Original subtitles

Jady Dederich Montgomery: You thought that it was

your duty to be a martyr!

That is a lie, because you are such an affected fool

that you didn't want anyone in Synanon

to think for a moment that you were a human being

and could actually get into a Game

like the rest of us broads

because you are such a phony bitch!

You are a minimum daily motherfucker!

- That is bullshit! - That is where it is at!

- That is not... Plain not true! - I know when you leave the job, you should know...

- You're gonna grow up! You are going... - I can't do it!

No, you are going to grow up, you old asshole!

I wanna talk to you about something else,

you cheap fucking pompous cocksucker!

You fucking cheap motherfucker! This fucking guy!

Stop it! Life goes on, life gets better,

you learn more, you add on,

and that's what it's all about.

I have made so many mistakes in Synanon,

and maybe it's just a Pollyanna bunch of bullshit,

but I say there is something worthwhile in this experience.

What was it? And it has to be there.

I'd like you to get honest.

I want you to get honest,

and I'm gonna demand that you get honest.

You wanna live around here?

You wanna live in Synanon?

Start to play the Game!

(static crackles)

("California Dreamin'" by Bud Shank playing)

♪♪

(all yelling)

(clippers buzzing)

- ♪ Ooh... ♪ - (shutters snapping)

- Fire! - (gun shots)

♪ Ooh... ♪

(shutter snaps)

- (music fades) - (projector whirring)

(dramatic sting)

(projector slows down)

(projector stops)

(helicopter whirring)

Reporter 1: Charles Dederich, who turned

the alcohol and drug rehabilitation program Synanon

into a wealthy cult, remains in custody in Arizona today.

Reporter 2: Synanon founder Charles "Chuck" Dederich

was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder.

Jady: My dad,

he was intoxicated when he got arrested.

He was intoxicated when he got arrested in Lake Havasu.

He was out.

And then, they took him to the jail hospital

in Kingman, Arizona.

Connie Chung: A local justice of the peace went to the hospital

to read Dederich the murder charges against him.

Everett Milam: His eyes was closed.

He was laying flat on his back.

I do not know if he knew what was going on or not.

He does have a mental problem,

and I understood that, uh, alcohol is also a problem.

Excuse us, please. Thank you. Make way, please.

Jady: My dad, Chuck's story,

and Synanon's story,

it's a big, beautiful, tragic story.

Reporter: The judge praised his early Synanon work.

He then concluded that he was sorry

the program had degenerated.

Jady: What happened...

it was terrible, yeah.

It was terrible.

People suffered. People were hurt.

(indistinct chanting)

And he did bring Synanon down around him.

But, all of this in Synanon,

he-he couldn't have done it without us

enabling him.

- (overlapping chatter) - (shutters snapping)

♪♪

Jady: A lot of really smart,

talented, educated people...

Please can we get by? Excuse us!

Jady: ...all did things we would never do now,

you know?

I mean, how does that happen?

Because that's not how it started.

(quiet street noise)

Mike Gimbel: The addict loves their needle.

- (soft music playing) - (tapping)

When times are rough,

I would take my needle and scrape it inside,

thinking there was a little dope in there.

When you're high on heroin,

it's a mixture of being conscious and unconscious.

It's somewhere in the middle,

which is a very mellow, warm feeling

that you try to reach.

Lena Lindsey: To wake up sick, and not have any money,

and having to go out and turn a trick

so you could get some money,

that wasn't any fun.

But you did it.

'Cause you were looking forward to that fix.

(belt rattling)

Heroin.

I was using heroin.

I had dropped out of college.

I was living in New York,

working at an avant-garde theater.

(canopy flapping)

I had drugs on me when I was arrested.

I went to jail.

- (door slams) - Mike: I was born into a very wonderful family

in Baltimore, Maryland.

(film projector whirring)

In the summer of my junior year at high school,

I got introduced to heroin

and probably immediately was hooked.

♪♪

Went to my senior prom, on heroin.

Eventually, my life was 24/7 heroin.

- (projector whirring) - My parents took me to a psychiatrist.

He didn't know what to do. Took me to a rabbi.

He didn't know what to do.

I remember being locked in a mental hospital

for four weeks.

You know, no therapy, just locked in a room.

I wanted out of drug use.

But I didn't know how to get clean.

Lena Lindsey: Nothing worked.

And I knew if I didn't clean up,

my kids wouldn't have a chance, right?

I would raise a prostitute and a dope fiend

just like I was.

Bill Goodson: My mother was a dope fiend. We may have known,

you know, something like,

"Mom is ill. Mom is not well."

At the time,

it was a pretty desperate situation for dope fiends

because society didn't know what to do with them.

Newscaster: We face a growing menace called drug addiction.

