Reflecting on Cultic Dynamics

Oh o, all right Check engine, ABS, or maintenance light on, takeake the guesswork out of your warning lights with O'Reilly Veracan. The service is free and provides a report with solutions verified by ASE certified master technicians. and if you need help We could recommend a shop for you. Ask for O'Rilly Berris scan today. It! This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical, or mental health advice. The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business, individual, anyone, or anything I'm Sarah Edson, and I'm Anthony Nippy Amames, and this is a little bit Cultty. We woke up from a cult, and that journey was captured in The Vow on HBO and in my memoir, Scred. Now in this podcast, we break down the shame and secrets that make these experiences so destructive with honest conversations on how seemingly benign groups can cross into the cultiverse how to spot and recover from trouble if it happens to you. Each week, we bring in experts, survivors, and whistleblowers to explore red flags, resilience, and even share a few laughs because sometimes you gott to laugh. Subscribe to our Patreon for early and ad free listening, some live Q and A and exclusive content at patreon. com slash A little bit Cultty Welcome to seeason eight of A littleittle bit Calty She can down d to the ocean love to m. Welcome back to L little bit Cultty, everyone. Sarah is well cffeinated and bouncing off the walls and I am not. It's fat over here everybody. But even though Nippie's demeanor is mellow, we're very excited that we arere coming to Vancouver this summer, aren't we Nipp Yes, we are,. We're going to be doing a launch. We don't know where yet, just keeping it in your mind J block off July for now. Save the d July. Save the month. Save the month. Save the month. Coming soon in Vancouver. Yeah. Any ideas for locations, we have a few that we're working on. so stay tuned. Jsust do it outdoors Jatch just Signbooks. Q and A, what's up Our next guest, see what I did there What did you do? I did a segay, Sarah, back in the hood. Okay, our next guest did write a really fascinating book. He's here to talk about an industry that markets itself as help, but often operates very differently behind the scenes. Dr. Coreory Gentry is a survivor of the troubled teen industry and the author of Selling Sanity, the troubled teen Industry, the Insane Profits, and the kids who pay the price And unlike many authors, Cory actually brings a really rare double lens. He's lived it and he's worked inside the systems that keep it running In this episode, we get into what really happens when care, control, and commerce start overlapping a little too comfortably Coreory unpacks how these programs can function less like treatment centers and more like high control environments, complete with coerced dynamics. Tly managed information. and financial incentives that quietly shape outcomes. We'll be exploring the parallels between the troubled teen industry and cult structures from power and belief systems to the way that families are kept in the dark. Because when you start following the money and the methods, the story gets a lot more complicated than treatment, and it gets a lot more important to understand We also will be talking about Wayward, the series about the trouble teen industry on Netflix And here Cory's very harrowing journey in and out of one of these treatment centers. Here's part one with Coryy's Genterry Coreory, Gentry, welcome to Littleob Cultty. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here So grateful to our mutual friend Meg Applegate for introducing us. As you know, we've covered a little bit of the trouble teen industry two or three episodes in our hundred plus. It's getting out there in Lexicon. It is.. Thank goodness So welcome, our tellell our audience a little bit about yourself. First of all How are you? So sorry you went through all this, and how are you doing? Let's just start there. How's Cy Gentry Forey is doing AOK today. I'm hanging in there or hanging out there, one of the two, No life is pretty good. I don't know any kid or teenager for that matter, that when they're in school thinking about what they want to be when they grow up, they're like, Ah, you know what I think I'm going to join a rehab cult and get shipped away for five years and all of that. But you know, such as it is and despite you know, that entire experience, life is pretty good today, you know, I feel like these crazy situations that we sometimes find ourselves in, you know, At the very least, it gives us a pretty interesting perspective on life and you know it motivates us to do something that you know, maybe not a lot of people get. So Yeah, today's today life is pretty good Great to hear. Good to hear. Well, I know you've been through it and when we do these episodes, I feel like, okay, I've already learned about that. I understand how these things work. But there was a lot I didn't know when I read your storo. I actually thought that all of these treatment centers involved kidnapping, like had happened with Meg goed, right? stolen in the middle of the night. like in the show, Wayward, Wild Netflix, which we'll talk about later But you that didn't happen to you. Tell us how what was going on for you in your life and how did you get involved So there are a few different ways that I've discovered both personally and professionally that these trouble team programs kind of attract or get capture their prey for lack of better word is it's kind of by hook or by crook, you know, so theyither by crook is, you know, they get the goons to come in at you know, two or three in the morning and pick you up or I mean, Jesus Christ, I know so many people that you know, wealthier families or are not wealthy families. They trick them into getting into a car or a plane and the next thing they know they're in a like a Mexican psyiatric camp, which doesn't allow them to leave until they're signed out or they're in a wilderness accademy and Montana or Colorado or wherever they're at Utah mostly. Mine was very different. Mine was a treatment ct, full on ct that was started initially in the nineteen seventies by this guy named Bob Meean. He was this very charismatic heroin addict. and actually there was a movie that was kind of loosely based off of him by a guy named Matt Dylan, Matthew Dylan Well Drugstore Cowboy. Did you guys