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- [00:00]
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- [00:32]
Jane Marie
Welcome to the dream. I'm Jane Marie. Before we get into today's topic, I need to thank a really incredible organization for helping us continue to do this work. They're called imi, the Independent Media Initiative. And they gave us an award for our investigative journalism last year that came with money, which was one of the weirdest emails I've ever woken up to. Like, I sent it to my mom and I was like, does that say money? What? Anyway, I did completely overdress for the awards ceremony, but the dress was rented. IMI is aiming to create a sort of public media space, but for the digital age. And some of the coolest creators and projects and some of my favorite people can be found on their website. Theimi Co. Go check them out. Okay, who wants to talk about cults? Everybody, everybody, everywhere, all at once, et cetera. Sometimes it's rather hard to tell if something is a cult. I think that's by design. It's not hard to tell when, say, you're held down on a table and branded or when you're just dying to hitch a ride on a ufo. But sometimes cults do good things alongside the bad. And that was the case with an organization called Midtown that today's guest joined. Just a warning that this episode discusses sexual assault.
- [02:06]
Amanda Lee
My name is Amanda Lee and I am, I'm a nurse currently and I'm in recovery. So I spent several years, like, as an alcoholic, addict and everything, have spent a ton of years, probably 20 years in recovery, like, and I've had some relapses, but I've done a lot of aa, a lot of counseling, a lot of stuff around the recovery, spiritual type community, but have also, I know we're going to be talking about the Midtown cult and I was in that for about 10 years and we'll be getting into that. That's one thing about me, but I think, like, one of the biggest things is that I've overcome a lot. You know, I was on. I've had seven felonies, and I ended up on the Most Wanted in 2014. But it wasn't anything crazy. I did not hurt anyone or, I mean, like, kill anyone or do anything crazy. I just. It was theft, and it was, you know, in regards to addiction and everything, but it was definitely embarrassing. But. But since then, I mean, I've still been able to go on and go to nursing school. It's been a lot of work and a lot of, you know, jumping through a lot of hoops, but so, I mean, I'm really, like, proud of that, of being a nurse today. Midtown's actually the beginning of my sobriety story, honestly. So, you know, and one thing I like to say is that I don't think. You know, I don't consider AA itself as a cult. There's so much great, great, great stuff that comes out of AA and everything, but then there's, you know, different personalities, different groups. Groups, and different ways that you can twist, like, the power, I guess, that.
- [03:48]
Jane Marie
You can get the good intentions.
- [03:50]
Amanda Lee
Yeah, yeah. So I just want to say that. So, like, when I come on here, I don't want to be like, I'm not bashing aa. It was just. It happened. You know, I'm telling the sacks. Me neither.
- [04:00]
Jane Marie
Me neither. That's. That's also what interested me in your story, is, like, I've. I don't have a problem personally with AA or Al Anon, but I know that it can get skewed. So.
- [04:09]
Amanda Lee
Yes, yeah, there can definitely be, like, a perverse use of power, for sure. So I was 20 years old when I ended up in Midtown and got sober. So by the time I was 19, I was homeless, sleeping on church steps, you know, addicted to heroin, panhandling with a cardboard sign on the side of the highway. So, I mean, I was rock bottom.
- [04:31]
Jane Marie
I have to pause you, if you don't mind.
- [04:33]
Amanda Lee
Sure.
- [04:35]
Jane Marie
You said, you know, addicted to heroin. Like, can we just slow down a little bit? What do you mean? Like, where were you? How did that happen?
- [04:44]
Amanda Lee
Well, I mean, that's where. That's actually what I started with, ironically. I was. I experimented with drugs and alcohol kind of, you know, younger, like, starting at 12, 13, 14. So I was in Alabama, in Birmingham, and this is in high school. So it was in the late 90s. But when I was 15 years old, my best friend was dating the school's, like, little drug dealer, and they were doing. What's. Dilaudids, which at the time, we just called it synthetic heroin, you know, because it's basically. But it's a pill.
- [05:18]
Jane Marie
I didn't even know those existed anymore. I thought that was like a 60s thing.
- [05:22]
Amanda Lee
No, they actually do because I mean, as a nurse I give it all the time, so it's still around. But anyway, he had some and he was, they were doing an IV and told me how wonderful it was. I was so curious. So When I was 15, he shot me up for my first time. And I mean, the first time I was absolutely addicted because it was, you know, intense. It was wonderful. I also was doing cocaine. It was just around. So I started, you know, shooting that up as well. So that's considered speedballing and that is incredibly addictive and dangerous. I actually did graduate school. I was good at doing a double life. I was in the daytime, I was in the color guard, I was in the show choir. I, I was making great grades. But then at night I was sneaking out and doing all kinds of dangerous stuff that 15 year old does not need to be doing. Oh my goodness. I was basically using my body for money and drugs, you know, at 15.
- [06:27]
Jane Marie
Have you reflected since then, have you reflected on why that happened?
