I always assumed Norm was just joking about Adam being in a cult. What a trip

What a good dude, even with rising inflation, he still only charges $15 a man.

I honestly hope Adam is doing okay and still charging at least $15. I can't imagine what it's like to lose that kind of family. He's clearly a very cool and interesting dude.

I went to The Cascade School which was a spin off of CEDU. Hearing someone as laid back and funny as Adam talk about it with Joe Rogan, who is also cracking me up with his commentary, is actually really healing. I’ve told a couple people in my family what I went thru, and they just didn’t really have any response, and never asked me about it again. This video made me feel less alone. So much love to anyone else who went to a school like this. Many kids who did are gone now. To the ones still here, I’m so grateful for you. ❤

I was sent to Cedu in 1990 when I was 15. My family dropped me off and then shit got weird. Some kid showed me around the property and talked about the cuddling, but that you couldn't cuddle with the opposite sex. Told me no music, and not just that, you can't even say the names of the bands. Told me if you broke the rules you went into "banning" where no one talked to you or acknowledged you. They cut all my hair off. The strip search was a staff member and two creepy students who had these grins the whole time. I took off, ran down the mountain road, hitchhiked my way to town and back to my family. They didn't make me go back. Was at Cedu for about an hour tops. I was told at the time no one had run away successfully. Seeing this years later is freaky af. My heart goes out to the kids who had to endure this place.

I always wondered where he gets his ideas from

I'd say the cult did it's job. My understanding is that this guy found pretty steady work after graduating. Charged $15 a pop!

As a fella that also had a rough time, I can see myself in him. That quiet desperation, like everythings okay despite how dark it all was. I even give handies under the Queensboro bridge, just like him.

Adam Eget: I was in a cult for 3 years. Norm: you know this guy's a holocaust denier?

I met Adam Eget once under a bridge. He's got real soft hands.

When I was 14 my parents brought me to a similar institution called Kids Peace in Allentown PA. They told me it was like a boarding school for troubled kids but when I got there i quickly realized it was basically juvenile prison. Most of the kids there were there on court orders. Strip searched, they’d shine flashlights in our faces every 30 min at night. We went to school but a lot of the kids could barely read. The staff members acted more like correctional officers than staff. I won’t lie though it gave me a new perspective on life and definitely straightened up my act. I became good friends with my roommate (black kid from inner city Delaware) and one day I saw him staring at the pictures of my family I had taped on the wall next to my pillow. I said what you doing bro and he said mann you have an amazing family. He then told me how his dad were murdered and his mom has died and he had lived a life of crime to try and support his sister (who was also at the same institution). I realized there are people who have it way worse than me. When I came home I was grateful for everything. Freedom is everything

I went to CEDU and this shit is REAL. It's crazy, 24 years later, to hear it openly referred to as a "cult". It was. Just hard to wrap my head around.

My mom tried to drop me off at a place like that when I was 12. I marked that I was gay on a form and they sent home with her lol still proud of that

Adam is such a calm, seemingly well-adjusted adult. It's crazy to hear about his childhood.

I love inspirational stories like this - a perfect ending, after all those trials and tribulations, he finally got a fulfilling and well paying job, and 15 bucks a pop, at that?! Truly inspiring.

The 90s were fucked up. I got put in a place like that in 92 when I was 12. This episode has been so unbelievably therapeutic. Thank you so much. No one ever believes me

Ya know, the more I learn about these CEDU fellas, the less I care for them. They sound like a bunch of real jerks..

A cult with an active serial killer and missing kids? American Horror story season 4,003

I know someone who had to endure a place like this in the late 90's. Insane how this racket is not more publicized. Sickening.

Adam is heartbroken I’m sure . Jokes aside Norm had few people he considered his true friends . Artie Lang is one , and Adam is another . He lost what we all admired . Lucky guy to have had Norm as your friend . Hope your doing well Adam . This was a sad year

i was in a cult once, they told me i had to conceive, believe, then achieve... then some british guy knocked me out with a left hook

"Adam explain to the folks at home what a cult is."