drugst Cowboy? Yeah. Kelly. Great movie. But it was kind of loosely based off of Bob Mhan's life. He was this heroin addict. He used to knock off grocery sts and drug stores and stuff for his, you know, drug habit, he got put away in prison and then of all places he ended up in Texas. and started a treatment program with it was called Palmer Drug abuse program. So it was Padap initially, which is kind of an old school name in the treatment world, but it was attached to the Catholic church He started out as a janitor in the basement of this Catholic church and there were a lot of young men and women around the church at the time and the priests were pretty big on Bob giv given his personality and his kind of charisma that they wanted him to If you speent a little less time, you know, mooping floors and taking out the trash and everything and spent a little more time with the kids and you know, the church was They didn't care about that So that's kind of how it started. He started with sort of the blessings of the Catholic Church and this Palmer drrug abuse program and started what was later an ice cap and it was enthusiastic sobriety treatment programs that I wrote about pretty extensively in my book. In the treatment space, they really kind of capitalize off of this It's a saying from like twelve step world and stuff like that, but it's attraction rather than promotion. So instead of them spending money like a lot of treatment centers do on advertising or all of these different referral channels that treatment centers invest heavily in recruit individuals into their treatment programs This guy just simply, it was kind of brilliant actually because he just led off the attraction part of it. So he when recit you know, very young and attractive teenagers from kind of affluent neighborhoods to be members of this group. And Bob was like super super charismatic and he smoked and he cussed. and, you know, to a fourteen, fifteen year old, he was like, how cool this guy Ever. fununny how that works It's funny. ye, yeah. it is funny how that works And and all of his staff were these like young twenty something year. I mean, maybe they were in their early twenties, but they were these, you know, really attractive young men and women Again, a lot of them came from affluic families, sort of broken families in a variety of different ways, but families had money and they lived in really affluent neighborhoods and places like Buckhead and Atlanta and You know, the Alf That's where we are. Yeah, yeah. The treatment center I went through was in Augusta, Georgia. so just up the road. So we used to Atlanta all the time was the main satellite and that was where Bob and off of the Pach street No way. By the way, we're in the south, we're in what we call like south part of us South part We're not in the fancy part. So funny little sidebar. I'm going to let you get back. don' w one to interrupt you, but one of the guys that I gave my book to and he's helping us with a speaking event in the fall went to one of these schools Really? And I gave a book and he's like, Ohh my God because he kind of knew about it. and I said, look, read this part and So it's interesting. I've known since I was a kid. going I had no idea. I've already give him a copy about this. Yeah. I had no idea who was involved in this period. Yeah. The strange thing is the trouble team. It's such a small world that usually it's like one or two degrees of separation between me and some of these other people. Atlanta. Yeah, it's wild. So it might was like their main hub and then they have a kind of a branch off satellite in Augusta, Georgia, which is where I was from And you know, my life was just a train wreck. You know I had this really kind of bipolar and mentally unwell mother with a substance abuse problem and my poor father had you know, me as a son and you know, two other kids and we were just off the Richor scales. And we were poor. We were like super poor So it was kind of just a series of fortunate or maybe unfortunate events that got me there. A friend of mine, you know, these programs started in the seventies, they kind of proliferated. They got kicked out of Texas and Bob got the boot from Kadap because they were like, you know, trademark. this was a little bit cultty for them. that evenven the Catholics were like, yo, this is, you know, this is a look weird for us. If the Catholics are calling you out, you know, you know it's bad when the Catholic priests are like, Hey man we don't we don't want yout know that a poisoning ot good If you can edit. No I don't discriminate But I so I kind of Programs proliferated. Nonetheless, Bob got kicked out of Texas and then he went to I think it was Arizona was where he sort of went and licked his wounds and started pathway programs and then went to Colorado, it started Cornerstone and then St. Louis was Crossroads. and then Insight was like the Georgia, the Southeast Georgia based program. And I think they'd since spread out. But at the time they had an Augusta program And you know, all of their counselors were like maybe twenty one, twenty two at the oldest, which I found out later is kind of an industry standard for most therapeutic professionals in the treatment world. ridiculous. But they were young. reallyally attractive againg came from like these really affluent areas. you know, these people are crazy, but they're not stupid. you know, they know where to do the recruiting at. So they were in these like Uber affluent neighborhoods in Atlanta, Uber aluent neighborhoods in Augusta, Georgia, where I'm from. And then the same thing in other pockets of the country that they were in. they tend to pull in areas that they have a lot of money. So I'm hearing, it's a tight business model Oh my god, oddly enough through a series of againgain, fortunate or unfortunate events I ended up working on the business side of treatment many years later And then like twenty something years later throughw a fluke And I got to see the kind of unit side economics, sorry, I'm an economist by education and training, but the units side economics of these I was like, holy shit, these places are making a fortune. It's like, you know thirty, thirty five percent profit margins at minimum if you run the program right. So Yeah, these guys are doing They're doing well. And you didn't know any this at the time. Obviously, you're just a poor kid, like literally