- [06:31]
Amanda Lee
You know, I actually, I didn't have anything when I was younger where I was sexually, sexually abused or anything like that. I've looked back in my past a lot, had a lot of counseling and there was nothing necessarily that started that, but I just think it was. I, I know that the reason I did it was I wanted attention. I wanted people to like me and I felt like sexual attention was validation. So I, you know, and that's really all that I can place my finger on as far as that was that it was just attention, but. And that I was able to get money and drugs for it. So it just became a habit. You know, I'm not really sure what kind of.
- [07:15]
Jane Marie
You have a good relationship with your.
- [07:16]
Amanda Lee
Parents and stuff, so I do. But at the time they were also going through a divorce. So my dad actually had an affair. You know, it was hard for me to like relate that that was tied together. But like, looking back on it, I can see it was all in the same time frame. My, you know, my idea of my dad, who was perfect and everything, he had an affair and that like crumbled. But my mom was also talking really badly about my dad. So it was just really hard for me to have respect for my parents. And my mom and I were fighting physically. I was, you know. Yeah, she was not violent towards me. I was violent towards her, I would say. And I've got a lot of guilt and shame That I still suffer from. From stuff that I did back. I was a teenager, you know, but I'm. I'm definitely in counseling and just still working on it every day.
- [08:07]
Jane Marie
Are you able to talk about it with your family?
- [08:11]
Amanda Lee
Yeah, we can talk about everything openly today. I. Our relationship is really good today. I'm very close with my mom, and. Yeah. Yeah, things are a whole lot better today thanks to, you know, sobriety and working on things with amends and everything, but just in time. It's taking time, you know. You know, when I'm 18, I graduated high school, I went to Auburn. It was just kind of in my plans to go to college right after high school. But I did go to Auburn. I joined a sorority, and a few months later, they actually kicked me out. They said that I was an embarrassment to them because I was always ending up drunk and naked, so. Which was true.
- [08:56]
Jane Marie
I. And I don't. If you don't want to talk about this, but, like, what are you talking about?
- [09:02]
Amanda Lee
So, like, the big sister, you know, started taking me to parties and introducing me to, like, you know, just.
- [09:08]
Jane Marie
Is that the person that runs the plate? Like, the mom figure or so the big sister?
- [09:12]
Amanda Lee
Each person.
- [09:13]
Jane Marie
I was never in a sorority, and I don't know how it works.
- [09:16]
Amanda Lee
Well, so like, a big sister, I had my own big sister. So each person kind of has somebody that's been in the sorority about two years, and they kind of just walk you through all the ins and outs of it. So each part, you've got your own big sister, and they've got, you know, their little sister. So I had this girl Lana. She was my big sister, and took me to parties, introduced me to guys and all that kind of stuff, and was able to get me alcohol. And I just was drinking every night instead of, you know, I mean, I was drinking every single night. And when I got drunk, I was attention seeking. And a lot of times at parties, I would end up with my clothes off or whatever. I don't mean running around naked, but I just mean just being attention seeking and kind of a hoe. Yeah, but so they came to the apart. I was just drinking one night with some friends, and they came and showed up and had me sign a, like, waiver saying that I was no longer associated with the sorority and they took all my stuff.
- [10:24]
Jane Marie
You mean they. The. The sorority bosses?
- [10:27]
Amanda Lee
Yeah. Yep. The sorority leaders actually showed up. My big sister and two of the sorority leaders showed up to the place where I was drinking at, and they had a forum, had me sign it to Say that I had nothing to do with the sorority. And they also took my T shirts and, like, my cup, anything with letters on it, Anything that was. Had the sorority symbols. They wanted to take that from me because they wanted nothing to do me to have nothing to do with them anymore. And I mean, that's like Soul CR. Rushing kind of, you know, to be rejected like that.
- [10:56]
Jane Marie
Sure. I bet that getting booted from an organization that, like, prioritizes partying, that introduced.
- [11:06]
Amanda Lee
Me to it and everything. So that was just. That was one, like, kick in the butt where I. No, I mean, you know, it took what it took, though, for me to get sober. So there's all this, you know, have been through a whole lot of hard stuff, but it just. I have to look at it like, it's, you know, it's made me where I'm at today. Of course, I still got a lot of room to grow today, but still. But I mean, I just partied. I left there after two semesters with like a 0.3 GPA or something. It was very. Not very anything. I got back to Birmingham after going to college for a year. Um, and I met this guy downtown. I was just hanging out downtown, and I met this guy. He had gotten out of prison the day before, and I was, like, in love immediately. I just thought he was the coolest person.
- [12:02]
Jane Marie
What are you talking about? Wait, you. He.
- [12:07]
Amanda Lee
It was randomly. I was. I was. I go. I used to go downtown and like, hang out randomly.
- [12:12]
Jane Marie
Fall in love in one day with a guy who just got out of prison. So it, you know, like, there's something going on there. Tell me more.
