The proven solution is Narconon. For nearly 50 years, its worldwide network of rehabilitation centers and drug education specialists has fought the global scourge with workable drug rehab and prevention solutions.
As of 2016, Narconon has facilities in 21 countries across five continents. They all have one purpose: to help people end the nightmare of addiction and wake up to the most beautiful and precious thing—their own lives.
This is no easy task. Many addicts go through multiple rehab programs only to return to drugs. But Narconon is different from other drug rehabs—a unique program with unique procedures to help addicts overcome drug and alcohol dependencies, escape the rehab trap, and plant them firmly on the path to long-term success.
Narconon does not consider someone an addict for life. It does not regard addiction as a disease or a fate inherited. Narconon is not a 28-day or a 12-step program. Nor does it rely on any faith or belief system. Narconon delivers a precise regimen that addresses all aspects of addiction—the addiction itself, the drug cravings that can lead to relapse, the underlying causes of addiction, and the need for an entirely new game plan for a life without drugs.
The Narconon mindset is that every person is responsible for the state of his or her own life and has the power to transform it. Participants in the Narconon program are not addicts, victims or patients. They are students, learning how to live productively, happily and drug-free.
PRECISION PROGRAM
All Narconon centers have this in common: Every detail has been taken into account to give students the stability and comfort they need to free themselves from addiction and rebuild their lives without drugs. All facilities are designed to deliver Narconon’s uniquely effective technology, with specially designed spaces for its singular approach to drug-free withdrawal as well as its New Life Detoxification. And all are powered by the rehabilitation technology developed by L. Ron Hubbard—a precision program supported by a thorough set of standardized materials. Those include another Narconon innovation—more than 20 instructional films detailing the theory and procedure of the technology underlying each program component, and how they all work together to lead people out of addiction. Given that many addicts’ educations are upended by their addiction, the use of audiovisual tools ensures anyone on the program fully understands every step.
The Narconon mindset is that every person is responsible for the state of his or her own life and has the power to transform it.
Senior Narconon staff from around the world have all received comprehensive training on the program and its course materials, which are available in 29 languages and dialects, reflecting the truly global mission of Narconon’s growing international network of rehab centers.
A NEW AND BETTER LIFE
Based on the research and discoveries of Mr. Hubbard, the Narconon program begins with drug-free, nonmedical withdrawal. This is in stark contrast to the rehabilitation programs that wean addicts off their drug of choice by substituting them with other drugs—pharmaceuticals that come with serious side effects and in many cases are as addictive, or more addictive, than the illicit drugs they are replacing.
For example, methadone, a replacement drug for heroin, trades one addiction for another. Methadone doesn’t typically create the euphoric rush associated with opiates, so addicts often take ever-larger doses in an effort to get high. Tragically, methadone is responsible for about 5,000 overdose deaths every year in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In Narconon’s unique program, no substitute medications are used. Instead, students receive round-the-clock personal care and supervision during withdrawal. Trained Narconon specialists use a variety of techniques to help students through the difficult period. Nutritional support helps calm the body and ease physical symptoms, and a series of exercises, called Objectives, help a person confront and cope with the mental stress of coming off drugs.
When a person uses, they become introverted, focused on their tumultuous inner life. The drugs in turn dull the distress, and when they are first removed, the physical and mental pain can be overwhelming. The Objectives, which are used throughout the Narconon program, “extrovert” the student, directing his or her attention away from their ailing bodies and minds, and to the immediate environment, helping to bring the person out of the past and into the present so they are better able to face the process of withdrawal. Narconon specialists also use special hands-on techniques called Assists to help ease the muscle spasms, aches and pains that often accompany withdrawal.
Once over this hurdle, the beginnings of a new and better life take hold, and students move into the next stage of recovery at Narconon, called the New Life Detoxification, a carefully monitored regimen of exercise, time in a dry-heat sauna, hydration, nutrition and precise doses of supplements meant to help purge harmful drug residues from the body.
The New Life Detoxification is unique to the Narconon program and based on Mr. Hubbard’s discovery that drug residues and other toxic substances remain trapped in the fatty tissues of the body, even long after exposure. This explains, for example, someone who used LSD having a flashback or a reactivated “trip” years later.
In the New Life Detoxification, an all-natural regimen of specific vitamins, minerals and oils are taken daily in calibrated doses to replace lost nutrients and support the rebuilding of tissues and cells damaged by drugs. One vitamin in particular, niacin, plays a special role in the New Life Detoxification. Taken in sufficient quantities, niacin appears to break up and release the trapped residual toxins. Exercise, in the form of running, boosts circulation and helps flush out the drug residues broken up by niacin. Then, time in a sauna to induce profuse sweating allows the dislodged residues to leave the body through the pores. These residues are a source of drug cravings, which can lead to relapse. Reducing or eliminating these cravings is a critical factor affecting a student’s long-term success in staying off drugs.
Another important factor to ending addiction is stabilizing the student in the present time. Drugs dull a person and throw him or her out of sync with the environment, sticking their attention in a myriad of past moments, real or imagined, negatively influencing behavior and attitudes in the present, and leaving little mental or physical energy that can be focused on the here and now. To address this, the Objectives again come into play at Narconon, drawing the student’s attention away from painful memories and fixed, destructive routines—a difficult place from which to approach recovery—enabling the person to view the world around him clearly, often for the first time in years, readying him to face life comfortably without resorting to drugs.