living in a trailer, food stamps Yeah. struggling. your mom's mental health, your dad, what was his deal My dad, you know, my dad was like a good enough guy. You know, my mom was too, she was just out of her mind. She was nuts chemically. But my father was just this, you know, Navy guy. He was very working class. you know, what we would consider just kind of Blue bullet, blue collar, American You know, he was an electrician basically by trade and everything. and a real my father was a real kind of man's man, you know, so Not a lot of emotion, very stoic, very almost British in that respect And you know, he had a wife that was bipolar and just like very vocal and all over the place. And then he had, you know, me as a son who was kind of emotionally all over the place. And I was a troubled kid, you know? And then one day a friend of mine that I went to school with His name was, we'll call him Kevin He was kind of the resident, I feel like every friend group has this, but he was the resident fuck up of the group. You know, He was just the kid that's like, oh, yeah, Kevin's in troble again or this happened or that happened And so he ended up getting in trouble again for sneaking out or doing something, you know, stupid that a lot of teenagers do And at the time, I was, you know, experimenting with substances, smoking weed, drinking, you know, doing all the stuff that teenagers, particularly from my part of the world And Kenneth ended up at this rehab and we thought, Oh, well, he fucked up and That's it. he went away and It was kind of a commonplace thing in the Southeast where your parents never threatened to send you away to treatment, but it was always military school. It was like, if you don't straighten up we're going to send you away to military accademy or whatever. And I thought, well, Kenneth got shot off to military Academy And a few days later he started popping up at school and he was you know, swinging one of these monkey fests around and he was, you know he seemed very happy and kind of Oent almost We were like, Kanith, what the hell happened? You just like disappeared for a week and now you're back. It was like, o manam We were like, what the fuck is this fist thing that you're spinning around on your finger? And he just started telling us about the group. And he talked about it the way that a fifteen year old boy would talk about it to another fifteen year old boy. He was like, I'm in the counselors They all have these, you know, they long hair and they let you smoke and they cuss all the time. They just thought it was, you know, the coolest thing ever. And then he was like, bro, the girls at this place are fucking hot. But a fifteen year old boy, that was all I needed to hear. I was like, what there girls? And he was like, o man, are there? He wass like, it's like seventy percent girls and there aren so I was like, so the male to female racio is like seventy percent, you know, it was just like a dream come true to a fifteen year old boy. I was like,, When do I go? I later learned that was their business model and it's super effective for teenagers. What they do is they recruit these like young attractive kids from affluent families.as Yeah, and then they want them to go to like schools and stuff like that before they pull them out to recruit their friends. And it's like, hey, I went to this treatment program and they would tell you when you would go like, hey, if any of your friends, you know that you're doing drugs with or whatever, tell them about us And they'll come. So it's a whole recruitment thing because as a kid, you found something cool and you just want to talk to your friends about it. and tell them about it. So it was super effective from like a marketing standpoint looking back on it Before we hear from our sponsors, just a quick reminder. Our book, A little bit Cultty, navigating Cults control and coercion, is officially out and available on Amazon. Signed preordders have closed, but you can still get your copy today. This book is the culmination of five years of conversations, interviews, and research Everything we've learned about how people get pulled into high control groups and how to avoid, escape, or heal from them. If you've been listening to the podcast and want a deeper go to resource, this is it. Available now on Amazon in prrint and as an ebook for Kindle. And yes, the audiobook is coming soon, narrated by us Just search a little bit Cty and grab your copy it. Thanks everybody This episode is sponsored by Better Help CQut be honest about somemer for a second Everyone acts like summers this magical season of endless joy. 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Available in select states, terms and restrictions apply, visit Enin. com for full details This episode is sponsored by Better Help Summer in Canada is supposed to be magical Long hikes, nature, endless daylight, cold plunging in the natural glacial waters, finally enjoying the outdoors after months of hibernation And sometimes it is. But sometimes it's also juggling work, kids, trying to maximize every precious sunny day and feeling guilty that you're not enjoying it enough Spoiler alert that guilt is exhausting Here's what therapy can do that a hike can't. Help you actually understand what you need instead of what you think you should need. Help you set boundaries so summer doesn't become a stress marathon. Help you create a version of summer that actually feels good instead of just checking boxes at some imaginary summer bucketist Better Help matches you with fully licensed therapists who get it. A quick questionnaire and their system does the work to find someone who fits you notot just the first available person They've been doing this for over twelve years with a pretty stellar track record And if it's not clicking, switch anyt time. Sessions happen online whenever it works for your chaotic schedule No fitting another thing into your impossible calendar because thriving the summer shouldn't require superhuman powers or perfect weather. Sometimes it just requires someone who helps you figure out What exactly makes you happy donon't have to say yes to everything this summer find support and therapy Sign up and get ten percent off at betterhelp dot com slash Coli. That's betterter HlP dot com slash Culi Thank you for listening. Now, let's dive back into the cultivverse Coryy, question there, how calculated