- [12:20]
Amanda Lee
I'm just saying it seemed like I fell in love immediately. It was. He came and stayed with me. He didn't really have anywhere to stay. I think he was probably staying in a hotel. But he came and spent the night with me that night and never left. So that's why I say it was, like, love at first sight. But I just was so intrigued by him. I mean, he was my age, but had been to prison for a year and a day, so I thought he was really tough and cool. So, yeah, I mean, of course I wasn't, like, in love that first day, but I was definitely, like, obsessed with him from the beginning.
- [12:55]
Jane Marie
Will you text me a photo of him right now? I need to know how hot he is.
- [12:58]
Amanda Lee
You wanna. I was like, he's dead. He got murdered. But I have. I do have pictures of him from back then.
- [13:06]
Jane Marie
Yeah, I just want to know how hot he was.
- [13:08]
Amanda Lee
I think he Was hot, but that was back then. But we decided to write a bunch of checks, steal a bunch, or like, get open a checkbook, go and write a bunch of checks and then get like $20, $40 cash back off of each check. You know how you can do it with a credit card? You can do cash back. Well, you could just write a check for $20, $40, sometimes $100 over the amount back then and get that cash back. Like, if you were at Walmart or somewhere checking out, you would pay with a check. And those checks ended up turning into. Each one was a warrant out for my arrest. I ended up with 37 warrants out for me. I was not about to turn myself in. So me and that guy that I had met jumped in my car and decided to live in the car. But we were headed to Los Angeles. We were just going to go on the run. We were going to leave Alabama. So we packed up my car and, you know, over three days, we drove from Birmingham to Los Angeles. We panhandled the whole way with either cardboard signs or I was also making hemp jewelry. And we would trade, like, we'd go to a gas station and trade hemp jewelry for people to fill up my gas tank.
- [14:24]
Jane Marie
So, listeners, listeners, I need everyone to know Amanda does not look like a person these days who would sell hemp jewelry at the gas station.
- [14:35]
Amanda Lee
I really don't.
- [14:37]
Jane Marie
But in my mind, I'm like, oh, she had white dreadlocks.
- [14:42]
Amanda Lee
Oh, no, no. I, like, I really wanted to be a total hippie. I'm just not. But let's see, we made it out to Los Angeles. We parked our car in Santa Monica, where that's where we would sleep. But we quickly found hero, and that was where I started doing heroin. So in Alabama, I had always done Dilaudids. That was all I could find. Now when I got to la, I started doing, like, the real deal. So that was when that started. And I was, let's say, 19 at that age.
- [15:19]
Jane Marie
Oh, that's a very scary time to be doing. I'm sorry. Like, I don't know, the late 90s and heroin, especially in California.
- [15:27]
Amanda Lee
It really was. I don't know why I'm so lucky to still be alive and not injured. And I haven't had as much happen to me as I think could have. I'm very blessed. But, yeah, it was definitely, definitely dangerous. Let's see. So we ripped off some. Some dealers, which is dangerous. So we decided to leave la. We drove up to Eugene, Oregon, and we lived in. Or, you know, I say lived in. We, we lived in our car for about six months up in Eugene, Oregon doing the same thing. Panhandling cardboard sign, making hemp jewelry, doing heroin.
- [16:03]
Jane Marie
Were you guys like the gutter punks that were made fun of on Portlandia? Like, did you have a dog and you sat there with a cardboard sign?
- [16:12]
Amanda Lee
Well, kind of. Kind of. We were in that crew and they called us the tramps. Like that. I don't know. We each had our street corner and you don't mess with somebody's street corner. There were people living in trees. I was hanging out with them. I would, you know, go get them beer and then like send it up the rope to them and they would send me down their urine stuff and like, because they would use the bathroom up in the trees and they had to send down their stuff. So we helped them out. It was so funny.
- [16:44]
Jane Marie
We'll be back in just a minute.
- [16:49]
Amanda Lee
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- [17:15]
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- [18:27]
Amanda Lee
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- [18:32]
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- [18:33]
Amanda Lee
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- [18:36]
Amanda Lee
But they want soft. Sleep number does that.
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- [18:41]
Amanda Lee
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- [18:43]
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- [18:45]
Amanda Lee
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- [18:54]
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- [19:04]
Jane Marie
And we're back.
