The Door to My Drug-Free Life

 

My success story and my Narconon program began in 1994. Around June, I was picked up by an interventionist who was a really a great listener. His name was Phil. He brought along a student with him from Narconon, but after listening to what he said, I didn't need any more convincing.

I had been addicted to drugs for about 5 years. Marijuana and LSD were the ones that really brought me down, and then I started to take meth to pick me back up, and even though I had stopped smoking marijuana and doing LSD at the age of 19, I had already been smoking meth for about 6 months. Coming off the drugs made me feel really disconnected from reality, which was what led me into a severe depression.

I remember thinking that there had to be something else in life that was different from this day-to-day life of being a drug addict. I wasn't proud of my accomplishments because I had none. I didn't graduate high school, and all I had known was drugs and being alone. Then these two men came to take me to rehab and I came to understand that my life was saved that day.

When I got to the center, there were a lot of students there, and immediately we got into therapeutic exercises, that teaches you how to be there comfortably. It never occurred to me that I could practice just being comfortable, but there I was. After doing these routines for some hours, I was way more upbeat and happy, not only because I saw others having the same wins. Unlike therapy, I didn't have to dwell on the past and analyze my thoughts. In fact, I found these routines to be more therapeutic than a thousand hours of just talking about my problems. In fact, I credit these with getting me past whatever drugs had done to me and completely restored my ability to communicate.

The next step we did was the New Life Detoxification, in which you sweat in a low-heat sauna while participating in a program of vitamins and exercise designed to rid the body of the drug residues left from the years spent putting them into my body. The residuals in the body stayed there and helped keep me trapped in the past, experiencing the effects of the drugs long after they had left my system. The book Clear Body, Clear Mind explains that the residues create mental images that made me re-experience these effects. Once these were gone, I felt amazing, and any cravings I had were completely gone.

And what was amazing about this program is that I felt so much better after about 80 days of being in the program and finishing the New Life Detoxification Program.

“This opened up the door to a drug-free life, and it was exactly what I was looking for before I came and was sitting on a chair in my backyard thinking, ‘Why am I doing all these drugs? It's not even fun anymore.’”

This opened up the door to a drug-free life, and it was exactly what I was looking for before I came and was sitting on a chair in my backyard thinking, “Why am I doing all these drugs? It's not even fun anymore.” I guess I was looking for a way out, and with Narconon, I got back to the way I used to be before I used drugs. I was finally able to just live life.

Joseph N., Narconon Graduate