What’s the Difference Between Nar-Anon and Narconon?
There are so many treatment options out there that it can be mind-boggling when an addict or their family start looking for treatment options and support. There’s almost everything you can think of out there, whether it be 12-step, holistic, short-term, long-term, the list is endless. One of the questions I commonly get is:
“What’s the difference between Narconon and Nar-Anon?”
I wanted to answer this question once and for all and lay out the differences between each program.
Nar-Anon is a 12-step-based support group for families of addicts. It’s like Narcotics Anonymous, but instead, it is meetings for the families to give them support in dealing with their addicted loved one. The 12-step program was first created almost 100 years ago as a way of helping alcoholics overcome their addictions, thus the birth of Alcoholics Anonymous. From there, other satellite, 12-step groups were created, such as Al-Anon, Narcotics Anonymous, Nar-Anon, Cocaine Anonymous, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, etc. The 12-step program bases its beliefs upon the foundation that addiction is a disease and in order to handle the disease, a person must complete each of the 12 steps to recovery. This includes steps such as admitting one’s own powerlessness over their disease. The steps delve into making personal inventories of one’s self and disclosing one’s transgressions to another person. The steps conclude with making amends and giving back as a way of solidifying one’s recovery. This modality works for many people and 12-step groups exist in almost every city in every state across the U.S. While this modality does work for some people, it doesn’t work for most people. With the need for a different modality to help people who couldn’t get sober through the 12-steps, other programs, such as Narconon, were created.
Narconon is not a 12 step program. It also doesn’t consider addiction to be an incurable disease. Narconon was created in the 1960’s and has been helping addicts for over 50 years. The program uses a specific set of treatment methods that include physical detoxification, life skills courses, and one-on-one counseling with the sole goal of getting to the root core of a person’s addiction and figuring out why they picked up drugs and alcohol in the first place. The name is very similar to Nar-Anon, hence the confusion that comes up sometimes. Narconon simply stands for “narcotics-none,” meaning that a person handles their addiction and learns how to live a drug-free life.
Narconon has one of the best success rates of any rehab program out there and I want to encourage anyone who hasn’t been successful with other forms of treatment to give us a call. While 12-step treatment has been the “gold standard” of treatment for years, times have changed since the 12-step system was created. The world of addiction has shifted and those trying to get sober have more obstacles in front of them than they did 100 years ago. Times have changed and the way we deal with addiction must change with the world around us. We need to be more progressive about how we approach treatment and drug rehab. It’s not a “one size fits all” type of thing. If you haven’t been able to get sober yet and have failed other types of treatment and rehab, we might be the right program for you.