- [19:06]
Amanda Lee
So we actually went to Portland first, then we went to Seattle. And up in Seattle, my car got towed and I got arrested for shoplifting at Walmart. So I spent two weeks in jail detoxing off heroin for my first time detoxing. That was my first time experience in a detox. So it was definitely something serious. But when I. Yeah, when I got out of jail, my car had been towed, so we were officially homeless. That's where, that's how we ended up where I say, you know, sleeping on church steps, panhandling, completely homeless on heroin. Rock bottom. As much as can be have ripped off people. So we are, you know, also scared for our lives or we should be. So at. At 20 years old, I. I just woke up one morning and I think I had done a bad shot or something because I woke up and I couldn't really walk. My body was frozen stiff and I didn't know what was going on. I felt really scared for my life. So I called my dad, said, dad, I'm doing heroin. I'm. I. I need help. I need help. And he jumped on it. He did. My dad is amazing. In fact, my family is amazing. But my dad jumped on it. My aunt, actually his sister, had been in recovery for about 25 years from heroin. So she's the one that jumped in to help me. She flew out to Seattle and she had lived in Washington D.C. so she flew us from Seattle back to her house. So that's how I ended in Washington D.C. that's where Midtown is. That's how I ended up in that city. And this is where I'm willing to go to aa because I have nothing. I don't know what else to do. So I went to one AA meeting, just a regular AA meeting. It was fine. But I met this girl there, and she said, you need to come with me to a meeting tomorrow night. It's all young people. There's like, 500 people. We have so much fun. We make sobriety fun. You've got to come. I'll pick you up tomorrow. And so I'm like, oh, heck, yeah. That sounds great. Yeah. You know, so that next Sunday, she picks me up and we go to this meeting. We got there, like, two hours early. That was every. That you're supposed to do that. That was, like, part of the thing. We always got there two hours early. And I'm talking about all 500 people did. But, I mean, that first meeting, it honestly was mind blowing. These people were. You know, I'm like, y'all were like, me, like, junkies and homeless and stuff. And now they just looked so happy and shiny and clean and normal. You know, they were having a good time, and they were talking about going to the beach all together, and they were going to go out that night, bowling, and they invited me, and. And it was a speaker meeting, and there was two speakers, but I remember the second one in particular. You know, his story was mine. I related so much to him, and then when he talked about his life and recovery, I wanted it more than anything. I was super excited. I felt like I had found my people and I was at home. I mean, I was thrilled. I felt like hope for the first time. I really felt like I was going to be able to stay sober. So, I mean, I made that my home group. And, you know, they told me that they go to meeting every single night. And so, I mean, I was willing to do all of this stuff because it's. I really. You know, and actually, a lot of that is normal AA stuff. A lot of people do go to a meeting every single day.
- [22:43]
Jane Marie
Like, it's 90 and 90 or something. Like.
- [22:45]
Amanda Lee
Yeah, but that's typical is 90 and.
- [22:48]
Jane Marie
90 just for listeners who have no idea. Can you explain what that is?
- [22:52]
Amanda Lee
Yeah, of course. Like, so when you first get an aa, it's highly recommended. Especially, like, every. Within every AA group. Not just like this. This group that I'm talking about, it's highly recommended for you to go to 90 meetings within your first 90 days. But in this group, we went to a meeting every day. I went to a meeting, probably 10 meetings a week for seven years. So, I mean, that's a lot. That's a lot of time. And we also had to pick up newcomers before every meeting and stuff. So, I mean, it took 3,000. Yeah.
- [23:23]
Jane Marie
This was 640 meetings. I would have the same reaction if you were talking about Pilates, though. I'm just like, letting you know.
- [23:31]
Amanda Lee
Yeah, it's a lot. You know, one of the things was they wanted us to live together and kind of separate from our families because, you know, they said, like, obviously your family can't help you stay sober, you know, or they would have. So you need to, you know, separate from them. You need to separate from all of your old friends, your family, all of your old people, because they've, you know, that's what's created this life, basically, for you. So that night, after my very first meeting, they made me move out of my aunt's house into one of their sober houses, like, onto into their living room. And, I mean, this was my aunt that had picked me up, flown me out, all this stuff, and all of a sudden, I think she's the bad guy, and I'm leaving in the middle of the night. She's like, don't do this. This is super weird. Where are you going? Who are these people? So they had me move out. And that was like, the first day.
- [24:38]
Jane Marie
You went to one. One of these meetings?
- [24:41]
Amanda Lee
One, yes. So one of these meetings, Yep, I got that. You know, I got there two hours early, and I went out to eat with some girls. They assigned me a sponsor. So that. That first day, they're like, are you willing to go to any lengths? You have to jump on this. You have to do this. They said that, you know, the window of willingness is really short. So if you're willing to do anything to stay sober and move out of your aunt's house and shut out all of your old contacts, you've got to do it today. You can't wait till tomorrow because you might not be willing to. So I was. I was like, all right, I'll do it all. I mean, I had nothing to lose, you know, I mean, I did. I just jumped in head first. Here's another crazy thing. The first day, they asked me if I. You know, we were not allowed to take medication, psychiatric medication at all. Not antidepressants, nothing. And we were not allowed to see psychologist, psychiatrist. We were not allowed to go see counseling because.
- [25:52]
Jane Marie
And you weren't like, ding, ding.
- [25:54]
Amanda Lee
No.
- [25:54]
Jane Marie
Nothing occurred to you at that time? No.
- [25:56]
Amanda Lee
Okay, I wasn't. Because again, they said if these medications and these doctors were going to keep you sober, they would have done it. So. I see. Yeah, I was. Will. I did. I just. I trusted so blindly because they told me that. And I had. I was taking Lexapro and Gabapentin, and I understood the Gabapentin. Some people are against that. That's a nerve pain that can sometimes alter the way you feel. And some people abuse it. So I can understand why they didn't want me taking that medication, but they also didn't want me taking my Lexapro. And that's just an ssri. It's an antidepressant. It does not alter your mood.
