S2|E1: Intake

Summary

The Sunshine Place: Season 2, Episode 1 - "Intake"

Executive Produced by Robert Downey Jr., Susan Downey, and Emily Barclay Ford of Team Downey, along with Josh McLaughlin of Wink Pictures.

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Introduction

Season 2 of "The Sunshine Place", produced by Team Downey and Audacy Podcasts, delves into the harrowing experiences of teenagers trapped within Straight Incorporated—a controversial rehab program from the 1980s. This episode, titled "Intake," sets the stage by recounting the traumatic admission process endured by survivors like Valerie and Cindy Ettler.

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Valerie’s Background

Valerie, a 17-year-old from Daytona Beach, Florida, shares her family dynamics and personal struggles leading up to her involvement with Straight Incorporated. Growing up in a loving yet tumultuous household, Valerie's father was a protective figure battling health issues, while her mother became increasingly repressive and devoutly religious.

• Valerie (01:20): "I just wanted to be next to her, you know, I just wanted to be near her. I just felt like she was so angry all the time."

The death of Valerie’s father was a pivotal moment that fractured her family, leading her mother to remarry an older preacher and pushing Valerie into a state of deep depression and responsibility for her younger siblings.

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Introduction to Straight Incorporated

Founded in 1976 in the affluent community of St. Petersburg, Florida, Straight Incorporated expanded rapidly by the 1980s to address the escalating drug crisis among teenagers. Promoted as a tough-love rehabilitation center, it drew thousands of young individuals under the guise of helping them overcome addiction.

• Cindy Ettler (07:03): "The intake was how every person who went through the program was exposed to the world of Straight Incorporated."

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The Intake Process

The episode meticulously outlines the sinister intake procedure that Valerie and other teenagers were subjected to. Intended as a pathway to rehabilitation, the intake was, in reality, a gateway to abuse and manipulation.

• Valerie (01:20): "I was so happy to see him. I didn't know how their questioning was fitting into visiting my brother."
• Cindy Ettler (03:08): "There were no windows, the doors were kind of like darked out or blacked out."

Upon arrival, Valerie was deceived into believing she was there to visit her brother, Mario, who had been undergoing treatment at Straight. Instead, she was met with aggressive interrogation labeling her a "druggie," leading to physical restraint and forced compliance.

• Valerie (05:19): "I tried to get up and go to the door, like, what do you mean stay? I'm leaving."
• Cindy Ettler (07:03): "Anybody who was at Straight Incorporated can tell you about their intake in graphic detail, just like Valerie did."

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Straight’s Methods and Practices

Straight Incorporated employed a combination of peer pressure, intimidation, and physical abuse to enforce compliance among its participants. The program was structured into five phases, each designed to break down the individual’s resistance and rebuild them under the organization's control.

• Cindy Ettler (10:11): "It was a drug rehab program for teenagers with treatment facilities all over the country."
• Dr. Virgil Miller Newton (10:38): "You're just here for your family, just because your brother's in here."

The methods echoed those of Synanon—a notorious 1960s rehab that evolved into a violent cult—highlighting the cyclical nature of such organizations masquerading as therapeutic centers.

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The Role of Staff and Dr. Miller Newton

The staff at Straight Incorporated were predominantly former participants, referred to as "rap leaders," who conducted group therapy sessions termed "raps." These sessions were intense, often resembling confrontational interrogations rather than supportive therapy.

• Cindy Ettler (37:10): "Participating in raps was how you made progress in the program."
• Dr. Virgil Miller Newton (46:22): "Denial is refusing to see something that is there because of how bad it's gonna hurt if you have to face it."

Dr. Virgil Miller Newton, the clinical director, functioned as the charismatic leader ensuring that both parents and teenagers remained compliant through deceptive practices and psychological manipulation.

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The Parent Induction Process

Straight Incorporated extended its control beyond the teenagers by indoctrinating their parents. Through mandatory "rap sessions," parents were coached to adopt specific scripts, effectively controlling the narrative between parents and their children.

• Cindy Ettler (43:11): "We weren't allowed to say anything else to our parents in open meetings except love you."
• Dr. Virgil Miller Newton (46:34): "What I want to share today is a technique that we've developed that has helped parents face the problem that their kid has a problem and to do something about it."

This manipulation ensured that parents reinforced the program’s narrative, believing they were aiding their children's recovery while unknowingly perpetuating the cycle of control and abuse.

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Valerie’s Personal Experience

Valerie's firsthand account paints a vivid picture of the psychological and physical torment inflicted during her time at Straight Incorporated. From forced strip searches to relentless group therapies, every aspect of the program was designed to dehumanize and subjugate the teenagers.

• Valerie (27:40): "I had to make sure that I was there to visit him."
• Valerie (32:19): "When I was done, emotionally done, physically done, I had nothing left in me to fight for."

Her inability to resist the program's coercive tactics led to prolonged suffering, illustrating the program’s effectiveness in breaking down individual autonomy.

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The Aftermath and Legacy

Despite thousands enduring similar experiences, Straight Incorporated operated with impunity, backed by influential figures and widespread societal acceptance of tough-love rehabilitation methods. The legacy of Straight Incorporated is seen in the continued existence of the "troubled teen industry," which perpetuates similar abusive practices under different guises.