Every citizen must be made to realize that drug addiction

is a very real threat.

Lena: "Once a drug addict, always a drug addict."

And they said it so many times that drug addicts,

we, uh, believed that ourselves.

And we would never be anything else.

- (gavel pounding) - Bill: In the late '50s,

a judge gave my mom an ultimatum of sorts.

You know, "If I see you in my court one more time,

I'm sending you to prison."

And then, she heard about the old man.

That's what we called Chuck Dederich.

"The old man."

(upbeat energetic music playing)

♪♪

Narrator: It's Jack Linkletter, "On The Go!"

Come out along, we're going places, doing things,

and meeting people everywhere in their search for happiness.

Good morning. Today, we're in a dilapidated building

along the beachfront here in, uh, California,

along one of the beach cities.

Actually, this is an organization called Synanon.

This is a home for drug addicts...

Lena: One night, sitting at home, loaded,

some news guy

was talking about a new place

for drug addicts to clean up.

Well, I've been off the habit,

uh, actually since February the 2nd, 1958.

I've been to Lexington, Forth Worth,

numerous other hospitals.

It's never worked to this extent.

When my habit was at its peak,

I robbed and stole, and I prostituted.

- It's a horrible thing, isn't it. - It certainly is.

- Well, thank you for talking to me, alright? Thank you. - You're very welcome.

Lena: It was so surprising.

I didn't know any drug addict that had cleaned up.

Jack Linkletter: I think you're chairman of the board of directors here.

- That's right, Jack. - Your name?

- Chuck Dederich. - Now, Chuck, uh, were you an ex dope addict?

No, I was an alcoholic, Jack.

How long have some of your people been off dope here?

Chuck: Uh, we have people that have been off dope

ever since the place started, around 11 months ago,

and then all the way down to... probably our latest newcomer

was about two or three weeks ago.

Now, is this unusual, to be off dope that long?

Uh, it's considered almost miraculous.

(seagull cawing)

Mike: Before Synanon, there was no residential program

that dealt with drug addiction anywhere in the country.

Probably anywhere in the whole world,

to tell you the truth.

♪♪

Jack Hurst: I asked to become a resident, and I was accepted.

I found the guy who had managed

to stay clean six months was a hero.

I had never seen this happen before.

Terry Hurst: Jack and I'd met May 31st,

and we got married June 19th.

We were madly in love right from the beginning.

We were very happy. For a time.

And then, Jack started what he called "chipping."

You know, he would go out and get high,

and it just progressed and progressed

until he finally got hooked.

So, there was nothing that could help Jack, certainly,

and-and I also knew that he was trying very hard

to stop using drugs. He tried everything.

Meanwhile, we heard about Synanon.

So, we went down on a Friday night

and met with Chuck Dederich.

(soft chatter)

Terry: Synanon was in a storefront.

And when an addict came in, they were put on the couch.

And they were not left alone until they kicked.

(car horn honks)

The rules were don't get high,

you know, don't use anything,

and no physical violence.

No violence and no drugs.

They were the golden rules of Synanon.

Chuck Dederich: Synanon is a coined word.

It doesn't mean anything actually.

It's one of the guys who, uh, mixed up

seminar and symposium and anonymous, and...

- Jack Linkletter: He threw 'em all together... - Chuck: Threw 'em all together

- and came up with a new word. - Jack Linkletter: Do you have any help

from doctors and psychiatrists?

The only help we have

is just an occasional donation from the general public.

- You treat yourselves then? - That's right.

- Completely alone? - Completely alone.

(quiet street noise outside)

Mike: Synanon was unlike any other kind of treatment.

Nobody gave us methadone.

Nobody gave us any other medicines.

The program was addicts helping addicts.

That concept was new and revolutionary.

Jack Hurst: We're not therapists, and we're not psychiatrists,

but we all know what it's like to be a drug addict.

We all know what it's to be a liar.

So, three times a week, everyone attends

what we call our Synanon sessions.

Terry: At that time, we were having sessions.

A group of people would get together in the evening,

and discuss their problems.

Chuck was a drunk, and in the beginning,

Chuck thought he was starting a small AA.

'Cause he had cleaned up on AA.

♪♪

Chuck: I was a real good serious problem drinker.

I ran around with a very speedy crowd,

and, uh, the party was never over for me.

I was a salesman, a public relations person,

and, uh, I-I couldn't do that anymore.

I had lost all my friends.

I had lost two wives and two children, you know.

That was gone.

I stopped drinking in Alcoholics Anonymous

May 14th, 1956.

And I was two years sober

and very active, doing a lot of attendance at meetings,

doing a lot of, um, helping of other drunks,

and all that kind of thing.

But it just, it wasn't deep enough.

It's around this time that I put together

an experimental type of meeting.

