"This is the "thank you" I meant to write you long ago. It is from both Alicia & I. One fine day, many years ago, you met us at LAX airport. That was the beginning of the end of Alicia's drug abuse. You took 1 scared, addicted teenager, and guided her through a process that saved her. You said to me if Alicia stays here & participates in this program, she will never need another drug-rehab again. You were so kind, so positive, explaining the Narconon Program, reassuring me there was always hope. When Narconon told me of all the drugs Alicia used -- heroin, cocaine, LSD, ecstasy, uppers,
downers, Ritalin, Special K, & most at the same time, I thought this was an
impossible situation.

Remember when she ran away & you went out after her? Above & Beyond! I know she was a tough one to have around all that time, after all, I lived with her all those years. She kept messing up, she was always on "Ethics" with Pat! You told me she only knew how to self-destruct & self-sabotage. She never experienced success, so this was the only road she knew. You all were trying to show her another road to travel. How about how long it took her to graduate! When I finally flew to Narconon for her graduation, the room was filled with well-wishers. If Alicia could graduate, anyone could.

She thinks so highly of you, all of you at Narconon. She lives by what you taught her. She resides & works in Santa Barbara. She is going to college there. She is a straight A student & does not use drugs! She is so happy she is still smart & did not fry her brains! So Larry, I am eternally grateful to you & Narconon, for all the wonderful work you do. For I handed you a drug addict, & you handed me back my daughter."
P.C.

By the age of 32, I had abused alcohol for 16 years. At that time, I had lost a career, a spouse, and was on the verge of never being able to see my 3-year-old daughter again due to the fear that had been created in my ex-wife over my lack of control regarding my drinking. My mother was at wits end, and was also soon to wash her hands of me.

In taking one final chance to salvage her son, my mother brought me to Narconon. After spending a few days of detoxing from the alcohol, I awoke to a miserable state of mind regarding myself. I was 32 years old, a complete failure in life and in rehab. I wanted to die and not face the misery that I had put others through as well as myself through. I felt utterly alone and had no idea of how to go about fixing anything about these relationships, and hence, wanted to just give up on life.

Fortunately, I had around the clock care. This was probably the most vulnerable time in my life, and with me by my side 24 hours a day during this time was a dedicated staff member of Narconon to assist me in my recovery. During this time, I was treated with dignity. I was nourished, exercised lightly, and soothed and calmed by professional treatment. I was in a place where somebody was actually going out of their way to tend to my needs. I was bewildered as to why anybody would treat me in such a manner. I felt as if I did not deserve this treatment, and was shocked that it was actually being delivered to me.

After a few more days of this treatment, I was gradually integrated into the actual program that Narconon had to offer. I was started on a regiment of communication exercises that further calmed me and brought me back into reality. I was starting to get to know some of the other people that were involved in this program and soon began to recognize that they were some pretty good people that (to me) didn’t seem to have any problems. I thought to myself “what are these people doing here?” I soon started to understand that these people were just like me. They had just been through the program a little bit longer and had handled themselves much more than I already had. They encouraged me to just stick with the program and apply myself to it, and I would turn my life around. Yeah, right, I said to myself.

After getting through the communication exercises and that had helped me to calm down to a strong degree, I was informed that I would be doing the sauna portion of the program. Okay, I was feeling a bit better, so I figured I’d give it a shot and last it out a little bit longer. I still didn’t feel as if I was cured. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t even started addressing alcohol in the two weeks that I had been there. I hadn’t talked about it once to any of my counselors, and therefore didn’t feel as if I was making any progress.

In doing the sauna portion of the program, I started to feel much better physically and mentally. I started exercising and was on a strong vitamin regiment combined with sweating the impurities out of my body. By the time I was done with this portion of the program, I had regained some confidence in myself. I could actually run several miles relatively easily and was overall just feeling physically fantastic. Hmm, there might actually be something to this stuff after all I thought.