• Cindy Ettler (50:15): "Straight Incorporated was a cult. But our parents didn't realize it. And nobody else saw it either."
• Valerie (52:23): "I really want this story told and understood because it's happening to other kids now."

Survivors like Valerie and Cindy Ettler aim to shed light on these injustices, advocating for greater awareness and accountability within the troubled teen industry.

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Connection to Season 1 – Synanon

The episode draws parallels between Straight Incorporated and Synanon, emphasizing the recurring nature of such cult-like rehabilitation programs. Just as Synanon in the 1960s evolved into a violent cult, Straight Incorporated's aggressive methods mirrored these earlier abuses, highlighting a troubling continuity in therapeutic practices.

• Cindy Ettler (10:52): "It felt very confining like a hospital. Sterile, but not clean, sterile."
• Cindy Ettler (12:24): "Drugs are menacing our society."

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Conclusion

"Intake" serves as a chilling introduction to Season 2 of "The Sunshine Place," meticulously documenting the sinister underpinnings of Straight Incorporated. Through Valerie’s poignant narrative and Cindy Ettler’s insightful commentary, the episode exposes the dark reality behind a facade of rehabilitation, urging listeners to recognize and challenge the ongoing threats posed by similar institutions today.

• Valerie (52:41): "I really want this story told and understood because it's happening to other kids now."
• Cindy Ettler (51:26): "That was a cult. But our parents didn't realize it. And nobody else saw it either."

By intertwining personal testimonies with historical context, "Intake" not only recounts past atrocities but also calls for vigilance to prevent the repetition of such abuses in contemporary settings.

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Notable Quotes:

• Valerie (01:20): "I just wanted to be next to her, you know, I just wanted to be near her."
• Cindy Ettler (07:03): "Anybody who was at Straight Incorporated can tell you about their intake in graphic detail, just like Valerie did."
• Dr. Virgil Miller Newton (46:22): "Denial is refusing to see something that is there because of how bad it's gonna hurt if you have to face it."
• Valerie (52:41): "I really want this story told and understood because it's happening to other kids now."

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Production Credits:

• Written, Directed, and Produced by: Perry Crowell
• Writer Producer: Margot Gray
• Story Editors: Maddie Sprung Kaiser and Lloyd Lockridge
• Executive Producers: Robert Downey Jr., Susan Downey, Emily Barclay Ford, Josh McLaughlin
• Narrator: Cindy Ettler
• Special Thanks To: J.D. Crowley, Leah Reese, Dennis, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney, and Hillary Schuff

Listen to "The Sunshine Place" on the Audacy app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript

[Jenna Fisher]

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[Cindy Ettler]

This episode contains descriptions of physical and emotional abuse. Please take care while listening.

[Valerie]

It was Halloween of 1982 and I was 17 years old and my mom told me that we were going to go visit my brother and I was so happy to see him. I hadn't seen him in a while. I knew he was away because of the trouble he had gotten into, but I had no idea where he was at. I just knew that he was away somewhere and that we were going to go visit him.

[Cindy Ettler]

This is Valerie that Halloween Morning in 1982. She got in the car with her mom at home in Daytona Beach, Florida, and they drove southwest across the state.

[Valerie]

We left early in the morning and we were going to Sarasota, which is about three or four hours from Daytona. I remember that day going to like Waffle House or something. It was some kind of diner and I remember getting served by a clown because it was Halloween. Halloween in Florida was kind of just another day. We were not allowed to participate in any of that because my mom said it was demonic. And I just remember being really excited because I was going to go visit my brother.

[Cindy Ettler]

Valerie's brother Mario had been in a drug rehab for almost a year.

[Valerie]

And so we got there and we just went to this concrete building that looked kind of like a school or something. There were no windows, the doors were kind of like darked out or blacked out or something. And we went right to this building.

[Cindy Ettler]

As soon as they got inside, Valerie saw a bunch of clean cut kids her age in what looked like an office lobby. They greeted her and her mom and then they instructed Valerie to follow them down the hall and into a small windowless room where they locked the door.

[Valerie]

And I was thinking, maybe it's a waiting room for my brother. I thought it was odd that I was in the room without my mom and there was just a bunch of girls, maybe six or eight girls. They all looked the same, they all had the same kind of hairstyle. It was all pinned back. And I also noticed their clothes were funny. They like didn't fit them right and they were hanging on them and their clothes didn't match. They all looked pasty white, pale, just alien looking girls. And they seemed like they were just like closing in on me. So here I was in this room of strangers, wondering where my mom was and why she wasn't coming back. They started asking me these questions about drug use and about skipping school or having sex. I didn't understand why they were asking me these questions that didn't apply to my life. It wasn't like they were saying, well, hi Valerie, how are you doing? You know, how is school? They were asking me questions as if they knew me already. They were get up in my face and they were forcing me to agree with what they were telling me. They were using the word druggie, my clothes were druggie and that my friends were druggy, my music was druggie, or the person that I am was druggie. But it wasn't connecting to me. And I didn't know how their questioning was fitting into visiting my brother.

[Cindy Ettler]

Valerie was sure that there must have been some kind of misunderstanding. And there was on her part, because she wasn't there for a visit.

