The interesting thing about the attack-defense cycle is I cannot recall a single time when a defense worked. At the end of the attack, you were beaten en masse into submission. Thus, people were badgered into admitting events that have never occurred. You try to resist, to no avail, and you find you will only be further psychologically tortured unless you buy and sell the lie. Then, you end up adopting the lie, being "treated" for the lie, confessing to your family the lie, and believing the lie. Maybe the lie isn't outright--for example, maybe you tried drugs but were never addicted. But some were out and out lies. And there is a BIG BIG chasm between toking irregularly and being "an addict." You end up spending your time on an issue you really never had, and ignoring real underlying issues.
A good example of this is pre-CEDU, I experimented with some drugs irregularly. I didn't buy 'em, sell 'em, make exchanges, etc. Then, I worked in a restaurant full of tweakers. It turned me off so much I've never touched it since and this was a voluntary, easy decision I made half a year prior to CEDU. I just wasn't drawn to it. CEDU didn't exactly know what to do with me because I really wasn't a flashing light case of trouble, but when I casually mentioned to the family head that yes, indeed, I tried some drugs but they weren't for me, he immediately deemed this my lightning rod issue. Why? Because he had recently overcame his totally fullblown, shipwreck of a coke problem. He also, later, AFTER his tenure at CEDU, came out of the closet. His whole fucking life was one lie after another and he couldn't see the truth when it shone in his face. So he just projected his shit on me.
Guess what? This scenario of transference or projection was endemic at CEDU, because the VAST majority of staff members were fucked up and working their shit out on us. The lack of boundaries was astoundingly antithetical to any hope of real therapeutic growth. I don't know if I can think a single staff member who can be deemed truly emotionally healthy while I was at CEDU. CEDU was as much their cult as it was ours. The only difference was they voluntarily adopted it. We adapted to it as a Darwinian survival mechanism. The problem was that the strategies we adapted to survive inside CEDU were emotionally implosive outside of CEDU.