From this point on, I started focusing on the technology and learning what I could from it. I had been around for just over a month by now, was feeling very good, had a clear head, and was starting to feel that life was pretty manageable after all. The materials that I learned from this point on made a tremendous amount of sense to me. Much of what I was learning also had a familiar sense to me as well. Like I had known it through my upbringing, but just never had it explained to me in such a concise manner.

These materials emphasized such things, as making sure you understood something when you read it, treating others the way that you would want to be treated, establishing a good sense of the reality of the world around you, developing and staying with a moral and ethical code, and staying away from negative influences in your life. By the time I had read all of these materials, I was recognizing within myself that I was not a terrible, awful person, but just somebody that had gone against the basic principles that my family and friends had instilled in me as I was growing up. Well, I could correct these negative traits about myself, and with each new principle read, I indeed did so.

I was also helped during this time in putting these principles into application with my family and friends. I was encouraged to restore communication with my loved ones. I was terribly afraid of doing so at first. The anxiety that I went through the first time that I called my ex-wife was incredibly strong. By the time I was done with that first phone call, I was extremely grateful for those communication exercises that I went through in the beginning. These allowed me to be as comfortable as I possibly could despite the anxiety. The amazing part of it was, with each phone call, it became easier and easier to communicate. I was beginning to recognize more so, that my loved ones really did care about me and were just interested in me doing the right things in life and not causing any havoc in any of our lives.

By this time, I began to recognize that alcohol was not the problem. It was all of the social skills that I had been lacking in that was the true problem. With each correction of my skills, I was soon becoming quite confident in my ability to deal with the everyday problems of life without turning to alcohol to escape them. And with each new victory in confronting these problems, my confidence grew, until finally, I had completed the program that had been laid out.

I felt very, very good. I had been doing the right things for about four months. I had restored the good feelings of my family, my friends, and most importantly in my life at the time, my daughter. For the first time in my life, I knew I had the capability of being a father. I also knew that I had the ability to be a friend, an employee, a husband, or anything else that I so desired.

Since the day that I graduated the program, there have been many, many situations in life that I have had to face that were difficult. But I had learned that life is made of situations and problems that need to be sorted out and dealt with. I had learned that if I didn’t solve these situations with the best resolve that I had, that I would not feel good about myself. But that if I did solve these problems, I would feel much better about myself. Pretty simple, actually, succeed or fail. And I had been given the tools to succeed, again. Once by my upbringing, and again through Narconon. And what I chose to do is succeed.

I am forever grateful that I was given the opportunity to turn my life around for the better. I don’t believe that I would have ever done so on my own accord. I know that regardless of whatever occurs in life from here on out, that alcohol and/or drugs is not the solution to the problem, and that these could only make the matters worse. I enjoy the confidence of family and friends alike, that I will do all in my power to ensure that I never betray, and won’t through alcohol or drugs. Life is too good and enjoyable when one is doing the right things and displaying the reasons why one is loved.

I’m proud to say that I have now been sober for almost six years now. I have my head on straight, I think with the foresight of the consequences of my actions, and only act with the best interest of others in mind. Without a doubt, I never would have felt or behaved this way if it weren’t for the fact of doing the Narconon program. It is truly a life-changing course of action that I support fully.

-D.W.

I began using marijuana at the age of 10. My parents had divorced. My father moved away. I was angry and confused about life. I wanted to escape. I wanted friends.

As the years went on, I gravitated toward kids that were in similar circumstances as myself. Kids who were from single parent households, who stole, who used drugs, and who had little responsibility.

I started to sell marijuana by age 14. It started out small and eventually went into large quantities. All of my hopes and dreams faded away. I lost the motivation to work and succeed in a legal occupation. I had no goals and no self-esteem. To deal with this along with the increasing anxiety of being a drug dealer, I started to go out to clubs to drink, I also started using ecstasy and crack. I found myself in a deeper and deeper pit. I finally realized I needed help when I ruined a nine-year relationship. I was depressed over the loss and the partying only made me feel worse. I didn’t know where to go for help.

I went to Narconon and it has been the best thing I have ever accomplished. I no longer sell or use drugs. But that’s only half of it. I now enjoy going to work, because I am a Drug Education Lecturer for Narconon. I go out to schools across Southern California to educate children on the dangers of drugs, helping to ensure they make better choices in life and use their education to achieve their goals.

-G.M.

I first came to Narconon on November 18, 1998. I am from Mexico City and I have been in four different rehabs and that did nothing for me but accumulate a lot of anger toward my family for putting me there. ( I didn’t want to change at the time) I was lucky enough to have a friend of my family come to my house, knock on the door and introduce Narconon and the purification part of the program to me. I was instantly interested. I knew then that I had a chance. Something different. For once, something that I wanted. I was dying, desperate for a change in my life.

Here while doing the program, something inside me clicked. I knew then that this would work. All I needed was someone to tell me how to do it; how to stay away from drugs. I knew that the rest was up to me.

I now know that the ability has always been within me. The problem was I didn’t realize it was lying dormant. Now with the technology of L. Ron Hubbard and the guidance of the great staff at Narconon, my life has changed dramatically. I can now confront problems in my life, and I found out that my life is worth living. That living is beautiful. Now, any problem, or better yet, any situation that I might encounter, I will find a solution with the technology that I learned here. I know that applying it to my daily life, the condition of my life has bettered 100%. Even more! I now see opportunities, when in the past I saw them as problems. Of my 22 years of addiction to cocaine, marijuana, and alcohol, I don’t regret a moment of it because without having gone through it I wouldn’t be here at Narconon.

Because of me doing this program, the communication with my entire family has been restored. I am grateful for this because they all were there for me. I was the one who had withdrawn from them. I’m back as a whole human being. I am grateful.

-R.S.

"This is a letter of thanks and recognition to all those associated with the work, endeavors and promise of Narconon. It is our sincere hope to reach out to families and friends of loved ones still inside the downward spiral of drugs, alcohol and self-destructive addictions. Narconon gave and continues to give our daughter a second chance at life.

As Christian parents we struggled with concerns over Narconon’s creator, L. Ron Hubbard and the possibility of enrolling our daughter in a “cult.” We watched intently and followed the overall detoxification process, course content and concepts very closely. Happily and gratefully we concluded that the staff and, indeed the concept of Narconon, have all of humanity’s noblest interests at heart. The tools given our daughter are universal and not religiously specific. Communication with family and positive influences are encouraged on a regular basis. We applaud and commend our daughter’s tremendous efforts to make it happen and stick to it until she completed the first phase of the program. We also appreciate the comfort zone offered by Narconon’s philosophy that “it takes as long as it takes” to be cured. There is no specific number of days in which the student must return to the world again before he/she is ready.

Our twenty year old daughter reached the bottom with a smorgasbord of drugs, raves and destructive lifestyles. Most of her friends only added to the spiral of lies, cheating and misinformation that take up all of an addict’s time when relating to those who love them. Loss of her job, loss and distancing from productive friends, her feelings of worthlessness and emotional depression brought the whole family perilously close to a tragic ending.

As we approached the reality of a tragic end for our daughter, an internet web search and analysis brought Narconon to our attention as a very different concept in treating addictions. While the Narconon concept has been around for decades, it is new to the uninitiated who never had a need for it! Narconon works on the whole individual and gives its in-house students the tools for life to overcome both the physiological and psychological holds of addiction. Narconon’s different concepts allow its students to say and believe that they were addicts before Narconon and that after they graduate, if they practice the precepts of the training, they are no longer addicts and are able to lead happy, productive, addiction-free lives.

In the end it is up to the individual addict to want to rise up from the hell of their addiction. Our daughter now has the opportunity to be a happy, productive member of society. That chance is directly a result of the love, care and tools provided by the staff of Narconon. We thank Narconon for giving our daughter that chance.

Both my wife and I stand ready to communicate through Narconon with anyone who requests or needs to share our experiences. No system is perfect and, ultimately, it is up to the individual to make his/her way in life. Narconon provides one answer that can and does work to make the world a better place."
-J.O., A.O.

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