[Valerie]

And then they broke it to me that I was gonna stay. I didn't understand, like, what are they talking about? I'm gonna stay. You know, what does that mean? But they just told me that I was a drug addict and I was gonna stay there. I just remember trying to get up and go to the door, like, what do you mean stay? I'm leaving. And they slammed their body on me and they said, I'm not going anywhere. And I started saying, but I need my mom to clear this up. And then I tried to go for the door again and then I was fighting to get out. They just beat me to the ground and they were kicking me. I'm just pinned to the floor and they're Screaming at me that I'm a druggie and I'm not going anywhere. You're a druggie and you need to be here. It's not about your brother. Even as a child, I never felt like I needed my mom. Well, that day, I felt like I needed my mom. And so I screamed and I cried for. I don't know that she could even hear me or it would have even made a difference. And they just beat me worse.

[Cindy Ettler]

If it's painful for you to hear Valerie tell that story, just imagine how I feel. Because everything that happened to her that day happened to me, too. It's called an intake. And at some point during Valerie's, they handed her a pen and made her sign her life away to Straight Incorporated. My name is Cindy Ettler, and this is the Sunshine. Anybody who was at Straight Incorporated can tell you about their intake in graphic detail, just like Valerie did. But it's hard to convey what it actually feels like. Being deceived, kidnapped and abandoned by your own parents, attacked by total strangers and accused of things you didn't do, and eventually coming to the terrifying realization that they're not going to let you leave and no one is coming to save you. The intake was how every person who went through the program was exposed to the world of Straight Incorporated. It would be traumatizing for anyone, and it happened to us when we were just kids. The intake was just the beginning, the first of many steps in what Straight called rehabilitation. But anyone who experienced it will tell you we weren't being rehabilitated. We were being brainwashed and tortured. In the nearly two decades that Straight Incorporated was in operation, tens of thousands of kids went through the program. But nobody ever believed us when we tried to tell them what was actually happening behind closed doors. Maybe that shouldn't be so surprising, because who would you believe? Kids in a drug rehab or the professionals who claim to be saving our lives? In recent years, that's finally started to change. Today, thousands of programs inspired by STRAIGHT operate all over the world, where kids are being tortured in the name of therapy. These kids are starting to tell their stories, and finally, people are starting to listen. That's why some of us, the kids who survived Straight Incorporated all those decades ago, have decided to talk about it again now that we're adults, because our story is a sort of origin story. Nobody was ready to listen to us back then. But now that you're ready, let me try to help you understand.

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

From the outside, it looks like any junior high school anywhere in the country. And the kids here look like kids anywhere. But these aren't just any kids, and this is not just any school. This is STRAIGHT Incorporated, a drug rehabilitation center. It's considered by many experts to be the most effective drug treatment program for adolescents available.

[Cindy Ettler]

When I was a teenager growing up in the 1980s, Straight was in the news a lot. It was a drug rehab program for teenagers with treatment facilities all over the country. It was based on the principles of tough love and harnessed the power of peer pressure as a form of therapy.

[Valerie]

The theory is simple.

[Cindy Ettler]

Peer pressure is what gets kids into drugs.

[Valerie]

And at straight, they use peer pressure to get kids off drugs.

[Angela Kinsey]

You don't want to get straight.

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

You're just here for your family, just because your brother's in here.

[Cindy Ettler]

Rehabilitation at STRAIGHT didn't happen in private or one on one with a licensed professional.

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

Where's the deep stuff, okay? Stuff that you've been holding back all this time?

[Cindy Ettler]

It took place in a huge group, out in the open, in front of everyone, and the sessions were run by other kids just like you. This type of therapy might sound familiar if you listened to Season one of the Sunshine Place, which was about Synanon, a groundbreaking and influential heroin rehab in the 1960s that in the 70s devolved into a violent cult.

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

When a person comes into Synanon, we have then a person that is looking for someone to tell him what to do, just like children.

[Cindy Ettler]

This is Chuck Diederich, the founder of Synanon. He developed an intense and confrontational form of group therapy that he called the game. You're not a man.

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

Your mouth don't make you a man.

[Cindy Ettler]

It was the cornerstone of Synanon's treatment method, and Chuck claimed it was the cure for drug addiction. And he got a lot of people to believe him from all walks of life. Before long, Synanon style rehabs opened up across the country.

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

The controversy over Diederik and Synanon has been growing for several years. Diederich seems to have changed and changed the organization as well.

[Cindy Ettler]

By the late 1970s, Synanon's reputation had become toxic and its founder was disgraced. But the idea that tough love could rehabilitate addicts lived on. And by the 1980s, it seemed like the problem of drug addiction had become a national crisis.

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

Drugs are menacing our society.

[Cindy Ettler]

They're threatening our values and undercutting our institutions.

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

They're killing our children, and no one.

[Valerie]

Is safe from it. Not you, not me, and certainly not our children, because this epidemic has their names written on it.

[Cindy Ettler]

This is Ronald and Nancy Reagan in the west hall of the White House on national television, looking straight into the camera with a call to action for American families.

[Valerie]

To young people watching or listening, I have a very personal message for you. Say yes to your life. And when it comes to drugs and alcohol, just say no.

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

Just say no to drugs.

[Cindy Ettler]

The Reagans were leading the latest crusade in the ongoing war on drugs that America had been fighting for as long as I had been alive. Only now the battlegrounds were suburban middle class neighborhoods like mine.