At this stage, having withdrawn from drugs, detoxified the body, and refocused their attention on the present, Narconon students report feeling remarkably better and ready to move on to the program’s final element—Life Skills Courses. Just like physical skills, life skills can be learned, and effective learning and practice leads to stability, self-respect and the development of self-control. In practical course work offered only at Narconon, students learn the tools necessary to avoid the situations and triggers that led them to use drugs in the first place—skills those struggling with substance abuse have often lost sight of, or never had at all.
In a course called Overcoming Ups & Downs in Life, Narconon students learn how poor decisions regarding friends and acquaintances may have damaged their lives and how to make better choices going forward by distinguishing people who are positive forces in their lives from those who are likely to cause turmoil or lead them toward trouble.
Happily, tens of thousands of Narconon graduates have gone on to live fulfilling, productive, drug-free lives.
On the Personal Values Course, students learn how personal values are compromised, and how they can be restored. The students come to recognize their actual obligations, and learn a procedure that enables them to take full responsibility for their misdeeds and thereby free themselves of associated guilt and trauma. By the end of this course, students can leave the past behind and move into a positive future.
Because drug and alcohol use often traces to an inability to deal with challenging situations, it is vital that addicts learn constructive problem-solving skills. The Changing Conditions in Life Course at Narconon imparts these, teaching students procedures and steps to address problems past and present and move their lives forward.
Overcoming addiction takes time and commitment. Students progress through the Narconon program at their own pace, with most taking 12 weeks.
A student’s success on the program depends largely on his or her desire for a drug-free life and his or her resolve and perseverance in achieving that goal. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) defines successful rehabilitation from addiction as an individual being drug-free; gainfully employed, in school or both; engaged in positive relationships with family and friends; not involved in criminal activity; and generally making healthy choices in life matters.
The overwhelming majority of Narconon graduates fit this profile. Happily, tens of thousands of Narconon graduates have gone on to live fulfilling, productive, drug-free lives.
GLOBAL EXPANSION
Drug and alcohol addiction is a global problem requiring a global solution, and that’s what Narconon brings. First established in Los Angeles in 1966, the program has expanded to include 39 world-class facilities in 21 countries, including headquarters and an international training center in the United States, dozens of rehab centers spanning the globe, and Continental Training Centers established where staff train to open new facilities.
At the center of the network is Narconon Arrowhead in Oklahoma, established in 2001 as a drug rehabilitation facility and international training center for drug rehab professionals from across the globe. In a major expansion of both its program delivery and training capacity, Narconon is establishing Continental Training Centers around the world—with three opening just in 2015. Each serves a geographic zone, delivering the uniformly workable Narconon program to students and also training and apprenticing drug rehab specialists, preparing them to open new Narconon centers and further expand the network in the respective regions.
Beyond that, are the new model centers, such as Narconon Suncoast in Clearwater, Florida. Located on a serene wooded property outside the city, the center’s four buildings span more than 35,000 square feet on 7.5 acres. Speaking at the opening of the center, Bob Dillinger, Public Defender for Florida’s Sixth Judicial District said, “I have seen those who have gone through the Narconon program and have now turned their lives around and gained back their own selves. And that gives one hope that there is a way to reverse the soaring trend driving people to be arrested for drug issues and then to an early death. So I am very glad that this Narconon facility is opening to help me get people off the streets, out of the jails and whole again. And yes, this is a historic day for Pinellas County.”
The Continental Narconon for Latin America is in a secluded pastoral setting in Villa Victoria, Mexico, a restored Spanish Colonial hacienda originally constructed in 1880. At the occasion of its grand opening in September 2015, Ms. Rosi Orozco, former Congresswoman and President of the nongovernmental Commission United Against Human Trafficking, expressed her own passion for the Narconon program and what it means in a country so threatened by drugs at every level of society. “Cartels have increasingly turned to human trafficking as a venue for their criminal earnings, and it is easy to see that it goes hand in hand with drug addiction,” Ms. Orozco said. “Drugs are a means that criminal organizations use to catch their victims. I think that Narconon is the solution!”
“I have seen those who have gone through the Narconon program and have now turned their lives around and gained back their own selves.”
In the United Kingdom, the Continental Narconon is set amidst nine acres of rolling downs near Maynard’s Green in East Sussex, as peaceful and English as it gets. Here, staff deliver the rehab program and new staff train and apprentice to work in future Narconon centers across England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Speaking at the opening of the new Narconon, Dick Sweatman, Mayor of East Grinstead, succinctly summarized the role of the center: “The Narconon program is comprehensive and covers all aspects needed to help a person get back on their feet and teach them the tools to stay on their feet and succeed. This is not just a drug rehabilitation center delivering a highly successful program, it is also a training center to enlist Narconon specialists to tackle this drug issue.”
An idyllic stretch of Danish forest coastland is home to a Continental Narconon serving the 50 countries of continental Europe, the Russian Commonwealth and the Middle East. Also opened in September 2015, the 67,000-square-foot facility is located near Helsinge, Denmark, overlooking Lake Arresø.
