Drug Treatment- Inside a Synanon Clone Program

Drug Treatment- Inside a Synanon Clone Program :

The first drug treatment program chosen for me (besides CRC- which is the California Department of Corrections ?Program?) by my parole agent was the Long Term Family Program at the Tarzana Psychiatric Hospital.I was somewhat shocked when I arrived there.
My first view of the ?Family? was in the cafeteria and it looked like a line of carnival sideshow freaks. The men had shaved heads and wore dresses. The women were wearing men?s clothes. Some were wearing paper bags over their heads with eye,nose,and mouth holes. All were wearing cardboard sandwich board signs with crayon marked messages on them.It was a weird menagerie of bizarre design.
My first night there I was rudely awakened at 2:00 A.M. by our phase leader screaming ?Creep,creep, creep?. As I was to find out a ?creep? meant to be awoken in the middle of the night for ?therapy?. It is amazing what can be done to human beings in the name of ?Therapy? The first therapy was to stand on the wall. Standing on the wall was a big part of Tarzana. If you were ever stood in the corner as punishment as a child with your face against the wall, then you have a sense of standing on the wall. Usually it was from 10-30 minutes. However there were times when we stood on the wall for as long as 20 hours. This ,of course, is cruelty and not therapy but that?s what they did. In the beginning I was not told a lot about the program except that I would have to have a lot of blind ?faith? and that the program worked.
The Tarzana Family was a Synanon clone program. A Synanon Clone program is one modeled after the infamous Synanon program in Santa Monica.. Many people know a little about the Synanon program and certainly a large number of people went through it.At the time I was in Tarzana (the early 1970?s) synanon clone programs were still popular , but seem to be more replaced by 12 step programs these days. Tarazna itself still exits and now hosts 12 step programs . Tarzana was run by former drug addicts who were graduates from the Camarillo Family program. Therapies were varied but it was basically group therapy. The Synanon Game which was developed at Synanon was used there and I believe it is still used as therapy in some drug treatment programs.
Briefly, the game is group confrontation. One person is placed on the ?hot seat? or probe and basically attacked by other people in the game. Much truth is said but since we are talking about corrupted drug addicts it is often without love (at least in my experience). Much non-truth is also said. The purpose of the game is therapeutic but well---let the reader judge the efficacy of sick drug addicts acting like psychiatrists to one another
The Candidacy phase of the program lasted a few weeks. It was ,I suppose, a period of time where the candidate got oriented and the program observed the candidate to see if they were acceptable. Many, many people ?split?during the candidacy phase due to the creeps, standing on the wall and other ?therapies?. I remember one fellow who split and we heard several weeks later that he had committed suicide. Drug addiction is a serious business and many don?t survive it one way or another.The candidate phase lasted a few weeks and then it was time for my screening into the family.
Screening was accomplished by the Synanon Game. I walked into the room and was put on the hot seat. They started asking me questions like what had I been doing there. I gave them the answers I thought would please them. I told them I had been fulfilling the assignments I had been given etc.,etc,etc,Then they started verbally attacking me. I had never experienced anything like it.There were maybe a dozen people and they started shouting things at me, and insulting me; I was told to sit on my hands. More shouts.Screaming. Ridicule. I started getting angry. No anger is not the word for it. Hate.Resentment. Deep burning ready to kill hate.The same kind of hate I felt when my mother beat me as a child. I remember someone saying ?look at that hate?. I exploded at one of the senior staff members,? You can take this whole great big program and roll it up into a little ball and STUFF IT UP YOUR ***.? The staff member himself gave me an ultimatum to apologize or get out. They started counting down as a group. 10,9,8.,7,6, 5,4,3,2,1- ?YOUR OUT?. I felt like it was prize fight and I was being counted out. When they said ?YOUR OUT? it became a hypnotic suggestion to me due to my resentment.. I closed my eyes and went out. I went into a hysterical trance like state.
I remember them telling me to open my eyes. I replied that I couldn?t. I was in a
trance like state and my eyelids were stuck shut. They kept telling me I could open my
eyes but I tried and couldn?t. Apparently, the group attack and the intense hatred had
produced a hypnotic state and the suggestion ?Your Out? made me go into a semi-
conscious hysterical state. I vaguely remember them calling some of the staff members at
home and saying ? What we feared would happen has finally happened?. I have no
memory of waking up but I must have because I remember them sending me out of the
room and I came back. ?Welcome to the Family ? they said and hugged me.

Honestly, I don?t know if this sort of thing goes on at Tarzana now, but it certainly
Did then. Sleep deprivation, shaving heads, wearing dresses for men, standing in
Uncomfortable positions on the wall, verbal attacks by entire groups: all this was considered therapy. It was all done With tax dollars. If you are wondering what all this had to do as ?treatment? for drug Addiction, you are not the only one. 30 years later Im still wondering.

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