The Dale Jr. Download - The Sunshine Place from C13Originals

Episode Date: August 18, 2022

Once called “the miracle on the beach,” Synanon began in the 1960s as an experimental rehab facility in Santa Monica, California with a radical claim: It could cure heroin addiction. Before long, it would make an even bolder claim: It could cure any of your problems. All you had to do was move in. What started in a house on the beach, soon spread to compounds across the country. The man who made the miracle happen, Charles E. Dederich, aka “Chuck,” would be the one to destroy it all, along with the lives of many of his followers and millions of dollars in assets. The Sunshine Place tells the mind-blowing, true story of Synanon - one of America’s most cutting-edge social experiments, turned into one of its most dangerous and violent cults - as it’s never been told before: by the people who lived it. Executive Produced by Robert Downey Jr., Susan Downey, and Emily Barclay Ford for Team Downey and C13Originals, together with Josh McLaughlin for Wink Pictures, and written, produced, and directed by Peabody-nominated C13Originals, a Cadence13 Studio. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, Dirty Mo Media fans, I'm still Jr. And I want to share with you a preview of The Sunshine Place. It's a new documentary podcast created by C-13 originals in association with Team Downey and winked pictures. The Sunshine Place tells the mind-blowing true story of Cinnon, one of America's most cutting-edge social experiments, which became one of the most dangerous and violent cults, as it's never been told before from the inside out and by the people who lived it. Once called the Miracle on the Beach, Sinanon began. in the 1960s as an experimental rehab facility in Santa Monica, California, with a radical claim. They could cure heroin addiction, and before long, they would make an even bolder claim that they could fix any problem.

All you had to do was move in. What started in a house on the beach in Santa Monica soon spread to San Francisco, Oakland, then to compounds all across California, and then the country with thousands of people, and millions of dollars in assets. sets. The man who made the miracle happen would be the same man to destroy it all, along with the lives of many of his followers. The Sunshine Place, a production of Peabody Award-nominated C-13 Originals, is available now on the Odyssey app or wherever you listen to your podcasts. You learn to use the needle to actually increase the high because you can pull it back and push it in and pull it back and push. And every time you do that, you get this warm rush through your body. Heating it up, making sure it's clean, putting the strap around your arm, finding a vein.

I mean, that's all part of like a ritual. I was addicted to heroin. But I went into Sinanon on October 1, 1972. And that was the last day I've ever used drugs. You're probably wondering what exactly is Sinanon. And I guess it really all depends on who you ask. Some people would tell you that it's the reason they're still alive. They took me down to the police station.

As soon as they put me in the cell, I took off my blue jeans and I hung myself. Sin and on saved my life. To people like my mom, it was a cutting-edge social experiment. I thought it was utopia. To many people, it was a religion. To others, it was a revolution. But almost everyone will tell you that what it became was a violent cult. They had the shotgun out the window, and I grabbed the shotgun.

And I said to the guy, I'm going to take your own shotgun and shoot your fucking head off. Don't mess with Senan people. The truth is that at various times, it was all of those things. But before it was any of those things, it was only one person. The founder of Sinanon, a man named Charles E. Diedrich, who most people called Chuck. Many, many thousands of people who are indebted to Sinan. I have no way of being responsible for what they might do. Chuck founded Sinan as a first of its kind drug rehab with a radical claim.

He could cure your addiction. I'm quite convinced that he actually knows more about me than I know about myself. Then Chuck made an even more radical claim. He could cure any of your problems. All you had to do was move in. With success came others who simply sought a different way of life. And wherever Chuck went, his people followed. I think that he could lead people anywhere that he wanted to.

He's that forcefully human being. But Chuck was leading his followers down a path of destruction. And they brought the guys' people. and they shaved their heads. And I thought, God damn. You know, that's out of control. You had people being beaten up in Synanon and outside of Senanon and then the guns. And it went fucking crazy.

To my father, Sinanon was the group he owed everything to. And they tried to make him pay with his life. We never start anything. We never do and never had it. but nobody is going to mess with us. Nobody. This is the story of Synanon, in a way it's never been told, from the inside out, by those of us who are finally ready to talk about it.

Like me, my name is Sari Crawford. Listen to the Sunshine Place, a creation and presentation of C-13 originals, a Cadence 13 studio. Executive produced with Susan Down, and Robert Downey Jr. Available for free now, wherever you get your podcasts.