is that business model? Because there's no better testimony than a fifteen year old kid going back to his friends and saying what he's saying. Do you think it was that premeditated dubricate Yeah. after working in the industry on the business side, I mean that's what these programs live and breathe off of. So there's no real The problem with the trouble teeen this is kind of an aside, but the problem with the trouble teeen industry as a whole Really behavioral health treatment is we practice it here in the United States as a whole, like the residential step down models and stuff that everybody's going through in one way or another now. there's no they there with any of it. So its they all talk about like evidence based practice and this and that or whatever. but you know, you have to think there Tens of thousands of counties in the United States, fifty states in the United States, all of which have different legal frameworks, criteria, you name it. So there's no like unified measurement for what successful treatment looks like or doesn't look like So it's not like a hearp surgery where a surgeon goes in and they do one hundred thousand or two hundred thousand hearp surgeries with a specific method or using a technology or medication And then based on those longitudinal studies and clinical trials, they werere like, hey, we have a ninety eight percent success rate utilizing this method or this medication with this. The treatment center, it's all kind of like anecdotal. So they don't have any real longitudinal studies. ninety, ninety five percent of these treatment programs don't use what are called independent board review studies, which is where you get a third party that just takes all of your data and looks at it completely objectively and says, well, you could do this or you could do that. and that's how standandards are developed in any practice, particularly a medical practice None of none of this exists in the behavioral health space because there's no like overall standard of care and there's no real arc of measurement that' standardized that everybody kind of utilizes to measure success in an overall way and they're not comparing themselves to the efficacy of other programs. So void of that kind of data what you do is you come up with testimonials. So then it all becomes anecdotal in testimonial data. It's like, well We don't know We've treated hundreds of thousands of kids But we have these five testimonials of kids that just really loved it and they're basically the ones that were like hanging out there long enough that they could interview them And a lot of the times they these kids are probably like, Jesus Christ, get me the fuck out of this place. I'll say whatever you want me to if I can leave. You know, so that's that's kind of how they're doing. C just so you know testimonials. Testimonials have become somewhat red flags for me now with anything just because Oh I know why they're used. question. And we did that nexteium too, by the way. Question for you. So let you real it. Yeah. Yeahah, we did. Let's say I start to get suspicious and I want to implement some checks and balances to this industry. let's say you know, I start to recognize, you know, my son Cory Yeah And then if I want to come in and put a checks and balance of you, how is my curiosity about what you're doing met? How do they defend that It's what I would call having a captive audience. You know what I mean? So It's basically you take a kid, send them to a place where everybody's saying that the kids crazy. And then of course, the person there is going to be like, I'm not crazy what the fuck are you talk? Like I don't have a drug problem or I don't have this Usually what they meet up with is like, o, you're being resistant. They love this term. It's like, oh, he's treatment resistant It's like, well, what the fuck does that mean? You guys probably wouldn't say like, o somethingomething's definitely wrong with this kid. I mean, you know, vaccine work on every the immediate like point would be Oh they probably maybe we need to rethink this chemical concoction that we have, but that's not what's going on in the trouble teen programs. If a kid comes there and They're like, what are you talking about? This bob guy seems like a dirty hippie from the seventies and doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. None of you have medical degrees or any kind of credible certifications that make you an expert in this field. They're just like, oh man In my case, I can share from my own experience that I talk about in the book is they would then just start gaslighting you. And one of the things I'll never forget them saying is I was going out about You know, this and I am, despite the jokes, a Catholic. I was raised in a very fundamentalist kind of Christian family, but Catholicism for whatever reason was always a staying point there and and, you know, for good or better I had some belief in that at one point. And I remember going into this treatment center and There Paul was like God. The word was the word of Bob. It wasn't the word of God, it was the word of Bob. So whatever Paul said was like the law And I remember these guys just going in on me about my religion and They're like, oh man, this is all bullshit and you know, you've been hoodwinked and blah blah blah. Let us explain these ways of thinking. And if you push back at all on them, they would just be like, man, you are so sick You don't even know how sick you are, do you? And for a fifteen year old, you know, someone that came from my background, my kind of family You know, I already had some underlying emotional issues that I was probably born with biochemically that I inherited from my mother or family or whatnot It's not a hard load to convince this person that there's something wrong with them. You know, every teenager feels that way that something's wrong with them. So they convince you on the one hand that you're like really messed up And then on the other hand They present themselves as the only solution for it. So it was like, man, you're so screwed up. and then the counselors would do these things where it's like, man, I get you, I get you. I know you. We're the same You know, in some ways, that's very seductive because these are young Very attractive twenty something year old people to a fifteen year old I mean, to a forty three year old now I look at a twenty one year