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

There are drugs sold in virtually every high school and junior high school in the United States.

[Valerie]

I could get them anywhere.

[Jenna Fisher]

At the mall, at the beach, at.

[Valerie]

School, scanning rink down the street. Just call people. It wasn't really hard. All my friends were using drones.

[Cindy Ettler]

And that's why straight incorporated came to neighborhoods like mine.

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

Sound terrific? Well, there is another side to this story.

[Cindy Ettler]

The story that I'm going to tell you, that we're going to tell you the people who are locked up and thrown away. And Straight is a story of kidnapping and torture disguised as therapy inside of a rehab program that infiltrated our communities, indoctrinated our parents, and was endorsed by world leaders. There they are.

[Valerie]

First lady Nancy Reagan.

[Cindy Ettler]

And right behind her, the princess of Wales, her royal Highness. It's a story that doesn't necessarily have a happy ending because it doesn't even have an ending at all. And that's because right now there is a multibillion dollar global industry that preys on the desperation of parents and the vulnerability of teenagers. People call it the troubled teen industry. And it's more insidious and dangerous than you probably realize.

[Valerie]

A student at a private boarding school.

[Angela Kinsey]

In Queen Creek is dead and two.

[Valerie]

Others are ill. Show how Taylor's death exposed multiple medical care issues.

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

Investigation into the Death of a 1212 year old boy at a therapy camp in Transylvania County.

[Cindy Ettler]

The troubled teen industry as we know it today wouldn't exist if it wasn't for straight Incorporated. That's why I feel like I need to tell this story. I've written books, articles and essays about what I went through and I work with, quote, unquote, troubled teens. As a certified teen life coach, I try to give them the kind of support that I wish someone would have given, given me when I was a kid. When they ask about my story, I tell them what happened to me at straight. And when parents ask the question, how could something like that have happened? I tell them that it's still happening and it could happen to someone you love, maybe even your kid. As for those of us who it did happen, to. There's no way to go back or undo all of the trauma that still lives with us in our every relationship, every interaction, every thought inside our heads. All we can do now is tell our stories and hope that this time somebody believes us and maybe we'll finally get some answers.

[Jenna Fisher]

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[Valerie]

Steve this is Cyrus Carell in the studio.

[Jenna Fisher]

Every Wednesday we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the Office and our friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging into our mail bag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for Brand new Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus on Mondays we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Cindy Ettler]

It'S always hard to know where to start when I tell people about Straight Incorporated. By the time I got there in 1985, the program had been around for almost a decade. Strait Incorporated was founded in 1976 in the city of St. Petersburg, Florida. St. Petersburg is on a peninsula between Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico with nearly 250 miles of coastline. There's a lot of beach and waterfront property, so it's always been an affluent community. And in the late 70s the kids of that community were the first clients of Strait. By 1980, demand was so high that Straight opened a second branch in nearby Sarasota. By then, Valerie, who you heard at the beginning of this episode, was a teenager. She was the middle child of five siblings with two older brothers and two younger sisters living in Daytona Beach.

[Valerie]

Well, I live in South Daytona, which is like five minutes from where I grew up or where I was born. We live very close to the speedway. My dad would put a blanket on the yard. We had five kids in the family. All would just lay on the blanket and we would listen to the sound of the cars going round and round and round and round and we would watch the stars and stuff until it was like really late at night.

[Cindy Ettler]

Valerie's family didn't have a lot of money when she was a kid, but her dad tried to make sure they had a lot of love.

[Valerie]

When he would come home from work, literally four out of five days during the week, he would take us to the beach. And I remember too, that my mom never went with us. I can't remember one time my mom went to the beach. My dad was very affectionate and kind that kind of way. My mom seemed like she was not affectionate and just mad at the world. And I had beautiful, like curly hair and I felt like I wanted my mom to say that my hair was beautiful. I just wanted to be next to her, you know, I just wanted to be near her. I just felt like she was so angry all the time. And you just keep loving her because she's your mom. And so that's what I did as a kid. You know, when she was younger, she was a professional opera singer. A lot of times we would either wake up in the morning or go to sleep at night. To my mom Hitting the high C, and she could literally break a glass. She gave that up when she had children. And then she said, like, God told her not to sing opera at all. So she kind of gave up everything she loved. Here's just a simple carpenter.

[Cindy Ettler]

This is Valerie's mom, Dorothy, singing a song called God's Gift. Dorothy made sure that Valerie and her siblings grew up in the church. As Valerie got older, her mom grew more devoted, more conservative and repressive. It caused friction in the household.

[Valerie]

It seemed like my parents did love each other, but they always argued about religion. They would argue on Saturday night because my mom would want my dad to go to church. And he always said the ocean was his church.

[Cindy Ettler]

Valerie's dad was the stabilizing force in the family, and he was their protector.

[Valerie]

Our house got broken into a few times growing up, and my father would literally go chase somebody with a baseball bat. He'd be running down the street in his underpants. So we called him the real Batman.

[Cindy Ettler]

But for as long as Valerie can remember, her dad struggled with his own health. He had several heart attacks before she was born and more after.

[Valerie]

The joke was, every time my dad had a heart attack, my mom had a baby.

[Cindy Ettler]

When Valerie was 14. He ended up in the hospital for longer than usual.

