Alma Sandoval

Professor Delaporte

Religious Communes

April 3, 2016

Major Figures & Places 

Living in Los Angeles for majority of my life and being a constant visitor at Santa Monica Beach, I never visioned the building I passed by constantly to have been the historical home place for recovering drug addicts and the infamous cult that is Synanon. Charles Dedreich, a former alcoholic, wanted to help others fight their alcoholic or narcotic addiction. Since AA differentiated between those who used and were dependent on illegal drugs, Dedreich decided to incorporate what he learned from his meetings into his very own founded organization, Synanon. He wanted to respond to the needs of everyone and by doing so, his organization began a two year residential program where most of its members couldn’t necessarily graduate to living a full, healthy non-addicted life since he believed no one was able of being fully recovered. Synanon served as a drug rehabilitation center that required full commitment upon entering and once accepted, Dedreich automatically forced the quitting of drugs and didn’t necessarily allow his members to get in contact with family or friends. At first, Synanon was a place where people could get the recovery and support they needed in the way Dedreich believed worked best; however, since my group and I studied on the major figures and locations of Synanon, I found it fascinating to see the consistent relocating and migrating of Synanon and the evolution of a cult. What first started as a program for addicts slowly became an organization and religion for tax purposes. Dedreich noticed that the IRS started investigating and cracking down on who this ‘Church of Synanon' was and this was when Dedreich decided to move up North in a town called Marshall. Dedreich was constantly running away from trouble but kept his presence around all of his bay area facilities. Shortly after his wife’s death, Betty Dedreich, Charles’ behavior began to change. He began to get more violent, angry and broke his own rules. He began threatening outside sources who wanted to get an inside scoop on who Synanon was and as time progressed, Dedreich started accepting less addicts into Synanon since they were a “burden” and “waste of time”. Many of his members hustled for money which eventually exposed them in the article written by Cathy and David Mitchell, the Light on Synanon. This exposed everything occurring within the walls of Synanon and portrayed a negative light on the leader Charles Dedreich. What was his next move? Well, relocating of course. From Marin County, he then moved to Badger, California which was east of Fresno but shortly after made his way to Arizona where a small Synanon building was located. Eventually, he was arrested in Arizona while sitting down on a chair and drinking alcohol. It’s interesting to see a leader who at first wanted to better others fall back into his own ways and that’s the fascination of Synanon because the transition from being a helpful organization to a violent cult is so clear and evident by examples such as the rattle snake in Paul Morantzs’ mailbox, buying an armada of weapons, hustling for money and incorporating member military training. In conclusion, the reign of Synanon was over shortly after Dedreich’s arrest.