♪♪

My dad wasn't the kind of guy that was gonna, like,

go through all the steps and then,

you know, do that for the rest of his life.

There was a truth that he wanted,

a kind of confrontation that he wanted.

And he said, you know,

"I have this lifetime of bottled-up rage."

And he just started talking to everybody in the room

like they were horrible.

You know, telling 'em, you know, whatever kind of asshole

he thought they were, you know. And they loved it.

(indistinct chatter)

Chuck: We met three or four times a week.

We were yelling and cursing

and, you know, really getting our feelings out.

I think, um, you know, some people got some valuable insights,

and it was a great experience.

(chatter continues)

Lena: Shortly after they started,

a couple of dope fiends came in,

and they stayed clean.

And Chuck took notice of that.

♪♪

At that time, nobody wanted to be around drug addicts.

Terrible stigma.

And why he was not turned off by people

that were very different from him in every way,

I don't know.

Maybe it was his face,

his disfigurement from meningitis.

He was the outcast.

The person who had been a failure his whole life.

A person who was broken and lost

and found his way

in connection with other people.

Chuck: These meetings were the group process

which later became known as the Synanon Game.

That was Synanon. (laughs)

The Game was Synanon, really.

(overlapping yelling)

You're not a man! Your mouth don't make you a man!

Could you take an order? You couldn't even do it!

- You're not even a (indistinct)! - (indistinct yelling)

Jady: The Game was a verbal street fight.

It was a way to have a free,

unencumbered, uninhibited,

no-holds-barred encounter with another person.

- Oh, you don't believe that anymore? - I said yeah!

- Nobody agrees with you! Fine! - (tense music playing)

(indistinct yelling)

Lena: The Synanon Game taught us

to look at our own truth.

- All your tiles are coming up! - This your way of giving me help? Hello!

Lena: A lot of things that were thrown at us

from the other participants in the Game

were to get us to express a feeling

because most of us had... uh!

Pushed our feelings down.

(indistinct)

Some of the things that we were said,

they hurt a lot, you know.

But, it helped me to question myself.

(overlapping yelling)

Jack Hurst: We give vent to our pent-up emotions

of hostilities and fears and resentments.

We're able to let go emotionally,

and see what it looks like, see what it sounds like,

see how your peer group takes it.

In the Game, you could say what you want.

Don't tell me now! I put my blood in that thing!

Mike: You save all that anger up, and you do it in the Game.

(indistinct yelling)

And you can say anything you want to anybody in that group,

but you can't hit 'em and you can't threaten to hurt 'em.

No violence.

He's a liar! He don't do nothing!

Why don't you help him out, dammit?!

- Why don't you help him?! - I do wanna help him out!

Lena: The games, they were scary.

(indistinct)

But some of us loved it, right?

To get at each other.

What have you learned? Nothing!

You can't even, even relax with yourself.

The Game was this pressure valve.

- (overlapping yelling) - (curious music playing)

But when you go to bed at night, you'll think about it

over and over and over again.

This led to change and accountability.

The meetings provide an emotional catharsis,

an emotional release which can result in

insights into the problem

because the answer to the person's problem

is within himself.

(muffled chatter)

Lena: You never get over having

that addictive personality.

- Do you see what I mean? Do you understand? - I know it. Yeah.

Lena: In the Game, you learn

how to deal with that feeling differently.

Constructively,

instead of destructively.

(overlapping chatter)

Mike: After trying to kick the heroin habit several times,

I don't know what happened.

Something happened to me at that point...

(gentle music playing)

...and it just, somehow, it just felt right.

I wouldn't be sitting here!

(laughs)

I would not be sitting here

if there had not been a Synanon Game.

Terry: Synanon does work.

It's worked for us. It's brought my family together,

and I see all kinds of people building new lives again

with the help of the people here at Synanon.

("Beach Baby" by The First Class playing)

♪ Ah-ah, ah-ah ♪

♪ Ah-ah, ah... ♪

♪ Do you remember back in old LA, oh oh oh ♪

♪ When everybody drove a Chevrolet, oh oh oh ♪

♪ Whatever happened to the boy next door? ♪

♪ Suntanned, crew cut, all-American male ♪

♪ Remember... ♪

Mike: Chuck first opened Synanon

in this little building in town,

and it grew, and it grew.

And it wasn't big enough for all these people.

And he thought, "Hey, I need to get a bigger place."

♪♪

♪ Beach baby, beach baby, there on the sand ♪

♪ From July to the end of September ♪

♪ Surfing is fun, we'd be out in the sun ♪

♪ Every day ♪

We moved to the "smart" part of town

to the Armory.

- (seagulls cawing) - (song fades out)

Our front door was the beach.