- [26:39]
Jane Marie
Who's the leader of this thing?
- [26:41]
Amanda Lee
There's a head leader. Okay. His name was Mike Quinones. Starts with a Q. So Mike Q. So our group was also called the Q Group. He was our leader. He was for, you know, when I got there in the early 2000s, he was in his 60s and he had been the leader for over 20 years when I got there. Now, I did not know that AA meetings weren't really supposed to have leaders. It rotates. You never have the same person in leadership for a certain amount of time. That's typically how AA works. So that there's not a person in power. You know, it's all in the spirit of rotation. And that's normally how it should work. But in Midtown, you know, Mike was our leader, and then he had sponsees. But in Midtown, the sponsees were called pigeons. So he's got, let's see, 15 to 20, probably.
- [27:41]
Jane Marie
Hold up a second.
- [27:42]
Amanda Lee
Yeah, I'm sorry.
- [27:44]
Jane Marie
Do you watch the Real Housewives sometimes? Yeah, the New York season, the current one. There's like a whole storyline about pigeons.
- [27:54]
Amanda Lee
Oh, really?
- [27:56]
Jane Marie
Yeah. But about, like people who chit chat or gossip or whatever and people who go spread the message. Or spread the wrong message.
- [28:05]
Amanda Lee
Yeah, yep, exactly. So he's got his pigeons, and then they've got their sponsees, and then they've got their sponsees, which is pretty normal. But normally you don't have people sponsoring 15, 20 people at a time. Usually it's, you know, 1, 2, 3 people. So this. But our group was very, very much built on hierarchy. There was very much a hierarchy because I probably was downlined from my Q, like, four generations down. I would say, like I was a fourth generation pigeon. Okay. So they had me flush my Lexapro. That was one thing that to me is super, super sketchy. Because we weren't, like I said, we were not allowed to see even a counselor because they told us that we had to have one clear voice. That being our sponsor, we could only listen to one person. They said that we can only serve one master.
- [29:08]
Jane Marie
They used the word master.
- [29:10]
Amanda Lee
Yeah, well, that was the quote unquote thing. You can only serve one master. And I had to call her Every single day. And I had to tell. I had to write down my inventory every night where I was selfish, dishonest, resentful, or fearful. And I had to tell her that. Tell her if I had any secrets. That's not too abnormal of aa I think we were just a little bit extra. I mean, you had to call your sponsor every day or you were gonna be in trouble. We had to do a fourth step. This is another normal thing in aa, a fourth steps, where you write down all of your, you know, things that you've done, all your resentments that. And all of the, you know, basically, it's a list of amends you're going to need to make. But a lot of times you had to go and share stuff with Mike, Mike Q, the leader. That was a big deal. If there was something that you had done or something that they didn't know how to handle, you would have to go talk to Mike Q. And get his direction. And this is another thing. Instead of giving suggestions, which in normal aa, that's what you'll hear. You know, your sponsor gives you suggestions, but in our group, you were given direction, and if you were given direction, you had to do it.
- [30:24]
Jane Marie
Can I tie this back, though, to your home and your sorority thing? Just real, real quick here. The idea of belonging to something and being kicked out of something seems to be like a theme that. Where you. What made you anxious about being kicked out of the AA group?
- [30:42]
Amanda Lee
I think I've always felt very insecure and wanted to belong and wanted to have attention and needed validation. And I really didn't have anything else to fall back on as far as friends or. And plus, I had cut. At this point, I'd cut everyone off by the, you know, within. With Midtown being, you know, that being threatened for me, being kicked out, I'd cut everyone off. I didn't have any else. And I wanted that sense of inclusion and those friends and, you know, I mean, I was 20 years old. I wanted to have fun. And this was like. It did. You know, we. We also had a great sense of fun about everything we did. There was a lot of weird stuff that I look back on that I'm talking about. But then there was also a lot of great stuff about Midtown. There was a lot of stuff that drew you in. These people were so funny. And, you know, there was a lot of great. We went on camping trips and all kind of stuff. It was just that, looking back on it, how twisted and skewed everything was.
- [31:46]
Jane Marie
Tell me when that went awry for you.
- [31:49]
Amanda Lee
So the whole time there would other groups. This was. This was like other AA groups. We were known as being known as a cult. So I knew that other people said we were a culture, but I defended it. I'd be like, no, we're literal, just AA group. One of the rules of Midtown, though, is that we're not allowed to go to outside meetings at all. You're only allowed to go to Midtown meetings, and other people could come to them. But we were not allowed to go to other meetings because they didn't want us to hear a different message. We didn't want to hear that we were in a cult or be brainwashed by them. We only wanted to be brainwashed by us. I did know. You know what? The whole time that I'm in Midtown, that I'm being. Other people are saying it's a cult. So I knew the whole time that it kind of was, but I just didn't choose to believe it because it was saving my life. And I was there for seven years. By the time I. About when I got seven years sober was when things started getting crazy. Reporters from. From Newsweek, from the Washington Post, they started coming into our meetings, actually, like, busting into our meetings and having people, some of the group members tell this stuff, you know, that we were out. We're not allowed to see doctors. We weren't allowed to take medication. We had to cut off our family. They started telling this stuff. So we started being kind of ousted in the news with what was really going on. I was still defending it, though, at the time. There was a, like, mass exodus of people that left our group, and they started another group that was called the Concerned Friends Group, the cfg. And they were trying to do all kind of advocacy to like, break up Midtown. Because it was. It was ex Midtown members that were. That had come to see the light, and they were like, this is so dangerous because not just weren't we allowed to take medicine, There was so, so much sexual abuse happening in this group. The. Some of the direction that we were given to do was sexual stuff. We had to do stuff like that. And Mike Q. The 60 and 70 year old, his girlfriends, his fiance that he had were 16 and 17. So, I mean, it was.
