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 in to synonon on October 1st, 1972. And that was the last day I've ever used

drugs.

You're probably wondering what exactly is synonon? 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. It's usually put me in a cell I took off my blue

jeans and I hung myself. Synononon 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 synonon

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 synonon, a man named Charles

E. Dietrich, who most people called Chuck. Many, many thousands of people who are indebted

to synononon and I have no way of being responsible for what they might do.

Chuck founded synonon as a first of its kind, drug rehab, with a radical claim. He could

cure your addiction. Then Chuck made an even more radical claim. He could cure any of your

problems. All he had to do was move in. With success came others who simply saw

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