We had this big picture window that looked out at the ocean,

and everybody was sitting around

talking and hanging out together.

(soft saxophone playing)

Jady: The Armory's rent was $500 a month.

$500 a month,

and nobody knew where the money was gonna come from.

(indistinct chatter)

But nobody went hungry.

They never went without food.

Like oxtail stew,

day-old bread,

lots of big salads with lots of Thousand Island dressing

because the lettuce was a little wilty.

(chatter continues)

Terry: Chuck founded a miracle.

But he knew that he had a money problem.

So, he started to develop ideas.

His first idea was we're a business.

We're in the business of curing drug addicts.

And then, he became the executive

running the corporation.

Ron Cook: Chuck always said,

"I run Synanon like a business like Gulf Oil

'cause that's where I got my training."

Chuck used to refer to me as the goddamn bookkeeper.

(laughs)

I wasn't a drug addict.

I was a CPA, and I was Chief Financial Officer

- for Synanon. - (phone ringing)

- (typewriters clicking) - (office chatter)

Chuck established Synanon

as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

It had all the tax benefits

that any nonprofit organization had.

(office chatter)

There was a board of directors.

Mostly, it was drug addicts who were instrumental

in the start of Synanon.

And they got the love,

the attention, the respect

that maybe in a lot of organizations,

they wouldn't get.

- (quiet chatter) - Terry: At that point,

there were about 60 people living in Synanon.

There was a community there,

and you were part of that,

and you were part of the growth of that.

Synanon was free.

Synanon was free.

(quiet chatter)

But they had to feed everybody

and take care of everybody.

So, Chuck created the hustling business.

("Tighten Up Pt.1" by Archie Bell & The Drells playing)

(plastic crinkling)

They hustled all the goods and services.

And these were people who literally just went out

and asked for things.

♪♪

Nobody is a bigger con artist than an addict! (laughs)

I mean, you go into a company.

"Hey, look, you know...

I'm a recovering addict. Synanon saved my life."

Who's gonna say no to that?

Donations came pouring in like you would not believe.

- Yo, Al! - Al: Yeah?

Mike: And people gave us everything!

We hustled Christmas trees,

sheepskin,

soap, cowboy boots,

a Cadillac convertible, live fish,

3 million hot cups, 15,000 trees.

People would donate cotton!

People would donate cattle!

We had a whole department that just did nothing

but cut up all the beef, you know? I mean,

it was crazy!

- Eventually, Synanon had gas stations. - (bell ringing)

They owned all these apartments,

and we were painting every day and working.

And this was part of Chuck's dream of how to do it.

No one got paid for the work.

You got to stay in Synanon.

- You were happy. - (laughter)

(indistinct chatter)

- (song fades out) - (seagulls cawing)

Lena: Betty Coleman.

She was like my sister in Synanon.

We were dope fiends, and we knew each other on the street.

Very smart woman. Very smart.

She and Chuck became girlfriend-boyfriend.

(gentle music playing)

Chuck and Betty got married.

- (seagulls cawing) - (waves splashing)

Everybody came to the wedding.

Officiant: Charles, will you have Betty to be your wife?

- Chuck: I will. - Betty Coleman: I, Betty, take thee, Charles.

Officiant: To be my wedded husband.

Betty: To be my wedded husband.

(shutter snaps)

Chuck had two kids.

His son, Chuck Jr.,

we called him Dede.

And Jady was Chuck's daughter from his second marriage.

Jady: This is Betty and me.

So this was right after I moved in.

We here at Synanon House...

Jady: Betty was gentle,

and she could connect and touch people.

But always with a kind of grace and dignity.

You know, she was ballast for Dad.

She was like a mediator, I think.

You know, it took me

a while to fully accept her.

You know, partly because I felt like

I was betraying my own mother,

who had just died.

And then, it was, you know,

learning how to be out in the world

with an integrated family.

At that time, an interracial couple was rare.

Frowned upon.

In some places, probably illegal.

But, in Synanon, there was a bigger calling.

Chuck and Betty decided to take on this mission together.

That did not go without thought. The guy wasn't,

"I'm so in love, I'm gonna marry." No.

There's a lot of thought put into that.

Because the implications of it

were really...

pretty strong.

Synanon was born in Santa Monica.

(waves splashing)

Santa Monica is super-duper white.

I mean, sterile white.

If you were anything other than white,

there was a place marked off for you at the beach.

Along comes this guy

who integrates living facilities

in Santa Monica.

Unheard of!

But even worse, on the beach! (laughs)

Right? On the beach of Santa Monica!

That's a definite no-no.

(upbeat music playing)

(indistinct chatter, cheering)

Jack Linkletter: I must say that now that you're in a new building,

this is 1,000% improvement, if not more.

