Word: dederich
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Most striking outpost for the addicts' mutual-aid method is Nevada State Prison. Authorities invited Founder Charles E. Dederich. 49 (never a drug addict himself, but a graduate of A.A.), to set up Synanon's system in the cell blocks and maximum freedom honor camp at Peavine, northwest of Reno. The result has been an unexpected bonus. Not only is Synanon taking hold with 18 addicts, but because the same personality weaknesses that drive some people to narcotics are also present in many nonaddict prisoners, the Synanon program at Nevada now covers twice as many convicts with...
...CHARLES DEDERICH Synanon House Santa Monica, Calif...
...often brutally frank personal exchanges", the addicts slowly reveal to themselves the anxieties that led them to the needle, and through daily contact with similarly beset persons are reinforced in their determination to quit narcotics permanently. Says the founder of Synanon House, 48-year-old Charles E. Dederich, a potbellied Irishman who was once an alcoholic but never a drug addict: "It is something that works...
...They're like Children." The Synanon curriculum is divided into three stages. During the first phase, the emotionally shaken, physically weak addict gradually adjusts to his new surroundings. Says Dederich: "Addicts are babies who look like men and women. They have to grow up emotionally. After they've kicked, they're like children, and they have to be told to turn off the lights, flush the toilet, keep their fingers out of lamp sockets." Such, for example, is Synanon's youngest member, a plump girl of 19 who was trapped by narcotics at 13. After eight...