[Valerie]

So we went to go visit my dad. We visited him, and then we left. And so my mom was in the elevator, and I asked her if she'd hold the elevator. And I ran all the way back to my dad's room to tell my dad that I loved him. And I remember my dad sitting on this chair. My dad took my face in his hands and he kissed every inch of my face. And he told me that he loved me and to be good. So I ran back to the elevator. When we got home, the nurse had called and said my dad died. We did this thing as kids. We had these stairs, and we'd sit on the stairs and wait for my dad at 3:00. He was never late. And I sat on those stairs forever, really thinking he'd come home.

[Cindy Ettler]

The death of Valerie's father was like an emotional earthquake for her entire family. And the foundation of their relationships immediately started to crumble.

[Valerie]

Literally that night, I was in my room crying, and my mom beat the shit out of me. She was, like, saying she didn't ever want me to cry about that. She just lost it. She just lost her mind. And she just was so, like, erratic after that. Just mad, mad at everything, just mad. And I feel like when my dad died, that I saw everything in black and gray. I couldn't see the blue in the sky and I couldn't see. I couldn't even see the white in the cloud. And in my life, nothing really made sense. I had no interest in anything. You know, I could care less. So I just kind of went through the motions and I feel like our whole family fell apart.

[Cindy Ettler]

Valerie didn't have the words to describe it back then, but after her dad passed away, she became depressed. Her mom receded deeper into religion. She remarried to an 82 year old preacher. Valerie took on more responsibility in the house, caring for her two younger sisters. Her oldest brother left for college. Next oldest was her brother Mario. Valerie noticed the changes in him most of all in his personality and his behavior. He was smoking a lot of pot and drinking alcohol with his friends. He would ditch school and since he was Valerie's ride, she would get in trouble. But it was nowhere near the kind of trouble that Mario was getting into.

[Valerie]

My brother was involved in a burglary in Daytona beach and he broke into this apartment and they stole this stereo equipment and just some other stuff from this apartment and my brother set it on fire. So the entire apartment complex burnt down. I just remember detectives coming to the house and asking questions about my brother. And I hadn't seen him for a while. You know, he disappeared with whoever he did it with. And then eventually they caught up with him.

[Cindy Ettler]

Mario was arrested and ended up in jail. It was 1981. He was 18 years old and facing a 42 year prison sentence. But while he was waiting his turn to stand before a judge, he was presented with an alternative. A cutting edge tough love rehabilitation program. It was called Straight Incorporated.

[Valerie]

The option was 40 years or straight. So my mom chose straight for him.

[Cindy Ettler]

So back to that Halloween Morning in 1982 when Valerie was 17 years old and her mom asked her if she wanted to go visit Mario. And she ended up in an intake room.

[Valerie]

I still at that point did not understand that I was not there to see my brother. And I just was like, where's my brother? Where's Mario?

[Cindy Ettler]

Valerie figured that once she saw her brother, he would clear things up with the staff. But he wasn't in the room with her. It was just those other girls and they were harassing her and calling her a druggie. That's what they called everyone during an intake. In her mind, since she didn't do drugs, she wasn't a druggie. So she tried to explain that, but it's straight. Denial of druggie behavior is definitely druggie behavior. And so the confrontation gets more intense, even physical, until you admit that, yes, you are a druggie, just so they'll stop. But even then, they're not done. And your intake is far from over.

[Valerie]

And they said the next part is, I had to take off my clothes and get strip searched. I refuse to take my clothes off. And I was beaten again. And they take you down to the ground and they hold you down. And it did take all of them to hold me down. And so they took my clothes off for me. So here I am, naked on the floor, being held down, and they were saying, like, hiding drugs, like, what in the world are they talking about? And these girls are telling me I have to stand up so that they can go inside of my body and check for drugs. I had no idea what they were doing to me. Absolutely none. It was a nightmare. And I felt like an animal. So they did what they needed to do. I was hungry. I was worn out. I was mentally exhausted. They took me by the belt loop and they held me tight by the back of my pants. And all these girls brought me into this dark room, and there was all these children there. And they put me on this chair, and I looked over, and in the shadows was my brother. So I screamed for him.

[Cindy Ettler]

I thought he would be the one to save me. But Mario wasn't there to save Valerie from Straight. He was there because Straight had saved him. And now it was going to do the same for her.

[Angela Kinsey]

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[Cindy Ettler]

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[Jenna Fisher]

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[Cindy Ettler]

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[Jenna Fisher]

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[Cindy Ettler]

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[Valerie]

I really thought that if he could just see that I'm here, my brother would know that I'm okay and that I could go home and clear it up, that I was just there to visit him.

[Cindy Ettler]

Valerie's older brother, Mario, had been at Straight for about a year, and he had already graduated from the program. He was being groomed to be on staff at another Strait facility. But he was there in Sarasota for Valerie's intake.

[Valerie]

I just screamed for him. Because I screamed for him. They put me back into that intake room and continued to beat me until I did not have sounds.

[Cindy Ettler]

Valerie's intake continued for hours, but she could have made it stop at any time with a signature. Because the goal of every intake was to get you to sign a consent form saying that you were there voluntarily. You couldn't leave that room until you did. But none of the accusations they were making felt true to Valerie until they brought up something that did. Valerie had thrown the telephone at her stepfather during an argument. More druggie behavior.