- [34:16]
Jane Marie
Can you. I don't want to disturb you or make this weird, but, like, I am. I'm friends with Sarah Edmondson from the NXIVM Experience. Do you know her?
- [34:28]
Amanda Lee
Yeah. Yeah, I don't know her. I know of her for sure, though.
- [34:31]
Jane Marie
She's sweetie pie. So don't talk about this if you don't want to. But, like, what do you mean with the cult making people do sex stuff? And, like, how does that pass muster with a bunch of adults?
- [34:50]
Amanda Lee
How does it get through with a bunch of adults is a crazy question. You know, I look back and I'm like, wow. I mean, it's still going on. I mean, if I've got an article, I could show you that in two. Two years ago, there was a guy that took one of the newcomers, the teenage girl, over to his house to do step work to help her with her sobriety. And part of that included some sexual favors. That was how she was gonna stay sober. And that was what she was told that night. And she was sexually assaulted.
- [35:22]
Jane Marie
And who in the what now? What step is that?
- [35:25]
Amanda Lee
What step is that? The 13th step, I freaking guess. I don't know.
- [35:29]
Jane Marie
But when you're in the group and you know those things are going on around you, like, how? Well, how. Is it justified? Or is it just, like, very. Everyone's very horny because they can't do drugs. I don't know. I'm making up.
- [35:42]
Amanda Lee
Part of it is that. Part of it is like, they're. You know, you're not doing drugs. There's got to be some excitement somewhere. And so there's that. And we're young, you know, 20. Most of us are very young. But also, you know, back in my drinking, I was sleeping with older men. I was already doing stuff for money, so it was very normal to me. I didn't. I just thought this was something that people that like to drink and party do. And so.
- [36:09]
Jane Marie
But did they tell you that it was going to benefit you in some way? Like, I understand the passing time part of it. Like, I understand that, like, what are we gonna do to spice off our boring lives now that we're sober? But was it spoken about, like, what. How it could benefit you or keep you in your good standing or something?
- [36:32]
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- [36:32]
Jane Marie
Was that ever spoken, you know, it.
- [36:35]
Amanda Lee
Probably was said in some weird ways to some of these girls. I'm not exactly sure, you know, what the guy was telling this girl to help her stay sober or whatever. I know that there was times I was given direction to jump on it and do something, let's say, because there was a guy I had liked for a while, and my sponsor would say, well, you have direction to go right now. Tell him you want to sleep with him and, you know, get in the back of the car with him right now. Just because I had wanted to do it. And I was like, scared or whatever. She wanted me to experience life, so that was how that was going to benefit me. That was one of the examples that I was given direction to go do a sexual act, but that was one that I kind of wanted to do anyway. But a lot of these girls were made to sleep with older men, and I know that that was because we really thought that these guys were spiritual gurus. And I mean, you were gonna benefit just like by being near them or by getting their advice or by, you know, telling them all your secrets, which ended up being kind of an intimate experience anyway because you're telling these older men about, you know, having been in these other sexual, you know, putting yourself in these situations. And I mean, that can end up getting really awkward fast and twisted and perverted. And it did.
- [37:55]
Jane Marie
Yeah, I just got my icky feeling of like the one time somebody touched me. Weird. I mean, we've all gone through all that stuff.
- [38:03]
Amanda Lee
Yep.
- [38:04]
Jane Marie
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Amanda Lee
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Amanda Lee
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Amanda Lee
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- [39:26]
Amanda Lee
Hey, prime members, Are you tired of.
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- [39:58]
Jane Marie
Welcome back to the Dream.
- [40:00]
Amanda Lee
At first, when the Washington Post and Newsweek and everything started coming in and I was very defensive of Midtown, saying, we're not a cult, this is. Saved my life. I'm completely a different person, which, you know, in one respect, it had. I. I really was sober, and I was a lot happier. I just. I could not make decisions for myself because every single decision was made for me. There was, you know, a lot of stuff, but I had my dad even write a letter to the Washington Post defending Midtown, saying, you know, this isn't a cult. This is saving lives. I mean, I really believed in it at first, but then there was a group of us that had gotten sober really young, and we were curious if maybe we were normal. And there was a group of us that went out and drank. There was so much disruption in our group happening. You know, a bunch of people leaving. We were getting kicked out of our churches. AA meetings are held in churches just because it's a space and they'll. They'll rent out a room to us for, like $40 a month. You know, something cheap. So it's just a place for us to meet. And also, we, like, aa likes to pay rent and be contributing.
