I listened to an interview that was recorded and it was of Chuck Dederich, Jr. which is chuck’s son. I enjoyed listening to this interview because I could see how Chuck Jr views his dad and I could see a perspective of Chuck through his son's eyes. Chuck Jr. did not speak ill of his dad at all and still had a lot of respect for him despite how his dad acted towards the end. Chuck Jr. talks about his experience of why he joined synanon, why he stayed when things got tough and some things that led to the downfall.
Chuck Jr. was working at a telephone company in 1957 when his dad Chuck went to alcoholics anonymous. Chuck described himself with having a character disorder. He was trying to come to terms with being an alcohol by going to the meetings. Chuck Jr. kept in touch with his dad and had gone to some AA meetings with him. When chuck created synanon Jr. felt that his dad had finally found his calling and this job was meant for him. Jr saw that creating and running synanon kept chuck very busy and gave him something to do which helped give him a purpose in life and quite drinking. Around this time Jr was unemployed and thought it would be nice to have a place to live for free and he thought it would be nice to live with his dad since he had gone to the army he hadn't been around his dad in a while. As he was living in synanon he worked around synonnon for them which he enjoyed. JR also had a side business where he would help people move to make money. He also worked on the cars that synanon had.
While Jr was working around synanon Chuck worked in his office all day. Chuck did a lot of 1 on 1 work with the drug addicts and became very close with the people in the beginning. Jr noticed that his dad Chuck, knew how to tap into people's strengths. If chuck saw someone who liked photography he would make them take pictures and chuck would then hang this pictures all over his office and around synanon. If Chuck saw someone who could cook well and liked it he would make them a cook for synanon. I think since Chuck was good at giving people jobs they would enjoy and were good at, this helped the recovering addicts feel needed and gave them a sense of purpose for being in synanon.
Jr. stayed in synanon for some time then his dad convinced him to go to a community college and get some kind of an education. When Jr. came back to synanon there were many different people. Some people had only passed third grade some were college educated. Jr. really liked the environment and the people around. Jr said he felt that got some important information from the seminars that his dad taught. He appreciated the seminars and helped him throughout his life. Jr. said chuck was a great speaker and the seminars were very motivational. His dad's philosophy was very helpful to everyone. People were coming in as a real mess and on drugs. This people were quitting cold turkey and could you already see changes within just two weeks of them coming in to synanon.
Jr. talked about how he saw Synanon was changing in the early 1970s. They started calling groups called programs. And it started feeling more like a program then as a living situation. They called everything programs which was very different than what chuck had started. Once people had been there for awhile they did not want to associate with new people. That started to cause problems. They were not re educating the new people. They did not teach as many new skills to the new people and they were not making room for new people. Before in the beginning they would have a sales team that would go out and travel to the other locations and they would spread the word about synanon. These sales teams would then teach a group of newcomers how to be a sales team. However, people stopped caring about the newcomers so no one taught them anything and soon there was no sales team. The leaders and people in charged stopped caring about the newcomers which made a big difference in synanon.
As synanon started changing so did chuck. Jr tells a story that at one time chuck lost his patience and poured a can of rootbeer on a lady's head. He soon apologized to her then later regretted saying he was sorry and told everyone he was not sorry for what he had done and said he could do whatever he wanted and flipped his table and walked out. He wanted the power and didn't want to feel threatened. Their was 100 people watching and this led to a very weird atmosphere in synanon.
As synanon was starting its downfall people would come in and see what synanon was doing and they didn't like what they saw so the people would throw rocks or yell at them and even would drive by and shoot at some of the residents. Chuck Jr. said They would call the cops but the cops would not do anything to stop the people. So the synanon people started taking measures into their own hand. When they saw someone on their property they would get a group of guys and tell them to leave. One time outsiders were driving the kids off the road and almost hurt the children so people from synanon brought the outsiders back and shaved their head. The police came by and charged the synanon people 6000 dollars for shaving their head. Now looking back Jr. realizes that led to some bad habits and opened doors to more of a physical war with the community for later on. It started the slippery slope.
People started making people stay when they wanted to leave and this led to many law suits. All the lawsuits were a big financial burden which led to the financial downfall.
Jr. He continued to stay at synanon when things started getting rough. He had a family and kids and his dad was running the place. He didn't want to leave that. Jr. liked the lifestyle he was living. He liked living in the country and he liked the people at synanon. Everyone felt like family for to him and he could not just get up and leave that easy.He had a lot of easy access to materials and had had a nice living space with his family.He enjoyed taking in the newcomers and helping them out and helping them learn the synanon traditions. He saw that people were forgetting about the new comers so he thought he needed to also stay to help the newcomers out.
Another thing that led to the downfall was in 1977 chuck started drinking again which was when bettie died. When bettie died chuck could not handle it and fell off the rope and started drinking. People had told him to take a year break and settle down but he was very emotional and couldn't stay still. He lost focus and stopped seeing a clear vision for synanon. Jr finally realized his dad was not in his right mind. Chuck had bipolar disorder and relapsed by drinking a lot.
I thought it interesting that Chuck Jr. felt like he belonged in synanon even though he never had a drug problem. Synanon gave Jr. a direction in life and helped him get started. Jr. met many people that he still considers family.
http://synanonarchivecollection.com/synanonarchivecollection/Former_Residents_and_Friends_Tell_Their_Stories.html
I didn't even realize he had his family with him the whole time while at Synanon. It was interesting to read about his son and his life at Synanon because I never really thought about what his life was like there while his dad was the head of the whole place.
ReplyDeleteI felt the same way. We didn't really get into chucks family so I don't think many people realize he had a son their the whole time. I found it interesting to that Chuck Jr. also raised his whole family at synanon. I also felt like from listing to what chuck Jr. was saying his dad never treated him with special privileges even though he was his son.
DeleteI also didn't know that Dederich had his son there. It was cool to read about his perspective and what he saw were the changes that happened in Synanon. His perspective is crucial in giving us a different look at Dederich and the many sides he had. Really interesting blog post!
ReplyDeleteI thought the same thing as I was listening to the interview about Chuck Jr. I really liked hearing his perspective on synanon especially what he thought about his dad and his dad's behavior. It was neat to hear his side since he was Chcuks son. It was also interesting that Chuck Jr. realized he should leave synanon when his dad started drinking and everything started to go downhill. This seemed to me that Chuck Jr. was very level headed and a good sense of what was going to happen with synanon.
DeleteAfter learning about both Synanon and The Peoples Temple it us unreal the similarities that both Jones and Dederich had. Like the others I did not know Dederich had his family there like Jones. The was a very interesting blog!
ReplyDelete