old and I'm like, oh my God, they don't know anything. What the hell? your babies. You know, But to a fifteen year old, it's like God tootally, you know, you're like, o We skipped a little bit. I want to go back to. the original hook was like hot girls. But then when you get there, tell us a little bit about like the feelings of belonging and you decided to and there were plenty of hot girls. Yeah. Let me tell you there were So they knew how to recruit them. So I showed up to my first meeting and it was at this Methodist church in Augusta, Georgia in a very affluent part of town. and you know, I pulled up and Walking up were these, you know, there he looked just like Kirk CobBain at the time, but there was this counselor there named Bruce. and he had long hair and you know, long longond hair and blue eyes. And you know this was in nineteen ninety seven. so it was in the height of a kind of grungech thing and all of that stuff. And he walked up with his flannel shirt on All of that and then this other counselor there, her name was Jackie. And she came up and I mean, they were just gorgeous. You just get flooded Imagine a fifteen year old who has no friends, who's socially awkward Wh's like smoking weed out of, you know apple cores and shut like that in trailer parks and you know, drinking malt liquor and then all of a sudden like twenty five, thirty of these just gorgeous You know, kids ranging from like thirteen to nineteen, twenty, some of them. And they were all like good looking seventy percent of them are women You know, they're all coming up to you and giving you a hug and being like, o my God, what's your name? My name' Sarah, T Tona or this or that or whatever They're giving you hugs, they're telling you they love you. They're like, oh my God, you're gonna hang out with us tonight. You're gonna to hang out with us tonight. It was completely overwhelming to a kid like me. I was like, Oh what the fuck is going on here? And everybody's cussing and they're all smoking cigarettes and they're like, you know, f and this and f and that Because where I was from and, you know, for a lot of kids in the southeast or a lot of places like that In terms of like sociability, you have a few options. You have school? You have church. And then you have like you, maybe sports and stuff like that. I wasn't any good at sports. I hated church and you, I was a bit of a loser at school. So your kind of social options are pretty limited And then up comes these like thirty kids and they're all just like, hang out with us and do this and they're taking you to their houses and these are kids where, you know In my school, I grew up on the other side of the train tracks and You know, these people would have stepped on me if I were on fire in a normal social situation, but here they were like, you know, in these really affluent families and gated communities You know, their house, their living rooms were bigger than my entire house. And they were coming up and being like, let's hang out and do this. And then I was just completely flooded by it and all these attractive young girls are like, Hey, ride my car. you're driving with me tonight. And I was like, o yeah Oh, yeah, I am. So they had me. And then the counselors sit you down And they just started asking you a bunch of leading questions and there, you know, I remember they talked about how much they love drugs, what drugs they love to use and this and that And I had done some substances at that point, but You know, I was fifteen years old and poor as hell. I hadn't done a lot So you know, you do what any kid does. you're hanging out with a bunch of older, twenty something year olds and you're like, Jesus Christ, I want these people to like me So I just started Biffing and lying being like, oh yeah, I love this and I love that ecstasy stuff or this or that. you know, and I didn't even know what the fuck any of this stuff was at the time, but You know, they just kind of ask you a bunch of leading questions. They arere like relating to you, giving you cigarettes And then at the end of this like forty five minute conversation, they get real serious on you and they're like, manan So a couple things. one we're going to have to tell your parents because they're legally required to do that, which is true But the main part behind that is they want to get your family on board because if they can hook your family in as soon as possible, then the probability of you going into treatment is much, much higher So getting a random call from a counselor being like, Hey, we just had an hour long talk with your son He really opened up to us and talked about all the drugs that he was doing. He's also probably really struggling with this and that and your kid's probably gonna to die. You didn't know this, but he's suicidal and blah blah, blah, whatever. And they'll just take any little bit of information that you give them and that time and they kind of hold it and then they'll talk to your parents about it And you know, any logical or rational parent would be like, oh my God, my kid's suicidal. He's doing drugs. I knew there were problems in school and this and that. But I didn't know it was that bad. And then they just go in on the sales bititch And it's like, yeah, your kids fucked this and that whatever. But like we have a solution and that solution is, you know, this So that was kind of how it played out for me. But they had me, I mean, hook line and sner from the very beginning. I was like, man, I definitely want to do this again So this what was new for me that I didn't know is that you could get in yourself versus it seems like all the other turpaline industry stories that I'd heard about. It was a parent being concerned about their kid. you know, smoking weed, acting up, getting arrested or whatever. and then they would seek out these treatment centers, but you found yourself there and then they exaggerated it and then got your currents I loved lo bombed them. and eventually isolated you and all the cult stuff, which we're going to get into But how Like your family was really poor. What How do they get the money? Like why would they be going after somebody like you? I'm just if if it's about money for them, That's what I was trying to figure out Your. To this day, I have no idea where how my family came up with that money. I mean, I think part of it was and there God this stuff is so tenense when you