- Are your problems over? - Chuck: No, indeed.

One of our biggest problems today is public acceptance.

We feel that we don't have any addicts in this building

because no narcotics are used here.

Every place where we move in,

the neighbors all storm the city council and say,

"Here come the dope fiends! They're gonna sack the city!"

There is a member of, or a segment of our society,

the lunatic fringe, the bigots,

that have been devoting their time and energies

to running us out of town.

And now, they're up to this kind of stuff.

Hanging, uh, Synanon residents in effigy.

(quiet chatter)

Bill: Whether it be drug addicts,

whether it be interracial communal living,

there was so much to not like, you know, at that time.

Lena: The people in Santa Monica

wanted to get rid of us.

They hated us.

- (microfiche clicks) - (somber music playing)

Chuck "Dede" Dederich Jr.: I used to go with my dad.

They had these big town hall meetings.

All these neighbors would get in and scream

and holler at the microphone

and say that we were in the wrong place,

and that you can't have drug addicts in the neighborhood,

and who are we, blah blah... I mean on and on.

And then, the newspapers, of course, would pick it up.

And they would exaggerate more,

so that was a real experience to me to see

what prejudice is.

Jady: We always said that race was a big part of it.

- Dede: Right. - Jady: You know, we were still living

- in that apartheid kind of climate on the beach. - Dede: Yeah.

Phil Bourdette: When I was in the Public Defender's Office,

I started referring clients to Synanon,

and I felt like I was doing something to help somebody,

which is what I wanted to do when I went to law school.

The City of Santa Monica didn't want Synanon in their city.

Santa Monica residents put enough pressure

on the Santa Monica government

to bring charges of operating a hospital

without a license, which it was not a hospital.

We didn't have doctors there.

It was not a medical thing at all,

but the judge told Chuck he would put him on probation

but while he was on probation,

he had to stay away from Synanon.

And Chuck said, "No.

"What I'm doing here is the right thing to do,

"dealing with drug addiction

"in a way that wasn't done before Synanon,

and I'll go to jail for it if that's what I have to do."

And the judge says, "Alright, you're going to jail."

So Chuck went to jail.

There aren't many people that go to jail

for zoning violations.

Jady: Synanon was in a fight for its life.

And Betty, she stepped up to hold the community together,

and kept the place going.

(drumming)

(indistinct chatter)

(chatter continues)

Terry: What we talked about inside of Synanon was

we were the victims.

There was a common enemy,

and it enforced our strength inside of Synanon.

It was us or them.

(distant chatter)

- (music fades out) - (car drives by)

Narrator: A visitor is arriving.

A former member of Synanon. He is high on heroin,

and desperate.

There he is. Look at him. He's damn near dead.

He's now strung out on narcotics,

smashed.

Miriam Bourdette: I didn't know

whether I would be one of those people

who would revert to drug use

if I left Synanon 'cause so many did.

And I was a little afraid

that that might happen.

There has not been one single person

who split from Synanon. Not one.

There hasn't been one stayed clean, baby. Not one!

I believe because I have faith in myself, you know?

(overlapping yelling)

(yelling fades)

Lena: When I went into Synanon,

it was a year program.

My next commitment was three years.

Then Chuck started saying

a dope fiend had to stay in Synanon

because if they left, they would never make it.

♪♪

Mike: Chuck's position was,

"This is where you need to be,

and if you leave, you're gonna die."

That was what went in our heads constantly.

If you leave, you're gonna die.

(indistinct chatter)

Lena: He told us

Synanon was a lifetime thing.

We would be there forever.

My mother was taking care of the kids for me.

But she would get on the phone. (laughs)

"Aren't you ready to come home yet?"

Tears would be coming outta my eyes

'cause I knew that I needed to be in Synanon.

Bill: I think that Chuck didn't want my mom

just having that kind of stress

of not knowing what to do with her kids

that finally one day, he just said, "Go get them."

♪♪

I was 3. My sister was 7.

That's when my memory started,

when I arrived in Synanon.

There were other kids that had moved in.

We bonded immediately

and became like brothers and sisters.

- (waves splashing) - The Armory was absolute heaven

because the beach was ours.

(indistinct chatter)

The day was spent running around,

getting into any kind of mischief and mayhem

- that we could. - (kids giggling)

(wheels squeaking)

And being exposed to people kicking on couches,

to everything.

I remember emptying puke buckets

and getting cold rags.

It was completely normal, completely natural.

It was our living room.

It was communal parenting.

(baby babbling)

There was a group of mothers that ruled the nest,

so if my mom wasn't there,

Terry Hurst was there, or somebody's mom was there.

Synanon was an experiment,

and I don't think Chuck Dederich

or anybody else really knew what they were doing.

The thought of children was the last thing on their mind.