[Valerie]

They brought up this situation, and they said, I tried to kill my stepdad with a phone. And they did say over and over again that if I didn't sign myself in, I would go to prison for trying to murder him.

[Cindy Ettler]

That was a lie. But whether it was the confusion, the fatigue, the shock, or just that Valerie was a trusting person. When they told her she could go to jail for throwing the phone at her stepdad, she believed them. And so that's how they finally got her to sign herself in.

[Valerie]

When I was, like, done, emotionally done, physically done, I had nothing left in me to fight for or to ask for or to want for. They took me by the back of my pants and said that somebody was going to hold on to me. And they told me that because I was a drug addict, that I lost the right to be alone in Straight.

[Cindy Ettler]

That was called belt looping, but really it was more like a wedgie. Another kid would grab you by the waistband on the back of your pants and make a fist with their knuckles digging into your skin. And when you were new in the program, they dragged you around like that, wherever you went.

[Valerie]

I just remember them taking me by my belt loop, shoving me into a car with other girls, and then telling me to put my head between my legs so that I had no idea where I was going. I wasn't allowed to be next to the outer part of the vehicle. I had to be sandwiched between other people. And I was surrounded by what they called the old comers.

[Cindy Ettler]

An old comer in Strait was another kid who was farther along in the program. So that made Valerie a Newcomer. There were other Newcomer girls in the car with her, and there were adults in the front seat, the parents of one of the Oldcomer kids in the car, and they were taking Valerie and the other newcomers to their house. That was called a host home. But Valerie didn't know that. She wasn't allowed to ask any questions or say anything at all. She wasn't even allowed to pick her head up, let alone look out the window.

[Valerie]

And then they brought us into somebody's house that I didn't know where I was or who the people were. They just put us into the bedroom and locked the door behind us. And we were told not to talk at all or communicate with anyone for any reason. And we were just told to lay there and go to sleep.

[Cindy Ettler]

Valerie's first day at Strait ended the same way everyone's did. On the floor of an old comer's bedroom with the mattress pushed up against the door, which was locked from the outside. The windows were locked too, and alarmed. This was the protocol. Valerie had officially begun Phase one of the Straight program. There were five phases in total, and she would have to complete all five in order to graduate and get out of there. But that could take months, maybe even years. The next morning, Valerie's oldcomer woke her up before sunrise. And she and the other girls got back in the car in the same configuration as the night before. Newcomers with their heads down in their laps, they drove back to Strait. It had been dark when they left the building the night before, and it was dark when they arrived again the next morning. This would become Valerie's routine. When they got inside, everyone was belt looped and steered into the group room where Valerie had seen her brother Mario the night before.

[Valerie]

I didn't know if he was there or not, but I looked for him, but I couldn't pick him out. The second day, it was this big block room that was brighter than I remembered the night before. It wasn't clean like a hospital, but it felt very confining like a hospital. Sterile, but not clean, sterile. I remember that there was guards at the door. They were children, just like I was. They'd stand there with their arms crossed. There was a bunch of blue chairs, rows and rows of them. The blue chairs really stood out because everything else was beige or gray. The room was separated by an aisle. There was a guy's side and a girl's side. And so we just single file lined up in the chairs. And I had to sit in the front. I just sat there like dumbfounded that I was even there. I just know everybody was quiet. And then other teenagers walked up that center aisle and there was two stools up there and they Took a seat on the stools.

[Cindy Ettler]

The teenagers on the stools were graduates of Straight who had become staff. Nearly the entire staff was made up of other teenagers who had completed the program.

[Valerie]

They were the rap leaders, and they're the ones that led the raps.

[Cindy Ettler]

A rap session was group therapy. It was like Straight's version of the Synanon game. Rap leaders led rap sessions, which could be about anything. The rules of strait drugs, school, family relationships, and sex. Anything that was relevant to our druggy behavior. Participating in raps was how you made progress in the program. Our entire day was structured around wraps. We would be in that room for a minimum of 12 hours, from 9 in the morning until 9 at night.

[Valerie]

And then eventually they started a rap session and they just started talking. And when they did that, everybody started swinging their arms a certain kind of way with all their might.

[Cindy Ettler]

That was called motivating. You would motivate in order to get picked by the rap leaders to stand up and talk in front of the group. Raising your hand wasn't good enough. You had to demonstrate just how badly you wanted to be chosen by motivating harder than anyone else. That meant waving your arms, pumping your fists, stomping your feet, shaking your shoulders and your head back and forth and just putting your whole body into it.

[Valerie]

They look like they're coming out of their seats. I really had no idea what the hell was happening, but I had to sit there and wave my arms like everybody else. One thing I've learned about myself since I've been in straight is that I.

[Cindy Ettler]

Have a pretty bad drug problem and.

[Valerie]

That I won't help with it.

[Cindy Ettler]

If you were called on, you were expected to stand up in front of the group and talk about yourself. The mistakes you made in the past, the struggles you were dealing with in the present, and the hopes you had for your future once you were able to get straight. Speaking in group was called relating. Valerie sat on the front row watching and listening to the other kids relate in the rap for hours and hours until she couldn't sit and watch and listen anymore.

