In the late 1950s, Charles “Chuck” Dederich started a drug rehabilitation program in a Santa Monica store. Dederich, a recovering alcoholic who had achieved sobriety through Alcoholics Anonymous, offered free treatment to self-described “drug addicts” desperate to kick his deadly habit and quit cold turkey.
Over the next decade and a half, the group, called Synanon, spread across the country and evolved into a self-help movement with thousands of members, including many who were not addicts but simply drawn to its idealistic vision: no drugs, no alcohol. , or violence, and its primary ritual, a form of intensely confrontational group therapy known as “The Game.”
However, by the late 1970s, Synanon had deviated dramatically from its original mission, becoming a dangerous quasi-religious paramilitary organization whose devotees, beholden to Dederich's increasingly erratic whims, were willing to undergo vasectomies. forced, relinquish control over their own children, and even attempt to murder a prominent critic by planting a rattlesnake in his mailbox.
The dark saga of Synanon is now the subject of a four-part documentary “The Synanon Fix,” which concludes Monday on HBO. Directed and produced by Rory Kennedy, the series traces the group's utopian origins and their gradual descent into violence and manipulation. Coming at a time when public interest in cults and high-control groups seems almost insatiable, “The Synanon Fix” offers a particularly dark and resonant spin on the well-known story of the California Dream gone wrong.
The story “had a really dramatic, almost Shakespearean arc,” said writer and executive producer Mark Bailey, in a video chat with Kennedy from his home in California (the couple are film partners and have also been married since 1999). “The intentions and achievements of the first decade were truly amazing. But the result was really dark and destructive.”
Kennedy, who has made more than a dozen documentaries, including “Ghosts of Abu Ghraib” and “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing,” said she was not particularly interested in “quote-unquote cult stories” but was impressed by the Synanon movie drama. 180 degree transformation. “In the beginning, the pillars of Synanon were the absence of drugs, alcohol and violence. By the end, they had purchased more firearms than anyone in California history and had an open bar on the premises.”
The story was not only dramatic, but also contained lessons about the dangers of blindly following a charismatic leader, a topic that seems politically relevant in 2024. Dederich was one such figure, someone who built a community and inspired intense loyalty in His Followers. “Because they are tied to him, where he goes, they go. And that's the danger: As he starts to become less stable, whether it's his alcoholism or mental illness, he takes Synanon with him,” Bailey said. “For us that was an important thing to say right now.” (Along with many members of his famous Kennedy family, whose brother Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is running for president as an independent, endorsed President Biden last week.)
Kennedy and Bailey first met Synanon about a decade ago while reading “Straight Life,” an autobiography of jazz musician Art Pepper and his wife, Laurie, who met while getting clean at Synanon. “I'd never heard of Synanon, but it's right there on the beach with these people with shaved heads playing 'The Game,' which sounds like a pretty radical therapeutic treatment,” Bailey said. “I instantly thought, 'Wow, what was this?' And why have I never heard of that?'”
Charles “Chuck” Dederich, founder of Synanon.
(HBO)
The documentary is woven using extensive archival footage, including news reports and visceral footage of members playing “The Game,” in which participants were aggressively pressured to be brutally honest about themselves and each other. It also includes audio recordings of Dederich lecturing his followers over “the Wire,” the group's internal broadcast system, as well as first-person accounts from approximately 20 former members and interviews with journalists, including Narda Zacchino, who wrote about Synanon for The Times.
Some former members were initially cautious about attending interviews, Kennedy said, because “everyone was aware that there was a way to tell this story that is quite sensational.” But as it won over, more people decided to participate in the documentary, including Dederich's daughter, Jady Dederich Montgomery.
After years of wrangling, the filmmakers were also able to gain access to Synanon's archives, which included thousands of photographs and “a treasure trove of extraordinary material,” according to Kennedy. Because this happened just weeks before they were ready to block the film, they had to ask HBO for several more months and more money to recut the documentary. “To their credit, they agreed,” Kennedy said.
Interviewing people who spent years at Synanon playing “The Game” was fascinating and challenging, he said.
“On average, in documentaries, which I have been making for 25 years, interviews last between two and three hours. None of these were less than seven hours. “Some of them lasted nine hours, like one sitting.” At times, Kennedy felt that he was playing “The Game” with his subjects. “They talked to me more about how they felt about the interview as it was going on.”
Kennedy takes a simple approach in “The Synanon Fix,” allowing the story to unfold chronologically and spending time explaining the group's origins before diving into rattlesnakes and partner swapping.
“This was a community that was taking a big step toward something that was really ahead of its time, in many ways, in terms of how it treated drug addicts, who had been a very ostracized community,” Kennedy said. “Either they went to jail, or they went to a psychiatric hospital, or they died.”
Viewers learn how Synanon, which eventually moved to the historic Casa Del Mar Hotel in Santa Monica, began attracting a broader range of followers with the rise of the counterculture in the late 1960s. I knew them, they were people who joined Synanon because they were looking for a sense of purpose and belonging, not to treat their addiction. They saw the group as “a cure for loneliness and alienation,” Bailey said, and “The Game” as a way to increase connection and sense of community. Some also donated large sums of money and professional services to the organization.
Throughout the '70s, Dederich became increasingly dictatorial, making bizarre demands on his followers that had little to do with the group's original mission. He required members to shave their heads and follow strict diets and exercise regimens. He pressured men to have vasectomies and women to have abortions. After his wife died and he remarried, Dederich urged married couples to divorce and accept new partners assigned to them. Eventually, Dederich abandoned the road and overturned the group's ban on alcohol. Children were separated from their parents and had to shave their heads and play “The Game” like adults, even though they lacked the ability to understand it. Some children were allegedly beaten and forced to do strenuous work.
Over the decade, Synanon faced increasing criticism, including accusations of kidnapping and child abuse, but its members became increasingly militant, stockpiling weapons and forming a militia called the Imperial Marines. The group made national headlines in 1978 when a lawyer named Paul Morantz, who had won a $300,000 settlement with Synanon, nearly died from a rattlesnake bite after Synanon fans planted the animal in your mailbox.
The incident marked a breaking point for some fans, but not all.
One of the most surprising aspects of the series is how many former members still seem to believe in the Synanon cause and remain grateful to Dederich, who died more than 25 years ago, for saving their lives.
Rory Kennedy, one of the filmmakers of HBO's “The Synanon Fix.”
(Jon Kopaloff/Getty for HBO)
The central question of the series is “Did the cure become a cult?” and the filmmakers don't entirely agree with the answer.
Bailey isn't entirely convinced that Synanon fits the definition of a cult, if only because “there's something that feels too random and disorganized about what it was trying to do,” he said.
Kennedy is more confident in using the term. “I've talked to enough people who felt like they compromised their moral compass by following an idea that took them in directions they didn't feel they should have gone. That's a defining quality of a cult,” he said, prodding her gently. husband for her more ambivalent opinion. “If you had been there, you would have persevered to the end, clearly,” she said, laughing. “Silly is what you are.”
Regardless of how they classify the group, the filmmakers see “The Synanon Fix” as a quintessentially Californian story about the types of spiritual seekers who have been drawn to the state for generations.
“You think that people who move West already have some kind of quest in their DNA,” Bailey said. “We came here about 14 years ago, but we were both born and raised on the East Coast. And it was really kind of getting used to how they let you follow your own weird theme and everyone's like, 'Oh, that's cool.'”