- [41:10]
Jane Marie
But then why are you getting kicked out of those?
- [41:13]
Amanda Lee
We started getting kicked out because we were being reported in the news as a sex cult all over. So these churches wanted. They don't want their reputation to be related to that. So we had nowhere to meet. We were having to create a phone tree and meet in secret locations every night. So there would be a person that would call 10 people to say, hey, we're meeting in this field tonight. And then they would call 10 people, so say, hey, we're meeting in this field tonight. And it would be a secret location every night because we didn't want reporters knowing where we were and breaking up our meetings. Yeah.
- [41:56]
Jane Marie
So wait, how did you figure out their. From, like, getting kicked out, going to fields to have your meetings and stuff? Like, what was the transition to knowing that you were in a cult and needed to leave a cult?
- [42:09]
Amanda Lee
It wasn't until I left to drink to see if maybe a lot of people were actually testing to see if they were normal. They were just going to drink. I think I knew I was an alcoholic because, I mean, I was already, by the time I was 19, definitely not drinking like a normal teenager was. Some of these people were. But I went out. It was a big group of us that went out and started drinking together. I mean, I remember we posted pictures on Facebook saying, class of 2003, because we were all sober in 2003, but we're all out at the bar that night drinking and thought it was cute. And the first day I just went out and drank. The next day I was like, I need a drink. You know, I mean, it progressed really fast. I would say I drank only alcohol for a month. And then I went through, like, kind of a bad breakup, and a friend came over and said, here's some OxyContin. It'll make you feel better. And so within a month of relapse and I was doing OxyContin, and probably within two weeks of that, I was driving up to Baltimore every single day doing heroin. So I didn't leave because of it being a cult. I left because I was drinking because I relapsed.
- [43:30]
Jane Marie
How do you feel about that? Do you feel like. Did you at the time feel like you betrayed anyone or how did that feel?
- [43:37]
Amanda Lee
Oh, my God, it was to a hundred times feeling like I was betraying them. I felt awful that I was doing this, but also, I lost all of my friends. Like, I. You know, I mean, in the beginning, they had me cut off my family, cut off my. All of my old friends. And to go from having 500 people that you hang out with every single day, they will not speak to me. Once I left, I had no more friends. And that feeling of losing everybody was like something I could almost not handle. Almost. It was.
- [44:12]
Jane Marie
That's devastating.
- [44:13]
Amanda Lee
It was devastating because I really thought these people were my friends. That's something that still affects me today for sure. Is like, is that person really my friend?
- [44:23]
Jane Marie
Did anyone in that group have your best interest at heart?
- [44:27]
Amanda Lee
So I actually don't blame a lot of the people because I feel like we were all predators and we were all victims in some way at the same time, you know, because, you know, I mean, I think that the girl that sponsored me loved me and wanted good things for me, and I know that, but she still, because of the way that she was raised in aa, she called me a pigeon. Her pigeon, you know, and she gave Me direction to do things that may not have been in my best interest. So. But I do think that she wanted the best for me and I do think that she loved me. She just didn't have the best teaching in the ways to be a sponsor. And I think that's how a lot of us were. I think a lot of us didn't have bad intentions. We just were given bad teaching and we protected the group. And it's hard for me to blame like a lot of people, but I definitely, I do feel like a lot of those older, the leaders that had been there for a long time. And it's not just men. Some of these predators were women 100%. But I do feel like some of the old timers, some of the older people were 100% at fault and harming people badly.
- [45:44]
Jane Marie
You know, when you're going to sleep at night and you're in a high control group, what are you thinking about? And you're sober. If you weren't sober, I would understand that you're just passing out, I guess.
- [45:57]
Amanda Lee
Yeah.
- [45:59]
Jane Marie
But if you're sober, what are you thinking?
- [46:02]
Amanda Lee
I mean, I was really like, I had a lot of gratitude because at the end of the night, I would have done as long as I had done everything that I was supposed to do. It was very much like a behavioral type group. But if I behaved well that day, of course, when my head hit the pillow that night, it was awesome. I've made it another day. I was excited to have, you know, found this group and have my, you know, friends at that time or whatever. Most days were really good, but there were days that I didn't behave well. And some of the behaving well might be that I overate too much sugar because like, it was a high control group. So like you're saying, so let's, let's say I over ate that day. One of my goals was that I was trying not to overeat or whatever. So if I overshot my own mark or whatever, that could be something that, you know, I had to talk to my sponsor about. And it was just something that was gonna have to change. And she might even slam me. Like, you know, it might be really hard talking to if I, you know, didn't live up to whatever my expectations were for that day. So there were some days that I hit the pill, you know, I tried to go to sleep. I can't go to sleep because I didn't do and behave perfectly that day. Or let's say there was a day I didn't Want to call my sponsor? It was hard for me to sleep that night because I hadn't called her that day.