I'm so sorry for all of what you went thru. I do hope you can make a good deal from it and I wish you all the very best. God bless.❤

I was "enlisted" into cedu from 1990 to 1993. The serial killer he's talking about is a guy called James Crummel who was a part time Counselor there, I had a couple of sessions with him myself. Sessions would happen in the day mostly but one time at night one of my best friends, a really troubled kid called Max who I shared a bunkbed with, got called up by Crummel for an impromptu session in the middle of the night which I thought was really weird, especially as most of the staff had gone home. Anyway, when I woke up the next day Max was gone, apparently Crummel said that Max had stolen his keys and ran away, convenient as Max was an orphan who had been left a lot of money by his father but because of his issues had been placed in CEDU by doctors and school but basically had no family. Kids would come and go all the time so I thought nothing of it. Anyway, a few weeks later one of the staff who I actually liked tells me before leaving for the day that crummel is coming in this night and he wants a session with me, so I started to freak out, I decided to leave my room and hide but the only place unlocked was a cupboard where they kept the laundry right next to my room on the corridor, I sat in there from 1am for 3 hours whilst I could hear Crummel walking up and down the corridors looking for me and speaking insane mumbling to himself, everytime hed walk past where i was hiding my it felt like my heart was literally beating out of my chest, I remember being terrified that he would hear my heartbeat it seems that loud, after a few hours he gave up and I heard him leave the dorm and lock up. I told my parents the next day and luckily they decided to take me out of there and were very sorry for what they had done but they didn't know. When I found out who Crummel really was I realised that he probably would have killed me that night, hard thing to live with really and never seems to make sense.

That cult was located under the Queens borough bridge, only cost five bucks per session.

He mentioned that Paris Hilton went here...she just released a documentary that was pretty much all about her terrible time spent at a facility for "troubled youth". Wondering if it's the same place?

Love this guys laugh. Also, love this story. Glad your out of the cult and exposing it. You have probably helped more people than you know.

I went to someplace which could be seen as similar, but they did it right. They taught us how to live free and survive in the wilderness. We got along and I found it wonderful. Since then, I had the desire to create my own independent community. It's like the opposite of what he was talking about towards the end. I was given love and now I want to give love to all.

This guy laughs just hard enough for me to think he still has some lasting issues from childhood

I went to a CEDU school, though this interview is a casual conversation, the experience was intense and horrible, complete brainwashing. It's hard to explain to people in a way that truly explains the experience.

You can tell that Adam has alot of pain in his past and also you can just tell he's a really good person.

i went through a similar experience, but i’m so thankful i was sent to a long term psych facility instead of one of those troubled teens places tied with a church. i’ve heard too many stories like this and it’s absolutely terrifying thinking i could be in that position

"my kids acting up because his dad left hmm maybe we should send him away for 3 years" awful parents

One question about this cult: was it or was it not located under the Queensboro Bridge?

This needs to be a tv series on Netflix or HBO

He seems like a really nice and well-adjusted person. I'm glad he turned out okay!

That guy who murdered those kids sounds like a real jerk Almost as bad as Stalin

There is no comments section in Spotify, enjoy it while it lasts

I recall my cousin telling me he was sent to a similar place in San Diego when he was a kid about 17 or so. A lot of illegal activity in that "mental health facility for troubled kids". Luckily he ended actually breaking out and made his way home.

That place literally sounds like a nightmare. Considering that story, I can’t help but respect Adam for brushing it off as much as he did. I thought he was soft....Jesus..

CEDU came out of Synanon, one of America's most horrific cults. This is no joke.

"A girl slit her throat, a guy jumped off the bridge." - sounds safe.

I had a good friend who would get sent to a place like this every summer. Finally at the end of 11th grade all he would talk about is how it would be his last year having to go because he'd be 18 next summer. He died in a drunk driving accident 3 days before 11th grade was over.

The difference between this cult and Scientology’s “confessions” is that they are meant to be public to cause you shame and humiliation. Catholic confessions are done either 1 on 1 with a Priest who takes a sworn vow to secrecy (they can’t even be legally required to share your confession), you can even do it anonymously through a confessional. The point is to help you get things off your chest, ask forgiveness, and move on without the burden of sin. I just don’t think that’s a fair comparison.

"It's fun to be in a cult but more profitable to be a leader" - Creed Branton

My best friend growing up was sent to a school in Western Somoa. He was there for a year and a half. He was a maniac. Isolation boxes of steel on the beach he would have to stay in for a week at a time. He turned 18 and they couldn't keep him and part of it was parents have to buy a plane ticket back home for when they are 18. He called me when he got back and was out of his mind just a loose cannon. He was shot and killed less than 2 years later by a guy protecting himself on his own land. These schools produce monsters. Kids are abused and psychologically tormented while they are there.

