logo
episode-header-image
Jul 2022
4m 6s

Welcome to The Sunshine Place

Audacy Podcasts | Team Downey
About this episode
Once called “the miracle on the beach,” Synanon began in the 1960s as an experimental rehab facility in Santa Monica, California with a radical claim: It could cure heroin addiction. Before long, it would make an even bolder claim: It could cure any of your problems. All you had to do was move in. What started in a house on the beach, soon spread to compound ... Show More
Up next
Apr 2025
Introducing: What We Spend
Imagine if you could ask someone anything you wanted about their finances. On What We Spend, people from across the country and across the financial spectrum are opening their wallets—and their lives—to tell you everything: what they make, what they want, and—for one week—what th ... Show More
10m 55s
Dec 2024
S2|E8: Survivors
By the early 2000s, the “troubled teens” of Straight Incorporated have grown up, and they’re no longer victims, they’re survivors. Many of them embark on a quest for answers, but the architects of their pain and suffering have moved on to bigger, more insidious things. So the sur ... Show More
52m 47s
Dec 2024
S2|E7: KIDS
It’s the 1990s, and the rehab landscape has changed, but into this new environment enters a familiar opportunist. Dr. Miller Newton, the personification of the evil at Straight Inc., resurfaces with a new program and a new scheme to con parents. When the next generation of teenag ... Show More
52m 1s
Recommended Episodes
Jun 2021
S4 Ep6: Jimmy Fratianno (Part 1)
In 1946, a young man by the name of Jimmy Fratianno moved from Cleveland, Ohio to Los Angeles, California. Fratianno had spent most of his life immersed in crime, crossing paths with several well known mobsters. Fratianno would soon become a made man in the Los Angeles crime fami ... Show More
27m 15s
Dec 2023
Million Dollar Lover: 7. Hidden Lives
In the idyllic seaside town of Cayucos, on the Californian coast, property is expensive, a home here can easily cost a million dollars or more. The property boom which has made people of Carolyn’s generation well off, has priced so many out of the market and made it expensive to ... Show More
34m 39s
Jul 2023
I Loot Lucy
Charles Hensley gets his first brush with fame when he invents a nasal spray called Zicam. After his product turns out to cause harm to some patients, he abandons the homeopathic world and pivots to Hollywood. His next big idea involves Desilu Productions, a beloved company found ... Show More
42m 15s
Jun 2024
Social Media “Health” Guru Fakes Cancer for Profit: The Belle Gibson Story
Belle Gibson always had a problem with lying, but she took it to another level when she started posting on social media claiming to have been diagnosed with cancer and only had 4 months left to live. Her success in life and seemingly charming way about her got people hooked on he ... Show More
1h 6m
Sep 2025
How nearly dying helped me discover my own cure (and many more) | David Fajgenbaum
Physician-scientist David Fajgenbaum was dying from a rare disease that didn't have a cure — until he discovered a lifesaving drug that wasn't originally intended for his condition. In an astonishing talk, he shares how his near-death experience led him to cofound the nonprofit E ... Show More
15m 33s
Apr 2022
Introducing Deliver Us From Ervil
In the 1940s, a group of Mormon dreamers started a town in the Mexican desert. But what began as a utopian vision quickly turned sour when the founding family’s son, Ervil LeBaron’s struggle for control of the community unleashed a multi-generational crimewave – the ripples of wh ... Show More
1m 55s
Apr 2023
Sly Stone: Guns, PCP, a Psycho Mutt, and a Fugitive from Justice
At the end of the 1960s, Sly Stone was at the center of a groundbreaking musical movement that intended to break down barriers of race and genre, all in the service of making people happy. But at the dawn of the 1970s, Sly Stone suddenly was not happy. His L.A. mansion was overru ... Show More
38m 49s
Jul 2024
Raymond Schinazi on revolutionising treatments for killer viruses
In recent decades, we've taken huge steps forward in treating formerly fatal viruses: with pharmacological breakthroughs revolutionising treatment for conditions such as HIV, hepatitis and herpes. Raymond Schinazi has played a big role in that revolution. Ray was born in Egypt, w ... Show More
28m 39s