(hallway chatter)

They were just trying to keep saving lives.

♪♪

Mike: Synanon started open houses,

Saturday night parties for the community

to come in, learn about Synanon.

Bill: There were a lot of celebrities

that used to hang out at Synanon.

Esther Phillips, the jazz singer.

Lucille Ball.

- Mike: Jane Fonda. - Terry: Ricardo Montalbán.

All kinds of people came to visit us

and see what we were all about.

Isn't it arrogant of Synanon

to think it can succeed where orthodox organizations

haven't really been able to make much difference?

I feel every right to be arrogant.

If that's the word, it's a good one.

Oh, I was a publicist. Jesus.

I made more goddamn noise

with my little raggedy-ass band of people.

- (interviewer laughs) - National television, everything.

It's been some time since I recommended a book.

I recommend this one, unreservedly.

To quote Senator Thomas Dodd of Connecticut,

"The Synanon method is the first hopeful method

of curing drug addicts that has ever been devised."

Newscaster: "The President wishes Synanon continued success."

Lawrence O'Brien for President John F. Kennedy.

"Of one thing I feel quite sure, and that is that

Synanon house is working." Richard M. Nixon.

"Synanon may be doing more good

than all the rehabilitation centers in the world."

Edmond G. Brown, governor, state of California.

The population grew.

And we opened facilities all over the country.

Reporter: These are the residents of the new Synanon house

in Connecticut. They have a motto.

"Hang tough."

And then, they made a movie about us.

That movie was a big deal.

And it was like a real movie, you know, about Chuck,

with Edmond O'Brien and, uh, Eartha Kitt.

You need him like you need a fix.

Mike: That really got the word out.

Singer: ♪ Hey man, lemme tell you what's happenin' ♪

- ♪ Down at Synanon ♪ - ♪ Tell me about it, baby ♪

♪ Well, everybody's doing it, blow your mind! ♪

(upbeat music continues)

(muffled crowd chatter)

There were a lot of musicians

that came into Synanon for help.

♪♪

Joe Pass,

probably the best jazz guitar player in the world.

Art Pepper was there.

They would play, and everybody would get up and dance.

We had our own Synanon dance called the Hoop La.

Singer: ♪ The Hoop La ♪

♪ It's a dance where you're not confined ♪

♪ You can be 8 to 80, bow-legged, crippled, or blind ♪

(crowd cheering)

♪ Ah yeah, woo! ♪

I mean, the comradery was unbelievable.

(song continues)

And in Synanon, you really loved everybody.

I didn't like everybody,

but I really had a feeling of love for everybody.

- (song fades out) - (birds chirping)

Chuck: I personally am in closer touch

with the people around me.

In Synanon,

I think that there is a-a deeper level

or a higher level

of communication between people.

Mike: All across the country,

people were starting to deal with their mental health.

A lot more than they did probably before.

Now, as Synanon was growing,

the Synanon Game became

the right therapy at the right time. (laughs)

Ron: There were some very brilliant people in their fields

who would come through and study the Synanon Game.

We were successful,

and the Synanon Game is what enabled it.

Mike: Professors, psychologists,

they knew something was going on here.

Chuck Dederich took in a bunch of junkies,

and he was keeping 'em clean.

Speaker: In effect, Synanon is performing mass analysis,

the changing of an entire group of people.

This has been called the greatest breakthrough

in psychiatry since Freud.

♪♪

Mike: Chuck started Synanon Game Clubs.

They were in all the facilities.

In New York, in Detroit,

in San Francisco.

And the Game clubs would be for the people

out in the community who weren't addicts,

but they understood the power of what was going on.

4,000 people belong to our Synanon club,

so they don't live here. People from all walks of life.

Newsmen, housewives, bricklayers,

doctors, lawyers, and all peoples get together

within the Synanon environment and talk.

Your wife is one of your hang-ups.

Hell, your wife is one of the best things

you got going for ya.

Why don't you talk about you?

- What do you wanna know about me? - I... Look!

I'm not gonna pull your covers! You wanna play the Game, play the Game.

That's not true. I...

Terry: People that weren't addicts,

people that just heard about Synanon.

You know, they came down and played the Game,

and they started to just enjoy the community.

(laughter)

Buddy Jones: My wife and I went to a Synanon Game club.

It was like an awakening.

It was totally integrated.

♪♪

John Madden had recruited me to play football

at San Diego State.

Some friends said, "Listen, when you get down to San Diego

and you feel the pressure, go to Synanon."

We walked into the building, and boom!

I never used drugs, I was not a dope fiend.

But I began to play the Game.

It was a lifesaver for me in a certain way

'cause every time I had a good catharsis in the Game,

I felt a little lighter.