I went to a school called Discovery School Of Virginia , and it was exactly like this but we lived outside and were forced to do hard labor and required to build our own village essentially and places of living out of pine trees, it was located in Dillwyn Virginia did more harm than good, a lot of therapeutic Boarding schools are just run by evil weirdos in it for the torment of children and the power and the money, and few who actually want to help the kids but end up leaving when they realize how crazy it is , happened to me know im not the only one who went thru something likes this blown away when I watched this know there's more kids, just makes you stronger and a better person, thou but a few of my friends from the school that let it destroy them. Hope his show gets green lighted will definitely be tuning in. This moved me so much this is the first time I have ever really commented on UKposts.

When he says he'd like to do it all again, I know what he means! Knowing what he knows now, he could do it better, and really enjoy it! I feel the same.

When Adam's in a room with someone who's not Norm, you realize how funny he actually is.

He is so level headed for being through the shit he’s been through lmao mad props

It’s a little weird to compare Scientologies confession process to Catholicisms. Anonymous voluntary confession followed by immediate forgiveness is pretty different. Lol.

Adam and Norms chemistry was amazing. We still miss you Norm ❤️🤙

This is the most accurate description of Hyde "School" in Bath, Maine I've ever seen, and this guy wasn't even talking about the same school. This is crazy. These people need to go to jail.

Very impressed about how he integrates this bizarre experience in his life's narrative. No bitterness, just openness to what life makes you witness. What doesn't kill you makes you more interesting.

“Earned character” good quote by Joe talking about our struggles and hardest experiences

Adam's a real funny dude, and you can see in his eyes that he's been through a lot. Hope he's well.

I did 9 years in residential schools. I went in at 8 and came out when I was 17. I was physically, sexually and emotionally abused. End residential schools. #breakingcodesilence

Kept expecting him to say the cult leader sounds like a real jerk!

His story is really sad, he still laughs like he’s a young child/toddler. Bless him though and fair play as he’s obviously grown up to be a man and can speak about these things. What a horrible place to send a struggling child.

Went to a school like this in Utah. Simlar story and lost ot abuse.. was there for the better part of 5 years. Went home once after 28 months and was Sent back to the same place a few months later.. Definitely messed me up mentally, but I will never let the past hold me back or be a victim

What a fascinating story. He seems like such a grounded and stable guy now -- you'd never guess he'd been through something like that. The fact he can look back and laugh at this shit is admirable.

I got sent to a CEDU school as well. Unfortunately these places are everywhere and every time they get closed the same people shuffle around and open up new places with different names. Tons of the kids I went there with in 2008-2010 have killed themselves or have drug problems. Like me. Horrible places.

In 2009 I was in an AA cult called New Life in LA that was very similar to this. It was pretty gnarly. They made me wear a toilet seat around my neck for a week one time, even out at AA meetings. And that wasn’t even the worst part. It was over 18 months long, no cell phone. Sleep deprivation, starvation. It was like the CRASH program but worse. And it ended up that the house manager was High the whole fucking time.

My program was meant to be 18 months.. I got a “home-visit” after 9 months and when I got there I cried and begged and pleaded to never ever go back that the therapy was insane and we were being abused mentally. They’re glad they listened because the place was shut down for child sex abuse. Mount Bachelor Academy in prineville, OR

My parents sent me to Egypt to memorize the Quran for a few months. I stayed in a very hostile abusive environment that beat and whipped kids until we bled. Listening to this makes me feel differently. When I was 13 I wanted nothing more than to get back at my parents, but looking back on it I learned real hardship. I went hungry for days, I really saw human struggle and I think it was a sobering experience. However I do think overall it had a negative impact on my life and drove me towards debauchery I won’t get into within UKposts comments. All I can really say is though this gave me a new outlook on it. Thanks.

adam : i heard one guy said that he set a homeless guy on fire joe : ... adam : another one would strangle cats joe : oh jesus!

I went to a residential treatment center in Nevada near Reno as a kid. I remember that I had MRSA, and it was painful and getting worse, but they wouldn't let me go to the hospital because I was considered to be a flight risk. In school, they showed us pictures of dead bodies cut in half dead from MRSA and then told all the other guys that I had it. There were lots of kids whose parents never picked them up. I did read Stephen King books all the time and sold my opiates that I cheeked since I had mrsa until I got caught. I got into some fights there and went to NA AA meetings.i stayed for at least 6 months. I remember my parents saying they couldn't take me out of there because the place threatened to call CPS to get my sister taken away and stop giving me all my meds and claimed I would go crazy.