[Valerie]

At that point, I got up out of my feet to try to use the bathroom. And when that happened, I was immediately restrained. They were saying that I was trying to escape, and so I used the bathroom in my clothes. And then they said as a punishment for trying to escape, I had to wear those same clothes for the day.

[Cindy Ettler]

Then they made Valerie go back to the group and sit back down in her chair on the front row. I saw that same thing happen to a lot of newcomers. Because you didn't just get to decide when you had to go to the bathroom. Street decided for you. Bathroom breaks were built into the schedule, and we all went together as a group. Newcomers like Valerie would be belt looped and escorted to a stall with no door where an old comer would watch you and time you. You were usually given 60 seconds and then you had to come out no matter if you were done or not. The bathroom is where a lot of us learned the hard way that straight was in control of absolutely everything, no matter how personal. Once Valerie was back in her chair, it was back to sitting and watching and listening to the raps.

[Valerie]

Hi, my Name's Jean.

[Cindy Ettler]

I'm 18.

[Valerie]

The drugs I've done are pot, alcohol, melin, mushrooms, cocaine, feed stamps, prescriptions. You had to say your, like, list of drugs. And everybody had the same list. And I was like, what the heck are they saying?

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

Thc, pcp, morphine rush, acid, mushrooms, mda.

[Valerie]

The first time I got called on, I said pot and alcohol. I said alcohol, but I don't really remember drinking. And when I said pot, there was one time that I smoked pot with my brother and then went to bed. I laid in my bed because I felt like I did something wrong.

[Cindy Ettler]

Valerie's story didn't go over well in the wrap, but that's all she could come up with. So the next time she was called on, she was confronted for not being honest about her druggie behavior.

[Valerie]

I couldn't make that kind of story up, and I would just get confronted regularly about owning up to my drug problem. And then the next thing I know, I'm on floor waiting to get up again underneath the weight of seven or eight other girls. It's like breaking me in was hard because I wasn't conforming, you know, I wasn't getting it.

[Cindy Ettler]

Valerie had been at straight for several days. She hadn't seen her brother since the first night in the group room. And the last time she saw her mom was when those girls took her into that intake room and lock the door. Valerie thought that when she did see her mom again, if she did, she would tell her what was happening and she would get to go home.

[Valerie]

Surely my mom's going to come. Surely my mom would not let me experience this horror. Surely she wouldn't.

[Cindy Ettler]

Then, on Friday night of her first week, Valerie's mom did come back, along with everyone else's parents for what was called an open meeting. Open meetings took place every Monday and Friday night. They were a chance for our parents to check in on our Progress and talk to us about it. We would sit in our rows of blue chairs like always, except there would be more rows of blue chairs opposite us, and our parents would file in and sit down. Okay, right now we're going to hear.

[Valerie]

A few parents talk to their kids.

[Cindy Ettler]

Over the microphone, share their feelings about.

[Jenna Fisher]

Anything that's going on at home.

[Cindy Ettler]

When it was your parents turn to talk, you would stand up and face them from across the room.

[Valerie]

Jeanette, I'm very disappointed that you are not yet taking your drug problem seriously.

[Cindy Ettler]

Open meetings were also our chance to talk to our parents one on one, but only if the staff felt we deserved it based on our progress during the week. If we did earn the right to talk, we would be given a few minutes away from the group with our parents. But it's not like we could speak freely. There was a script we had to follow, and there was an oldcomer present to monitor everything. We said, it's your last chance, Juliana.

[Valerie]

I love you very much. I support you.

[Cindy Ettler]

You always said, love you. And straight after, pretty much anything that was said, love you, B. It was like punctuation.

[Valerie]

Love you, Pam.

[Cindy Ettler]

We weren't allowed to say anything else to our parents in open meetings except love you, no matter what they said to us.

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

Freddy, I feel hurt, angry, and deceived about your dishonesty, and it'll be a long time before you have my trust again.

[Valerie]

I love you.

[Cindy Ettler]

When it was Valerie's turn, she stood up to face her mom. She couldn't tell her what was happening, but she hoped it would be obvious and that her mom would take her home, at the very least, offer her some comfort. But instead, her mom ridiculed her. And the same thing happened at the next open meeting and the next, until Valerie began to dread open meetings even more than the wraps.

[Valerie]

I just look across there and see my mom. And she would say stuff like, your brother came through the program. You're not making any progress because you're not owning up to your drug problem. And she would just say, she's so disappointed in me. On top of being scared, on top of being alone, on top of being confused, my mom would just come and break my heart. And I would have to stand there and just listen to it or whatever, and then yell that, love you, Mom. And I felt like if I could say what I would want to say, I would say, you know, dad, if he was alive, he wouldn't put me here. And you know that, Mom.

[Cindy Ettler]

It would be months before Valerie would earn the right to talk to her Mom. But by then she would know better than to say the truth out loud or to even think it. By then, she would be fully indoctrinated into the program. But what Valerie didn't know, what none of us knew, is that our parents were being indoctrinated too. Every week before the open meeting, our parents attended rap sessions of their own. They were told what they should say to us and how to say it. So all of the communication between a kid and their parents was very controlled and choreographed. Nobody was allowed to say what they may have wanted to say. And there was someone in particular who made sure of that.

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

Why do parents say, not my kid, kid down the street, somebody else's kid, not my kid, when their kid is failing in front of their eyes?