start talking about it, but knowing the business side of it now too is there there was a consultant that was involved in the treatment program that kind of came in post fest them. And I think that was more how my friend got invited to this as he got in trouble They went there. So there was sort of ad hoc a consultant that was involved because of my friend who his family did have money. I hung out with them and they would have had money to pay for that. Oddly enoughough they didn't. hisis family was like, no, there's something kind of cooky about these people and like we think we're going just, you know They sent them to military school actually, but like But with me, my family didn't didn't have that option. So They came to my family and it's they scholarship part of it and then God knows what my family did to come up with the rest of the money I mean, you know, back in the day, this was nineteen ninety seven, it was like nine thousand dollars, I think, for their outpatient program and then, you know, housing and all of that other stuff. But you know eight thousand doars or nine thousand dollars, whatever it was, that was a lot of money. Oh for sure. you know, anybody back then. So My family got like a big scholarship from internally Aim There's a strategy to that too because with this is where it gets hard to get in the weeds whatever Okay. Wh whatever you whatever you want to do So the way that the kind of unitide economics of these treatment programs work is it is about money at the end of the day. It is about money because they charge these fees, which the numbers that they come up with for their like monthly fees or their treatment fees are completely arbitrary. I mean, it's just they're literally like Yeah, thirty thousand dollars. let's say thirty thousand dollars a month. That sounds an all right. And then everything is just kind of makeake sure that their margins stay nice and fat on that. But what a lot of places do because in the treatment world, particularly the troubble teen treatment world is everything's coming in through referrals in one way or another. So you're either attracting them in through your own kind of alumni and alumni systems, which they rely and invest heavily in. which situations like mine where you have people that went through the program or are going through the program and they attract people to come in to go too. So it's like get your friends to do this as well, which is very effective for teenagers Or They do outreach through a variety of different methods where it's like professionals. So they'll go to education consultants, which I'm sure you guys have heard a lot about They're a big thing in the trouble teen industry and they're like theers to these programs, but then they're you know, certain social workers, individual therapists and stuff. And most of these people, they have no idea about what's going on on the inside. So you have to think about it from the perspective of a behavioral health provider So you have a social worker or a psychiatrist or whatever. they have this family. that's looking for answers for something. you know, and they're like, hey We've got Johnny here. He keeps getting in trouble at school. He's doing drugs. He told his mom to go fuck herself, like, you know, blah blah blah blah blah. Like, he's being a dick or she's being a dick. They're doing what teenagers often do, but they're being a dick. And these parents are like What do I do with my kid? What do I do with my kid? So on the behavioral health side, these psychiatrists or education consultants have these parents that are like, I need you to do something about this. This is what I'm paying you to do something about Most of the psychiatrs and therapists are like, I don't know what the fuck to tell. You know what I mean? They're like, we can try this medication, we can try that So they're just like, please get these people out of my office so that I can move on to the next, you know struggling individual that I'm trying to treat So some of it's a capacity thing. So they just start reaching out to whoever and they're like, hey, I have this family, what's going on? blah, blah, blah So these intermidiaries get in there and they're like, Oh well what about this program or what about that program or whatever? And the psychiatrist is just like, look, fine. L, willill they take them? Will they get this person out of here Great go because they already have a case looad of God knows how many people that they have to see in a day. So for them, it's just like, okay, can I give a recommendation to a family and then move on And then from the familyil's perspective, they're like, well, I this person said like you should go there. so we'll give it a try And that's how it works. So for scholarships and stuff, what a lot of these programs will do because if an education consultant comes and they try to send you somebody That's what you want because education consultant control who's sending to their program. That's who's feeding their program So if an education consultant comes along and they're like, hey, I got this guy, and then his friend comes along, the consultant from their perspective is like Hey, I sent you to people, which in industry parlance is like wink, wink I just sent you some money. so how about you send me somebody back? So they leverage the trust. They leverage the trust and they leverage the relationship to send people to back and forth to these things So a consultant, what likely happened looking back with the information I have now and the knowledge of the industry is a consultant probably went to them and it was like, Hey, I've got this kid. I know the program here in Augusta is relatively new. You guys are starting out So what I need you to do is I need you to scholarship this kid either one hundred percent or like at whatever percentage that you can And don't worry about him. I'll get you another full pay client down the road And a lot of times these programs just to get in good with an education consultant will do that. They'll do a few like Scholarship or charity cases is what they'll call them And then from that, they know that by taking somebody like me in that consultant probably sent them five or six other young individuals later that would pay the full cash price for their program. So it sounds disgusting. scratching It sounds disgusting talking about it this way because it really does man. It's so disturbing to hear that.'s but that's how the business operates. I mean it It's really like a okay, you take this one and then I'll send you like five or six others down the line. and they know they're good for it because it's like, oh Linda, this education consultant or Vance, this education consultant. We've been working with him for a while and you know, what it is. It's trafficking It's trafficking. It's totally trafficking. Yeah Let's take a little break from the cultivverse Here's a word from our sponsors Do you actually know how much life insurance you have And more importantly, how much you're paying for it Yeah, me neither until I realized I might be overpaying for coverage that probably isn't enough If your life insurance comes through your job and you get unexpectedly laid off, your coverage disappears, just like that. Suddenly, you're unprotected and scrambling to figure out how to fix it. 