social experiment. I thought it was utopia. To many people,

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Speaker 2: it was a religion. To others, it was a revolution.

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Speaker 2: But almost everyone will tell you that what it became

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Speaker 2: was a violent cult.

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Speaker 3: They had the shotgun out the window, and I grabbed

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Speaker 3: the shotgun and I said to the guy, I'm gonna

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Speaker 3: take your own shotgun and shoot your fucking head off.

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Speaker 3: Don't mess with synonym people.

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Speaker 2: The truth is that at various times it was all

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Speaker 2: of those things. But before it was any of those things,

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Speaker 2: it was only one person, the founder of Synanon, a

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Speaker 2: man named Charles E. Didrich, who most people called Chuck.

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Speaker 4: Many many thousands of people who are indebted to Synada,

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Speaker 4: and I have no way of being responsible for what

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Speaker 4: they might do.

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Speaker 2: Chuck founded Synanon as a first of its kind drug

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Speaker 2: rehead with a radical claim he could cure your addiction.

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Speaker 3: I'm quite convinced he actually knows more about me than

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Speaker 3: I know about myself.

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Speaker 2: Then Chuck made an even more radical claim, he could

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Speaker 2: cure any of your problems. All you had to do

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Speaker 2: was move in. With success. Came others who simply sought

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Speaker 2: a different way of life, And wherever Chuck went, his

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Speaker 2: people followed.

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Speaker 3: I think that he could lead people anywhere that he

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Speaker 3: wanted to. He's that forceful human being.

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Speaker 2: But Chuck was leading his followers down a path of destruction.

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Speaker 3: And they brought the guys back and they shaved their heads,

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Speaker 3: and I thought, God, damn, you know that's out of control.

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Speaker 2: People being beaten up in Son and on and outside

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Speaker 2: of Synanon, and then the guns and it went fucking crazy.

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Speaker 2: To my father, Synanon was the group he owed everything

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Speaker 2: to and they tried to make him pay with his life.

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Speaker 4: We never start anything, We never do and never had it.

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Speaker 4: But nobody is going to mess with us. Nobody.

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Speaker 2: This is the story of Synanon in a way, it's

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Speaker 2: never been told from the inside out by those of

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Speaker 2: us who are finally ready to talk about it, like me.

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Speaker 2: My name is Sary Crawford. Listen to the Sunshine Place,

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Speaker 2: a creation and presentation of c thirteen Originals, a Cadence

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Speaker 2: thirteen Studio executive produced with Susan Downey and Robert Downey Junior.

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Speaker 2: Available for free now wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 1: SA