[Cindy Ettler]

This is Dr. Virgil Miller Newton. He was the clinical director of Straight Incorporated. He would come out during open meetings and run the show like an emcee.

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

Well, when the new kid comes into the program, the message is a very tough one. Hey, turkey, you did it and did it and did it until you lost control of it. You made a mess of your life. You're going to give up living with your family, walking free on the street, going to school. You're going to.

[Cindy Ettler]

Miller Newton was in his 40s. He was tall and good looking in an academic sort of way, with blue eyes, balding, blond hair and a beard. He was always buttoned up, tailored and pressed. He looked the part and he sounded even better. He knew all the right things to say to the parents and he said them with a disarming southern drawl.

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

Denial is refusing to see something that is there because of how bad it's gonna hurt if you have to face it.

[Cindy Ettler]

What happens with parents and the parents were his main focus. He left the day to day operation of the program to the RAP leaders and peer staff. His job was to make sure that when the parents came to the open meetings, they only heard what he wanted them to hear and saw what he wanted them to see. Their kids standing up in front of the group, looking and sounding totally transformed.

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

What I want to share today is a technique that we've developed that has helped parents face the problem that their kid has a problem and to do something about it.

[Cindy Ettler]

Miller Newton was pretty much the only adult that you'd see it straight and usually it was only during the open meetings. But that was a good thing because you never wanted to see him outside of an open meeting when your parents weren't there to watch.

[Valerie]

At the end of every open meeting, there would always be one More wrap. And it was always the most intense and brutal of the week. And sometimes Miller Newton would come out. And if he did, it was because things didn't go the way he wanted them to go during the open meeting. And we just knew that whatever happened, we were going to pay for it. There were times a child did not want to stand up and say those program words. Love you, Mom. Or there was a couple of times that maybe a child would yell for help when their parents were there. And so those were the types of targets that were brought back into the group. When Miller Newton came, and then severely punished in any way possible, he would confront them so close in their face that he'd be spitting on them and then actually spit on them. I remember one time he punched somebody in the face. And then as they would protest in any kind of way at all, they would be beaten by seven or eight other children, staffers right in front of everyone. For hours. This went on for hours and hours. It went on sometimes till 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning. After all that, then we would go home to our host homes, just to come back in the morning and do it all over again, day after day, week after week and month after month. And while that was happening, they told my mom they were helping me.

[Cindy Ettler]

When our parents dropped us off at Straight, they thought they were putting us in a rehab. But let's call it what it really was. Straight Incorporated was a cult. But our parents didn't realize it. And nobody else saw it either. Not the teachers, the business owners, the police officers, the politicians, or even the President and First lady of the United States. Because cults weren't supposed to look like Straight Incorporated. Cult members weren't supposed to look like our parents, and cult leaders weren't supposed to look like Dr. Miller Newton.

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

I believe in parent love for kids. Every one of the parents, a parent whose heart is breaking and who cares enough to make major sacrifices to help their kid recover. That's the moment at which they become available. And most of the time say, what do we do? And you understand what that we means. Now you're ready to really do business.

[Cindy Ettler]

This season on the Sunshine Place. Everybody knew something weird was going on.

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

In there, but nobody stopped it.

[Valerie]

People around town were all going, isn't that like Synanon?

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

It's a program that on the surface is strict, militaristic, even cultish. But. But it's a program that's working for an awful lot of families.

[Valerie]

Parents were made to believe your child needs to stay here or they will do drugs and die. I don't understand how Miller Newton was able to brainwash all of these parents.

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

Miller Newton most certainly became a cult leader.

[Valerie]

He's a child abuser. He is the face that I see in my nightmares. It was not just the kids and parents that were brainwashed.

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

The most powerful people in the world were promoting it.

[Cindy Ettler]

I'd like to introduce the most honored guest, Mrs. Reagan.

[Valerie]

Strait was one of the first places that I went to, so I have a very soft spot in my heart for it.

[Dr. Virgil Miller Newton]

Nobody believed our stories, ma'am. Nobody.

[Valerie]

I really want this story told and understood because it's happening to other kids now. It's still happening, and it's the same people doing the same to kids all over again.

[Cindy Ettler]

The Sunshine Place is An Odyssey Original Podcast. It's written, directed and produced by Perry Crowell. Our writer producer is Margot Gray. Our story editors are Maddie Sprung Kaiser and Lloyd Lockridge, Executive produced by Robert Downey Jr. Susan Downey and Emily Barclay Ford from Team Downey, Jenna Weiss Berman and Maddie Sprung Kaiser from Odyssey and Josh McLaughlin. Edited by Perry Crowell. Mixing and mastering by Bill Schultz, Production support from Sean Cherry and Paul Anderjack and narrated by me, Cindy Ettler. Special thanks to J.D. crowley, Leah Reese, Dennis, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney and Hillary Schuff. If you want to hear more of the Sunshine Place, please take a moment to rate and review the show. It really helps.

[Jenna Fisher]

You might think financial crime is all about money, but sometimes it ends in murder. I'm Nicole Lapin, host of Money Crimes, a crime House Original podcast. Each episode features features a thrilling story about the dark side of finance and how to protect yourself from it. Follow and listen to Money Crimes An Odyssey Podcast in partnership with Crime House Studios. Available on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts.