Narconon Program Graduate Overcomes Addiction

This is the story of girl who had an addiction to drugs and overcame it by going through the Narconon Program. Her real name is not used to protect her privacy. We are going to call her Jessica. Jessica was an only child who lived with her single mother for most of her childhood. She and her mother were close and she did pretty well in school up until the point when she started sixth grade. During that year her father had tried to get custody of her and she said that she had a really hard time watching her parents fight over her. She said that she felt like she was in the middle of the situation and kind of like she had to choose between the two of her parents. She said that she loved them both and it was impossible for her to choose. She said that her mother was not really the one that made her feel that way; it was her father. She would see her father on the weekends sometimes, but he lived in another state and would not visit all that much and she is not sure why when she was in sixth grade he decided that he wanted her to come live with him full time. She said that when she would see her dad, he was always saying bad things about her mom and it really bothered her, but she was too afraid to speak up and stick up for her mom because she did not want to hurt her dads feelings either.

Jessica Uses Drugs

Jessica went to private school up until seventh grade. The custody fight that her parents had lasted for about a year and it really affected the way that Jessica did in school. Her mother decided that after the custody fight was over she was going to put Jessica in public school because she thought it might be easier for Jessica to pull her grades up. Jessica said that when she went to public school she was ahead in all of her subjects and she would sit in class bored and stopped paying attention. She said at some point when she stopped paying attention, the class got ahead of her and she fell behind in her studies again. The other thing that happened when Jessica went to public school was she encountered kids who used drugs for the first time. She said that in the private school that she went to, none of the kids used drugs but in the public school there were quite a few who did.

Jessica started smoking pot and drinking alcohol when she was twelve years old. She said that it helped her forget all the emotions that she felt about being upset over her parents inability to get along and her inability to stick up for her mom. She said that she felt really guilty about the whole situation. After Jessica started smoking pot, she stopped caring about school at all. She said she also started snorting Ritalin that year as well. A few of her new friends had prescriptions for the study drug and they would give her a couple to snort every few days. She said that she got addicted to them and would try to get them as often as she could. Jessica got all D’s on her report card in seventh grade.

Her mom began to notice that something was going on with Jessica. She decided that it was because of the new school that Jessica was going to and decided that she was going to send Jessica to boarding school in eighth grade.

Jessica Find Drugs in Boarding school

Jessica said that when she went to boarding school there were a lot of kids who used drugs there as well. She said it was often harder for them to get them because they were in the middle of nowhere in the mountains, but she said that the kids would get whatever they could as often as possible. They would go home for some weekends and on breaks and people would bring a lot of drugs back with them. Jessica said there where more people using prescription drugs than smoking pot, because they were easier to get. Jessica said she did tons of prescription drugs and over the counter medications while she was in boarding school. She said that one girl would get a lot of prescription drugs from one of her older sister, mostly Adderall, college student that she was.

Jessica eventually got caught snorting Ritalin with a few of the other girls and got kicked out of boarding school. When she went home she went to another school and hooked up with the druggies that went there. This continued for the next few years and eventually Jessica started using Opiates. She said that she was dating a guy that was using heroin and she was afraid to shoot up so she started taking prescription opiates instead. Her mom eventually found out what was going on and told Jessica she had to go to treatment. Jessica started going to outpatient treatment when she eighteen and she said that she really tried to stay clean as long as possible through that route. However Jessica also said physically she felt really awful since she had started using opiates except when she was high and that feeling did not ever completely go away. Jessica was clean for eight months and then relapsed. She told her mom and told her she needed to go to an inpatient facility. Her mom found Narconon and Jessica went and did the Narconon New Life Detoxification program. She said that was what saved her from opiates. She said that after the detox program she was finally able to feel good and healthy again and that before she never felt like she was going to be able to be normal without opiates in her system again. She said that with every next course that she did in the rest of the program she just started feeling better and better and better. She thanks all the staff and other students that helped her get through it. She has been clean for three years in March.