Inspiring story, miraculous that he recovered from downs syndrome too

I’ve watched all the Norm shows with Adam Eget as guest host and I’ve always liked Adam for his genuine demeanor. I know he gets a lot of flack from people online but this was pretty eye opening. Shows you should never mistreat people because you either don’t know what they are going through or have gone through in life. Never assume

Seems like his parents knew, they just told themselves they didn’t know

After recovering from a devastating divorce, the best advice I got was to leave the past in the past. Every time you start thinking of what was done to you, stop yourself. It’s hard at first to stop ruminating, but it gets easier over time.

I got sent to a school similar to this but in Tijuana Mexico about 8 years ago when I was 14 and I ended up running away.

"If I didn't go through that I wouldn't be the man I am today." Norm: "Exactly. I'd be livid."

Huge fan of him and norm. He seems like a very sweet guy. Hearing him say he was a cutter kinda broke my heart

In defense of Catholic confessions (the tradition, if not the contemporary), those confessions are meant to be wholly anonymous and probably do a lot of good for people who feel weighed down by guilt. It is nice to have someone acknowledge your desire to repent without having to contend with tertiary consequences.

They did many exactly same things as you told in Finland in early 00´s(leaving in woods, abuse, boarding school in small village in the middle of forrest). Government (actually it was taken from budged of city where kid is from) spent tens thousands per kid per year and the business holders of these boarding schools got rich but kids also were allowed to have expensive hobbies every week. Even that teens escaped these closed "homes" almost every month and many times teens beated night watchs with hammer or something and many times they were beaten and continuously bullied. Most of these schools are just sadistic cancers of nation. Most of kids end up in gangs, kill themself... those institutions prevent kids getting better. Because outside of boarding schools kids got changes but in boarding schools not.

CEDU is still operating today under a different name in rural Utah. I wish people would stop forgetting about and covering up horrific things like this.

Even though he's a holocaust denier, still love this guy

I met Adam Egot for the first time under the Queensboro Bridge where he was working. RIP Turd Ferguson

I love Adam solely because Norm loved him. He saved Norm's life once ya know, when that snake bit him.

Sounds like the other kids there where much more messed up and he was just a kid whose parents didn't know how to talk to him about divorce.

My heart goes out to all of those lost kids. When kids act out like that, it's usually a response of something that happened to them in childhood.

I was sent to one of these places for troubled teens too, for essentially the same reasons as Adam. A different program that was ran by a psychiatrist that used to work at a CEDU facility before it was shut down. Not as much of a cult, but many of the same abuses. Many kids would arrive via kidnapping of sorts, transported by hired thugs from the program who would show up at the house at 3am and corner them, sanctioned by the parents. They'd use illegal restraint methods on the kids who refused to go, or who refused to go the solitary confinement basement they'd put you in for misbehaving or being too depressed, or who refused to take the medication they forced on you. Then they'd make you do pointless manual labor until your hands bled while telling you it's not a punishment but just a way for you to keep yourself busy. If you protested any of this, or especially if you tried to tell anyone outside the program (who you were cut off from 24/7 anyway, outside of a few monitored phone calls for kids who had been there for months and followed all their demands), it was taken as a sign that you needed more of it. And meanwhile they would just tell you repeatedly that you're at fault and are to blame for these things, that you made your parents suffer and need to atone. To atone you are made to do "therapy" that was designed to be used on rehabilitating adult prisoners, which focuses on shaming you for who you are now and promises you will be a better person if you follow their rules and programming. These things would continue throughout the duration of your stay. I was there for 3 years, in 2012. The Troubled Teen Industry is still very much alive. The sad thing about it all is that the programs are not just run by nutjobs anymore. Yes their methods are still insane to most people who hear about them, but unfortunately the people running and working at these places are fairly "normal." I think it's one of those things that exists because people get passively caught up in doing what they know. The "banality of evil" and all that. I spent a lot of time in sessions with the psychiatrist who ran the place. By all accounts he was fairly unremarkable, in terms of personality or mannerisms. Years later I still can't think of anything strange or off about him that might indicate some evil source for his evil actions. It changed my view of the world a lot. Sometimes I wonder if the average people I see on the street, or even the average people I know and love, would be capable of doing the things that those staff did to us, if they were set on a slow but steady path towards working there. I suspect the answer is yes. Eventually I graduated from the program. It took time to deprogram myself. It's hard as a thing to process really because it's so bizarre and so otherwordly, and it's a period of your life in which time seems to pass so slowly and so separately from the continuity of life you enjoy afterward. I agree with Adam that it's important to let go, to not get caught up in the memories you have of it, and to focus on not squandering your freedom afterward. But you have to realize that it isn't just "3 years," in the sense that most people hear when you say "3 years." It's 3 very, very slow and long and painful years which you're not sure are ever going to end, which in some sense don't end afterward because you retain a little voice in the back of your head that still tells you it's your fault, you didn't deserve to leave, etc. Personally I don't think anyone ever fully lets go. Maybe it's just me projecting, but as Adam retells his story I hear a sort of forced nonchalance and veiled eagerness, A very similar kind to my own when I retell my story, as the only natural conclusion of being a person who is, on some level, desperate for a simultaneous fulfillment of two incompatible desires around their experience in the TTI. On the one hand, to have the alien world of your bizarre early life be finally seen by the average person, to bask to in their validating judgment that yes what you went through was undeniably horrible, and no the "therapists" weren't right any of those times they told you it was your fault. And on the other, to be finally and fully mentally free of that very same world, to be among the normal people as one of them, to have your past there be just that, just a memory that you can casually and calmly retell because it's not your world anymore. This isn't meant to be a denigration of him or anything. I just think it's interesting, and to me it's reflective of what the TTI does to you. When you're institutionalized, some part of you stays behind in that world, tethered by the the rare but uncontrollable reminders of that old world. You never really get to fully leave, at least not on your own terms. If the program was right about anything, it was that.

