The Real World 

Excerpt from Climbing a Burning Rope

“In less than a year after leaving drug free Synanon I became hooked on smokes, pot, and booze. I didn’t know how to cope with the radical change of reentering outsider society. I self-medicated to handle the stress. I took to addiction like a seasoned pro. It felt better to escape the anxiety I had all the time. Smoking pot and cigs and drinking seemed to make things better if I kept doing it.

When we left the cult, no one knew about deprogramming. There were no counselors to guide Laura and me back into the real world. There was no help for us to adjust to a life that was as alien to us as it was regular to everyone else. I now know that I had PTSD on top of my OCD and ADHD tendencies that no one even knew about back then. I don’t remember the day we left Synanon or flying back to Wisconsin. Like many transitions in my life my comings and goings seem to have been executed by a ghost – unseen, unnoticed and forgotten.”