Navy Drug Center on Coast is Vexed

From 1973 to 1979 Chuck Spezzano was employed as a "therapy supervisor, workshop coordinator" for the Naval Drug Rehabilitation Center, San Diego. Spezzano also claims he was a "psychologist" during this time period but that doesn't check out, at least in a real life licensed and professional understanding of the word. In 2015 Chuck said in an interview: "My holistic way of therapy I slowly worked out with the Navy and in meeting many soldiers addicted to drugs. I also practiced hypnosis and NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming)."

Since NLP was actually created two or three years after Spezzano started working for the Navy, he probably used straight out hypnosis for most of his time there.

Also during this time period Chuck attended an infamous large group awareness training known as Lifespring and was introduced to A Course in Miracles.

In addition he had been working on his Ph.D. degree of "Professional Psychology" from United States International University in San Diego which he was awarded in 1977. The degree was unique to that institution and was not accredited by the American Psychological Association at the time.

Chuck's six years as a civilian employee with the Navy shaped his "fast-track" method still in use today. As he said in a 2010 Youtube:

"But the key to the work that I've been doing is I was trained early on in hypnosis. But as I worked with Navy and Marines they began cutting our time to do rehab down from a 120 day program to a 90 day program to a 75 day program. The statistics began to fall. We went to a 60 day program, a 30 day program, 15 days of therapy. And it was either get better or give up.

So I found a way to get into the subconscious easily using a person's intuition as easily as we're talking here. And I began to find out many answers I've never been trained to hear. And I began to find quicker and easier ways to get into the subconscious and then into the unconscious mind. Now the subconscious mind is everything from conception forward, your unconscious is your soul mind. It's the deeper mind."


The New York Times article below illustrates the work environment of the rehab center shortly before Chuck arrived. As regular readers of this blog know, I am certainly no fan of Chuck or Psychology of Vision, but I must give him his due. Even though he was a civilian employee, in some ways he could be considered a combat veteran. His work from 1973-1979 required dedication and a fighting spirit to endure it for as long as he did.

The same could be said for Lency to a lesser degree, who also started out in public service in the 1970s working with the deaf. Her time as a VISTA worker in Tucson was probably not an easy job. Once in Hawaii she had to deal with achieving service to the public while navigating through the most screwed up state government bureaucracy in the USA which I'm sure was not fun.


So we have two people with records of fighting the good fight in the 1970s who turned into capitalistic con artists in the 1980s and beyond. What happened?

As mainstream religion rapidly declined in the 1970s there were cults, encounter groups, large group awareness trainings, evangelical fundamentalists, and all sorts of drugs around to fill the void. The Spezzanos chose to abandon their social work personas of the 1970s and use the Reagan 1980s to cash in and capitalize on New Age theology while merchandising spirituality. They sold out. Since then they have basically used the same formula for decades. Today they are fascinating living relics of a bygone era.

Such early promise squandered.

The pivotal year for their shift from altruism to greed was 1983, although I believe Chuck had been building to it from late 1979. There are still several puzzle pieces we need in order to complete this picture.

My my my, I did stray from the main subject, didn't I? So let's return to November 1971 and learn what sort of environment contributed to Chuck's worldview.

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/11/14/archives/navy-drug-center-on-coast-is-vexed-patients-and-sailors-clash.html

NAVY DRUG CENTER ON COAST IS VEXED

By EVERETT R. HOLLES
November 14, 1971, Page 72 The New York Times Archives

SAN DIEGO, Nov. 13—A drug rehabilitation center at Miramar Naval Air Station, which has served as a laboratory for the Navy's “no bust” program of granting amnesty and treatment to narcotics users, is beset by troubles after four months of operation.

The difficulties, which have been aggravated by overcrowding and understaffing, range from insubordination and clashes between patients and other sailors on the base, to thievery and drug smuggling.

So disruptive were the incidents at one point that the center, which serves all Navy bases and installations on the West Coast, was compelled to suspend for a time the admission of any new patients until, as one staff member explained, “we could get things on a more manageable level.”

Capt. G. E. R. Kinnear, commander of the air station, said that despite the troubles, the rehabilitation center “is more than meeting its obligations to society” and cautioned that it had not been in operation long enough to evaluate its success statistically.

Air station officials told about the troubles when questioned about local reports of the difficulties.

Only one in 12 of the more than 400 sailors and marines who have been treated at the center since its opening early in July has been returned to active duty.

Most of the others have been discharged from the Navy or committed to veterans' hospitals or civilian institutions for more intensive treatment, or their confinement at the center has been extended beyond the normal term in hopes of at least reducing their drug dependence before they are returned to civilian life.

Many of the patients—among them are enlisted men who became addicted to heroin while in Vietnam—have refused to accept authority and discipline, or to cooperate with psychologists and therapists seeking to inquire into the root causes of their addiction.

Some have flaunted their special amnesty status before other Miramar enlisted men who are subjuct to more rigid discipline. This has led to what a spokesman called “confrontations” and what other sources described as near riots on several occasions.

This hostility boiled over recently during an inspection of the facility by a visiting three-star admiral who was greeted with such a torrent of obscene abuse that escorts hustled him away.

As many as 20 of the center's 220 patients have been absent without leave at one time. Three were missing one day last week and another was in jail on suspicion of robbing a San Diego bank. Disciplinary action currently is being considered against 18 or 20 others suspected of smuggling drugs on to the base.

Officials acknowledged that the clinic had become a magnet for drug pushers on the outside, necessitating periodic shakedown of seabags, lockers and mattresses and the uncovering of caches of marijuana and drugs. An increase in barracks thefts and shoplifting at the Miramar Navy exchange has been attributed, at least in part, to the drug trafficking.

Some Gains Reported

Captain Kinnear, the air station commander, said that the drug center's new commanding officer, Capt. Constantino N. Pierozzi, 44 years old, had solved many of the problems since he took charge of the facility about six weeks ago.

Captain Pierozzi was somewhat more guarded.

“I don't know yet whether we can solve our problems and make voluntary rehabilitation work,” he said. “We've got all the Navy's problems tied up in one bundle here. We'd have more problems if we had more room and more patients.”

Captain Pierozzi said that the center's troubles were not greatly different from those that plague most drug treatment and rehabilitation centers. He said that the figure of 8 per cent of patients returned to active duty was not a valid measure of the center's success.

Many of those among the 92 per cent who have not returned to their commands were men nearing the end of their enlistment terms. Others were deemed by the center's professional staff, which includes 20 civilian specialists, to he emotionally ill-equipped for Navy life, and required prolonged treatment.

The rehabilitation center grew out of an experiment in “no bust” drug counseling and treatment set up at Miramar nine months ago by Capt. Arthur W. Chandler Jr., then commander of the air station. The captain gambled with his career in creating the program for the men of his command in defiance of Navy policy that at that time prescribed bad conduct discharges for most drug offenders.

The gamble paid off and the unauthorized venture was adoped as a protoype for the Navy-wide amnesty and rehabilitation program.