(overlapping chatter)

Lynn Ritter: The Synanon Game was great. It was right up my alley.

It was, it was just... I felt like I'd come home.

You could say what you wanted to say.

I wanted to jump right into it.

You don't know how to verbalize yourself in here, and with me.

This is what goes on!

- I met Phil there. - (weak laugh)

And he was kind of a cool glass of water.

- Good-looking guy. - (both laugh)

I kind of, uh, was a little full of myself.

I got ganged up on

by a couple of very experienced Game players

and got my feelings terribly hurt.

- (laughs) - Lynn: I just wish I'd been there!

- You should've been in that game with me! (laughs) - Oh, man!

- Excuse me. Go... Go ahead. - It would've saved you a lot of trouble down the road!

(both laugh)

Norm Johnson: When the Game Club opened up to nonresidents,

Squares, as we were called.

I was probably one of the early participants.

I played the Game in Los Angeles

and up in San Francisco.

I went through a divorce, and I did have

a reoccurring struggle with depression.

Playing the Synanon Game helped me.

The intimacy of the Game, I think,

moved me to a place where I felt I had nothing to hide

and it just seemed to-to create

a level of communication that was delicious.

(game chatter)

Lena: The Squares would volunteer

and donate their time and money.

(indistinct)

We had something good going on,

and they wanted to be a part of it, right?

(kids chattering)

Terry: This couple came in, Nina and Al Bauman,

and they more or less started the school.

It was in a house they rented down the beach from the club.

Aha. I love this picture.

This is in front of the school.

That's myself,

um, then we've got Charlene, who was my first girlfriend.

We actually moved into the school.

And now suddenly, we were thrown into this new situation.

I was probably around 12.

That's when we all first started playing the Game.

Patty: We're out there. You had to write a note and tell me

it's time for school, you little asshole!

What do you think you are?!

(kids yelling)

(sighs)

That Game, it hurts my heart.

- (kids yelling) - Charlene is being gamed.

The Game for kids was no different

than the Game for adults.

Patty: You little buttface!

I know you are, Patty!

Patty: And you sneak in the back and you smoke!

- Oh yeah?! (indistinct) - (all yelling)

Patty: Don't lie, Charlene! (indistinct)

You were doing it also!

Bill: You can see so much pain

in her young heart, which she carried through her life.

(yelling continues)

Bill: I learned how to play the Game

and did everything I could to not have it turn on me.

I think the painful part for me

was some of my best friends,

they didn't know how to play the Game.

They were afraid of it.

You know, I wanted to protect them.

(indistinct)

But, it's kind of hard because as soon as you open that door,

then suddenly, you know, it's like, vroom.

The focus becomes on you,

and why are you trying to protect,

you know, uh, your classmate or your brother or your sister.

(yelling continues)

A lot of my young friends

couldn't figure out how to play by the rules

of a place that didn't have any rules

or rules that changed all the time.

(kids yelling)

Imagine a situation

where the vultures can pick you apart

unless you fight back.

Some kids couldn't fight back.

You know, there was,

for sure, some collateral damage.

(curious music playing)

As kids,

we didn't understand all of the ins and outs of it.

But we knew that there was this whole movement.

- (indistinct) - (kids screaming)

And to some degree, I think that it was

- a sign of the times. - (laughter)

("Alone Again Or" by Love playing)

Buddy: You have to think in terms of not just Synanon.

You have to think about what was happening in the '60s.

Synanon was just like a part of all the other social movements.

I mean, the whole culture was exploding.

♪ Yes ♪

♪ Said it's alright ♪

♪ I won't forget ♪

- Jesse Jackson (chants): I am! - Crowd (chants): I am!

- Jesse: Somebody! - Crowd: Somebody!

- Jesse: I am! - Crowd: I am!

- Black! - Crowd: Black!

- Jesse: Beautiful! - Crowd: Beautiful!

- Proud! - Crowd: Proud!

I must be respected!

Crowd: I must be respected!

♪ And I will be alone again tonight, my dear ♪

- (gentle splashing) - Buddy: In 1968,

Synanon moved to the Del Mar Club.

(seagulls cawing)

By that time, there were a lot of people

who were beginning to look at the difference

between their own lifestyle and the Synanon lifestyle.

- (song fades out) - (quiet chatter)

Terry: I think that there were a lot of people that felt alone.

In Synanon, you just connected in a special way.

(quiet chatter)

You ate all your meals together.

You had a job that wasn't too difficult.

Your evenings were all taken up with games

and Saturday night parties.

You never were lonely,

you were totally taken care of,

and a lot of people wanted to become a part of it.

- (leaves rustling) - (soft music playing)

Elena Broslovsky: I dropped out of college

and I ended up in San Francisco

during the Summer of Love.

I was hitchhiking down Oak Street.

Guy picked me up on his motorcycle

and said he was going to the Synanon Street Fair.

And I went, "Oh, my God! That rehab."

(quiet street noise)

They're wearing love beads, they have rock bands.

Um, this is great.

I wasn't a drug addict,

but I wanted to join.

♪♪

(inaudible)

Rod Mullen: I think, for a lot of people,

Synanon was an opportunity to live in a way

that was consistent with your principles.

I really saw the organization

as a vital approach to civil rights.

(gentle music playing)

(crowd chatter)

(cars honking)

Elena: One of the things that made me wanna move in

were the three assassinations that happened.

♪♪

That put a lot of people

in absolute despair about our country.

(crowd cheering)

When the news about Martin's assassination came,

I saw Chuck on the stage.

And he talked about a community and forming a community.

We had a view. Synanon is a social movement.

Any kind of a divide

that people had between each other,

we believed could be talked out,

could be healed, could be confronted.

Rod: Chuck really believed that community itself

was healing.

(crowd singing)

And that community was not only good for addicts.

Anyone in society could benefit from living communally

and working together and participating

in the Synanon Game.

(clapping)

And I think Chuck thought this is bigger than...

just cleaning up drug addicts.

("Les Fleurs" by Minnie Riperton playing)

♪ Ring all the bells, sing, and tell the people everywhere ♪

♪ That the flower has come ♪

♪ Light up the sky with your prayers of gladness ♪

♪ And rejoice for the darkness is gone ♪

♪ Throw off your fears, let your heart beat freely ♪

♪ At the sign that a new time is born ♪

Elena: So, we started moving in.

We weren't drug addicts.

- We were called Lifestylers. - (song fades out)

We came to change the world. We thought we could.

Rod: A doorway opened, and it was quite a change.

And some of the change was in terms of

the economics of Synanon.

(quiet chatter)

Not only did Lifestylers provide

a lot of well-educated professionals,

many of the Lifestylers worked outside of Synanon

and contributed their salaries.

When my dad died, I had inherited some money.

So I donated that money to Synanon.

It was about $55,000.

And I had a house full of furniture and stuff,

and I donated that to Synanon as well.

Jady: I was one of the directors,

and we would collect the money from the Lifestylers.

It was like a whole ritual that I would do once a week.

I was 23 years old. I'd get dressed nicely, you know.

It was like an acknowledgment of it. It was a ceremony.

You know, donating most of your money.

- (phone ringing) - (typing)

Mike: A gentleman gave an entire real estate business!

A woman whose family were the founders

of Chico-San rice cakes, (laughs)

she gave all her wealth!

We had doctors in Beverly Hills.

You're talking millions and millions of dollars.

(curious music playing)

Elena: AdGap stood for advertising, gifts, and premiums.

It was a company that grew out of a donation

- by a Lifestyler. - (phone ringing)

Rod: AdGap turned out to be

very, very lucrative.

Selling, you know, a pencil or a pen

with a company's imprint on it,

or hats, uh, jackets.

Ron: The advertising gifts business brought in a lot of money.

And we were still getting a tremendous amount of donations.

(forklift rumbling)

All our food was donated.

We had doctors and dentists who donated their time.

We got a building donated to us in San Francisco.

It was one city block.

(office chatter)

Mike: We were growing very, very, very quickly

because we were making so much money.

Old-timers were not real happy about it.

♪♪

Lena: Chuck turned all of his attention

to the Lifestylers.

Not that we didn't like them,

but we could see him, um...

slowly drifting away from the dope fiends.

(indistinct chatter)

We were resentful

because they were taking up our spaces...

(chatter continues)

...and because of the things that we had gone through

to help Chuck get to that point.

Addicts started feeling demoted.

Like that they weren't important anymore.

They just became non-entities.

- (seagulls cawing) - Bill: In the late '60s,

there was a Game in Santa Monica.

- (gentle splashing) - (leaves rustling)

It was called the Dirty Double Dozen.

In it were all of the old-timers.

But, this-this time,

there was something different.

There was something mean-spirited about it.

- (foreboding music playing) - (gentle splashing)

♪♪

It hurt, right?

'Cause we had worked hard

not just to get our lives together,

but just to build this foundation.

I was the first one of the old-timers

that left, right?

- (gentle splashing outside) - (somber music playing)

Rod: These elders had an important role to play in Synanon.

(seagulls cawing)

They knew a lot.

The addicts knew Chuck when he was just Chuck.

A guy they admired, but did not think that he walked on water.

(indistinct)

And in some ways, it was killing the witnesses.

(tense music playing)

Because the Lifestylers

started to see Chuck as a god.

(dramatic crescendo)

(solemn music playing)

♪♪

(music fades out)