Thanks for sharing your journey- it’s dope.

Even "normal" mental health facilities for troubled kids are hell holes for sure. Trust.

“Another kid jumped off a cliff” *fades scene dramatically*

I’m sorry Adam. I’m glad you still retained a sweet heart after after the weird shitvyou have been through. 🙏😢

My childhood best friend was sent to one of these places for smoking weed and when he came back he was almost unrecognizable. His personality was gone, he had delusions of grandeur and was obsessed with becoming muscular. He is like a zombie now. He was only gone for 3 months and he was destroyed.

In the news 1993: A 17-year-old boy disappeared from the Campus. He was never found. 1994: A 14-year-old boy disappeared from the Campus. The family believes that he was abducted. He has not been found. July 1994 - Jon A. committed suicide in one of the dormitories of lower Camelot at Rocky Mountain Academy. 1997 - Five persons were injured in a riot at Northwest Academy. 2002 - CEDU Educational Services, Inc. pays settlement to former client on charges of abuse. 2004 - Parents search for their son who ran away from CEDU Running Springs. 2009 - A police investigation is conducted into the unsupervised presence of the convicted killer James Lee Crummel on the CEDU Running Springs Campus in connection with the two disappearances in 1990s. 2012 - The first book about CEDU is published by Waxlight Press. The Discarded Ones: A Novel Based on a True Story by James Tipper marks the first detailed account of life at the school in literature. 2015 - Dead, Insane Or In Jail, a CEDU Memoir written by Zack Bonnie was published

The fact that this guy seems so chill and normal after what he went through is awesome. I'm sure he has to deal with some things but he's really holding it together.

I’ve been looking for this clip since I watched The Paris Hilton Doc! Awesome

A friend of mine was sent to something similar our sophomore year of highschool. They actually took him away in the middle of the night while he was in bed. His parents thought this was the only way to help him. Didn't see or hear from him for about a year. I think he's still pretty messed up by the experiences he described to me.

Jim Jones was the best fighter of all time. Knocked out over 900 people with just one punch.

CEDU spawned the schools I went to, WWASPS. Really dark industry that still exists today.

I went to Hilltop Academy a subsidiary of CEDU High School in Running Springs CA from 1994 to 95. It's crazy that you can't find anything about it anymore.

Adam is perfectly describing Portage Foundation in Canada and Portugal. Different terminology but the same structure.

That's messed up man. It's cool he can reminisce now, but I imagine it's like escaping a burning building.

Swap Joes compassion with Norm cracking jokes and Adam still works the same. Exact same intonation as telling a joke, no wonder Norm liked working with him. Perfect deadpan.

The end when he’d like to go back and do it again is scary. sounds like he’s damaged for sure.

It's nice this is finally being talked about