- [47:27]
Jane Marie
There's so many documentaries about, like, again, like, Scientology and AA and high control, all these cults. We weren't allowed to do this. We weren't allowed to do that. Like, what do you actually mean by that? Like, you're allowed, you know, like.
- [47:40]
Amanda Lee
Yeah, it is kind of hard to explain, because it's not like if you were to question that you're going to, you know, go to jail or whatever. There wasn't exactly specifically a punishment for it, except that you had to talk to your sponsor about it, write about it. And a lot of times this one's really creepy. If you were to question the group, they made you go talk to Mike Q. Which is scary because he's, like, the leader of 500 people. Everybody's not really close to him. So sometimes he was very intimidating. Very intimidating. Like, I was scared of him.
- [48:14]
Jane Marie
Sit in person with him.
- [48:15]
Amanda Lee
You had to go talk to him. If you were to question him about being a cult leader. Let's say. Let's say I talked to my sponsor, and this is. This did happen to me. This is why it was creepy. If you were like, when I told my sponsor, I'm starting to question this group, or I had to go and talk to Mike Q about it and bring it to him. And I mean, anything that he say, he says was supposed to be taken sort of as gospel. He was almost treated like a prophet. You know, he was not called a prophet. So it's not what I'm saying. It was just that almost anything he said was supposed to be taken as like, that is the word we really like. He is inspired by God, you know, that kind of thing.
- [48:57]
Jane Marie
Was there something, like, comfy about that for the group?
- [49:01]
Amanda Lee
I think so. I do. I mean, I think we really felt far superior. Superior to any other AA groups. So there was some comfort in thinking that we had Mike and they didn't. You know what I mean? When you. When we felt like that he was inspired by God and the things he said were really gonna keep us sober and that, like, all this stuff, we did feel superior to other groups. I mean, I definitely looked down on other aa. I didn't think if I went to a. If another meeting, if I was out of town and maybe went to an outside meeting that was just out of town, that was allowed. But I definitely looked down on everyone if they weren't sharing, and it didn't sound like our message and our message did sound a little different. I feel like you could tell when we shared and stuff, we were just more culty the way that we sounded.
- [49:56]
Jane Marie
What do you mean? Like, is there an example you can.
- [49:58]
Amanda Lee
Think of just as far as saying, like, you know, when you get sober, you have to go to a meeting every single day, and if you're not working, you have to go to two a day always, like, your entire life, doesn't matter if you've been sober 35 years or whatever, you still have to go to two meetings a day if you're not working. And when I would go and people would be like, you know, I go to three meetings a week, which is very normal and awesome, you know, a good balance. But if I heard somebody say they went to three a week, then I automatically felt superior to them because my sobriety was stronger because I went seven to ten meetings a week. And I was in the Midtown group, and I honest to God felt that the Midtown group was the best AA in the world, far superior to any other group.
- [50:43]
Jane Marie
What would you say to people that are. That you think are maybe on the verge of joining a cult? Like that, Or, I mean, maybe not even knowing they're joining a cult? But what would you say to kids these days? What do you say to kids these days? That's such a stupid question.
- [51:01]
Amanda Lee
No, I know what you're trying to say, though. It's like, what would you say to anybody that's in a situation where they're vulnerable? I mean, because anybody. I think that if you're in, you know, at risk of being into a cult, you've got some vulnerability somewhere. You're looking for something, whether it's money or sobriety or something like that. But I think it's just important to kind of go into it with. I mean, to be able to make some of your own decisions going into it. Because I know immediately I started letting other people make my decisions, and I wasn't sure listening to my gut or praying about it and, well, praying about it wasn't something I would have known to do back then. That's something I do now. Like, before I go into any situation, I just try to pray with it and let it sit, see how my gut feels with it, stuff like that. But, you know, I just. I was not raised in church. We never went. This has all been, as an adult, where I've gotten so curious, like, who is God? Who the heck is God? But I'm very interested, and I definitely believe that God is real 100%, and I want to know him more. But that's just where I'm at right now. You know, I don't know. I don't know who I'm praying to.
- [52:17]
Jane Marie
It would be a. Wouldn't that be a better way, better feeling than any of the things you were chasing before?
- [52:23]
Amanda Lee
Yeah, yeah, 100% not. That's what I'll say. A lot of times I was trying to fill a God sized hole with all this other stuff. Drugs, boys, attention, sex, whatever. But the only thing that really can fulfill that is like having a relationship with some kind of God and like feeling whole in that way. Me, myself, filling hole.
- [52:58]
Jane Marie
The Dream is a production of Little Everywhere. You can call us on our tip line if you have a story or a guest you'd like to suggest. 3232481488 okay, love you, bye.
- [53:23]
Amanda Lee
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- [53:38]
Amanda Lee
Wouldn't because you love wasting money as a way to punish yourself because your mother never showed you enough love as a child. Whoa, easy there. Yeah.
- [53:47]
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