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Save more than fifty percent on term life insurance at seelectquote d. com slash Culi today to get started That' seelectquote d. com slash Colty. Summer weekends are all about family, sunshine, and making memories together Before everyone arrives, I stop by my local total wine and mort to pick up a great bottle Maybe a favorite we already love, or something new to enjoy with dinner on the patio With so many bottles to choose from, it's easy to discover something amazing. At the lowest prices, it's easy to grab an extra bottle for the table. sure what to pick Their friendly guides are always there to help Find what you love and love what you find only at Total wine and more curbside pickup and delivery available in most areas. tootalwine. com to learn more. spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. drrink responsibly. Must be twenty one Thank you sponsors. We couldn't do without you. Now let's get back to the show And you didn't you didn't know about any of this. You're abbsolutely Hanging out with cool girls and cussing. So you don't know any of this is going on. Tell us a little bit about your So like once you're in it, once you're hooked, what was it like? giveive us like what what people always want to know like what was it like in it Was there anything useful? Was it all bullshit I mean, from an experience standpoint, it was, and I think this is consistent with a lot of survivors, at least from my program from the cult. It's like when you're in it It's the best thing in the world. I mean, imagine going from someomebody like me who had no friends or limited friends you know, I came from the kind of area where, you know, it was a pretty regular thing where my I could stay at my friend's house, but my friends weren't allowed to come over to my house because of where I lived or my parent, you know, those kinds of situations where families. I'll trust our kid over there And then all of a sudden it was like people are fighting People that would never have looked at you girls that would have never, you know, they would have been like, o, get away from me And they're like, Ohh my God, I love you and this and that and they're flirting and, you know, all of this stuff. And I loved it. I mean, I think about Back to some of the best times of my life, some of the closest and most secure moments I've ever felt. We're with people in the group now Turn side to that is is that we were all like a bunch of it was like Lord of the Flies. I mean, we were a bunch of fucking savages. I mean, we would do things like fun felonies all the time. We would break into places and destroy things. And this was all very much encouraged by the counselors. It was like, just have fun and get out of yourself. What really started to turn for me was about like a couple things. One was when I actually went into outpatient and a lot of the programming. and this is pretty consistent with most of the trouble teen ac And it's funny, I spoke at a Trouble team conference recently and they almost crucified me for going this because they werere like, that's not an official thing and whatever. But they all kind of operate off with this tough love idea So it's like, we're going to be honest with you and we're going to tell you the truth and because we know you better than you know yourself and you're so screwed up that you can't believe anything that's going on in your head. We want you to just tell us everything and constantly share and dump in this and that. So when I was in treatment, I talked about some stuff that happened when I was a kid You know, I have a half brother who was very mentally ill and he tried to murder me a couple of times and then I had a very mentally ill mother that was quite physically abusive and Vverbally abusive and just a lot of things that kids should never go through. but I went through them when I was a kid. And I remember going through these stories and stuff like that. and you know, there were some other experiences where, you know, which is very common with a lot of young men and stuff where they experiment with other, you know, boys touching boys and, you know, that kind of stuff and ages The way that they kind of would hook ono that, and be like, what are you? And please forgive listeners and everybody, but this was the vernacular that they used at the time. Theyd like, what are you a fag Are you a fag or something? Is that what it is? And you were like,, because they didn't believe in gay people and stuff like that And I had a lot of gay friends. so that was kind of one. And I was like, well, I don't think it's that. And I mean, I knew nothing about nothing at the time But I was like, I don't That was a red flag for you Yeah, it was a red flat. Well, it was just very black and white. It was like, you're either gay or you're not gay. And there was something about that where I was like, well, that doesn't I was like, I don't think it has anything to do with gay. I was like Kids just do weird shit sometimes And then I was talking to him about my family was the kind of big one where you know, I was talking about my mother and some really kind of horrific things that happened with her in a suicide attempt and you know, a lot of that. And I remember the counselor at the time just got real serious and kind of looked at me and she was like, this is all You're sh dude. She was like, you chose this. And I remember thinking, like, why are you out of your fucking mind lady? Like what are you talking about And it was this real kind of Zen This weird spin on like Zen Buddhism and radical accountability and all of that, but it was like someomehow in my afterlife, I had chose to be born into this body and that my whole experience was all my choice to this point. So all I needed to do was just change my mind about situations and like you know, think about things differently and blah, blah, blah. I've always been like an academically rigorous kid. so I was a nerd. I was really good in school and I always had critical thinking. So I had a lot to say about that. in the counseling session. I called my counselor of CUNT and ' she was the one that was kind. I was like, o, fuck you kind and you know, just went off and all of that. And She was like, oh, but that was really, that was like a huge red flag for me because I was like, how could you say that I chose this? I was like, my mother was abusive and this and that. I was like, how did I choose that And that was the first kind of real pushback that I gave them and that was about six months in, I would say And and at that point It became very apparent that there was a line that you didn't cross and that I was crossing that line. And that line was that I was challenging the authority of the counselors on the knowledge that they were getting And they're, Hey, man, that's not cool. And You know, after that session, I got brought in, it was a group session. I got brought into the counselor's office and they gave me like a real talking to and I was shamed by everyone in the group. I mean, everybody in the group And it was kind of black and white. It was like, Everybody went from like, oh, you love me to whatever to like, oh, Corey Cold. you know, Shannon a cnt and challenged her on the thing. And it wasn't so much that I called her a name It was that I challenged your authority on information. And everybody in the group just kind of turned on me. And I remember thinking distinctively about six months in like, yo, this isn't right. What you were picking up on there is something that so many cults do, including NXiM, which is basically to make the radical accountability. that this is something that you chose or like our terminology is like you authored this Yeah. you cause you know, you ca you cause this And it's this like toxic spitual It was gaslighting also, but it's like a toxic spiritual Bullshit. It's proactive gaslighting. It's like Good for you for standing up. Yeah. so so I got in a big rout with counselors at that time and then I got brought back into the office. and they basically were like, lookook, dude, if you do that again, you're out in the treatment groups like this Anyone that has any kind of experience professionally or anecdotally with drug addicts and particularly teenage drug addicts or people that are alleged drug addicts are using substances is they're going to relapse. It's just It's part of the deal. likeike they're going to drink or they're going to do that. somethingomet's going to happen. It's just like part of the process for lack of a better word the same with any kind of mental health episode or whatever. There're going to be like recidivism episodes. You know, individuals are going to revert back into behavior, they're going to become triggered, whatever But in the group, they had a very sophisticated way of dealing with it and a lot of other places do it too is it wasn't very much consistent with what I saw in that Netflix thing wayayward, which I can't wait to talk about. But they didn't call it a relapse. If you engaged in bad behavior or you kind of did this or did that or whatever, they reframed it in a way of instead of like in A, they'd be like, o well, that's just your disease or you know whatever, which is also kind of manipulative and odd way of Don't sif find But in the group, they would be like, dude, you bailed on us So it wasn't like you relapse and you have this disease, which they would tell you about. They'd be like, oh man, youve got this illness and you're completely fucked and like whatever. But because of radical accountability and all of that, it's like everything is your choice So if you used it wasn't because of your disease that they told you that they had which you have no control over and you're powerless over It was a conscious choice for you to leave and abandon the group. And it was like, it's kind of like your parents being like, I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed Because everything was about you being in and around people in the group. twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five days a year. Onight in a nanisecond that would get cut off and they wouldn't talk to you, they wouldn't call you. they'd like, I'm sorry dude. You're just, you know you bailed on us and that was it and you were completely cut off. So you can imagine what that emotionally does to a teenager, But also it's a hell of an accountability mechanism because the counselors would basically sit you down and be like, Look, dude, you're out and nobody's going to talk to you, Nobody's going to call you. You're not going to go to these groups anymore. And we're going to tell you not only are everyone in the program going to abandon you, but then you have these professionals, the counselors that will call your parents and be like, your kid is gonna die And most of the time, it would be Like your kid is really fucked up. He's really treatment resistant. He's going to die. And what that means is that we need to upsell you to the next level of care which is their which was their inpatient program in Uson which I called step two. They tried to do that with my family, but my dad was basically like, look, you've already gotten like excellent amount of money out of me There's no more blood left in this zone. so you either gonna work with this kid or you're not going to work with this kid And I was like, I didn't want to be abandoned by all my friends and stuff. So you quickly learn how toe the line and you learn what the boundaries of acceptable and not acceptable are That was kind of my experience in there how they police behavior and stuff. And then everything beyond that is internalized peer pressure So you have a bunch of other kids that are being told the same shit from these counselors who know nothing about nothing and whose training is Ccel culture Yeah, it's cancel culture. Yeah