Narconon of Georgia

Persons on drugs tend to become introverted.  The Narconon program has a step called Objectives that extroverts former drug addicts, getting them in touch with themselves and the world around them.  Each day our students write successes of what they learned that day on Objectives.  Here is a diary of a woman who came here, hopelessly addicted to heroin.  Now, every day, she is expressing success at breaking the cycle of addiction and getting control of her life.

Day One “While doing the exercise today, I became aware of myself and was more aware of my surroundings.  I became more comfortable and my confidence in myself rose.  I know that this is going to help me be in more control of my future and that I will be more comfortable and confident in my life.”

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Day Two  “While in session today I now notice everything that is around me and I am completely comfortable with where I am in life.  I am aware of different objects around me without having to really look to find them.  I just know where they are!  These exercises are making my life better every day.  I not only know what is around me, I have come to learn which of those things around me are good for me.

Since starting the Narconon Objectives, I am also noticing that my reflexes are getting better and my thinking is faster.  My reaction time has been enhanced.  I am also noticing things like shadows, reflections and the way the light hits the room at certain times.   It is amazing to me that I am so in tune to what is happening around me.  I feel truly amazing.”

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Day Three  “Today at the Narconon drug rehab and while doing Objectives, that there has always been good and evil in my life.  Before I would pick the bad choices and make bad decisions, because I did not feel worthy of more because my life was in such bad shape.  I have learned that it is actually easy to make the right decisions, if you work your life around good thoughts and good decisions.  Also being around good people helps daily living easier and more satisfying.”

Narconon of Georgia

A Narconon drug treatment student wrote this message for other students and staff, as she reflected over her life this holiday season.

Last holiday season, my life was a mess.  The Easter before, I had shown up to my family’s dinner totally wasted, nodding out over my dinner plate.  As a result, I had officially been uninvited to all future holidays until I decided to clean my life up.  My dad felt bad that nobody else wanted me at Thanksgiving dinner last year, so he came and met me at a restaurant and then we went to see a movie.   I had plans to go to another dinner with another friend, but I also needed to score some dope.    I only spent a little time with my friend after getting the heroin.  I wanted to be alone in my own bathroom with my quarter ounce.

A lot has changed since then, I am no longer a slave to drug addiction.  I have been at Narconon for four months.  I haven’t been strung out and every day I wake up happy and healthy.  I’m not dope sick anymore.  I feel better than I ever have since I started using drugs.  I talk to my family all the time and they are happy that I am doing so well and am healthy.

Spending the holidays at Narconon is going to be awesome.  I look forward to spending my time with friends that I have made here.  They are also grateful that they are sober and healthy and everything we do as a group is fantastic.

I look forward to the many happy holidays that I will be spending with my family and friends in the future, because I spend this time at Narconon drug treatment.

Opiates

This success story is written by a Narconon student who came to drug treatment as an opiate abuser. Drug Addiction took over his life.  Heroin and Oxycontin had him introverted and out of touch with the world.

Now through objectives he is in communication with himself and the world.

“Today on this exercise I feel I have gained more control over my body and my brain-body coordination is better.  Using drugs had dulled my senses and often time I would feel out of touch and out of control.  I have already noticed better reflexes and better control over my movement.

When throwing a football, for example I have noticed certain points in my motion that I had forgotten about that I am able to critique.  After high school when I started using drugs, I would throw and I was convinced I had lost my abilities.  But now I am remembering things from former coaches as early as freshman year.

I am also noticing the feel of things I touch more – like the surfaces and softness or hardness of objects.  I am excited to see all the other way in which my brain and body communication will improve the quality of my life.  This has been awesome. “

Narconon of Georgia

Narconon boasts a 76% success rate among graduations of the Narconon program.  Here is one of their successes after the sauna portion of the program….

Before I came to sauna I was lost and in a constant daze.  When I first got there to be honest I thought it was going to be pointless and wasn’t going to help me.  I had no energy and no spirit really.  All I could think about was dope.  After a week or so I could feel the weight of drugs lift and the fog in my head start to lift.  It seemed like everyday I was getting better.  For the longest time I had lost the feeling in my finger tips.  Somehow the sauna brought the feeling back.  I felt better than I ever had and energy and really a lot more hope I had in myself.  Now I am clear minded and I never think about drugs anymore and when I do I don’t want to do them like I used to.  I had a lot of realizations and wins.  I feel great and I look a lot better.  My family can even tell the difference in my voice.  It made a believer out of me and I will recommend the New Life detoxification program as a necessity to anybody who wants to get clean.

Narconon offers sauna detoxification along with real world study so that the student realizes what made them start using drugs and how to live without drugs in their lives.  Drug addiction doesn’t have to be a death sentence, you can survive with help.

Reflection

Abusing drugs like heroin, methamphetamines, cocaine, pot and prescription drugs can make a person lose control of their life and lead to drug addiction.  Even small tasks can become difficult.  The Objectives section of the Narconon drug treatment program helps a person take back control of their life.

“I realized that the decision to start, change and stop things is up to me.  I have the power and that is awesome.  Before, I was leaving situations up to other people to handle.  I would leave control up to others.  That made for a lot of randomness in my life and things were out of control.  During this exercise it hit me – I am the one who is in control!

I am happy to have this new found power.”

Narconon of Georgia

When I got to this fine establishment January 23^rd. I was an absolute mess.  I had given up on everything, I had a very serious addiction to Xanax.

By using the technology I’ve learned from the program I will never see the day the way I saw it on Jan 23^rd.

Drug addiction is a very powerful thing which takes control of your entire life and sends you down a dark and lonely hole.
Narconon helps people overcome these addictions with education, sauna and counseling to help the addict and their family understand why someone is addicted.

See Yourself

Here is another Narconon realization for the day.  It is shared with the hopes that others will read it and reach to get some help.  Whether a person has done cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine or pot – there is help for them and a new life.

“I see how controlling my body is a very important tool in my life.  Before in my life I would be going down the road in my car and my intentions were good.  But I would let my body take over and before I knew it, I would be in the wrong neighborhood.  It was as if my body took over my thoughts and took total control over my mind.

Now I see how important it is for me to be in control of every part of me.  Today my body is being controlled by me.  I am in the driver’s seat, and I’m driving with happiness.”

Successful Graduate

After successfully completing the Narconon program, Pam has joined the Narconon family in order to help others. She has a compelling story and something to say to those who are still battling with addiction.

Where were you born and raised?

I was born in Clearwater, Florida. When I was just 14 months old, my parents separated and I lived with my grandmother for a while.

My mother re-married when I was 2, but my real father continued to stay in my life, even when I lived with my stepfather.

My stepfather was unstable and was diagnosed with schizophrenic. He killed our dog and when I was 13 my mother left him and we moved to Savannah.

When did you first begin abusing drugs?

When I was 15 years old, I was at one of my friends and he talked me into smoking weed with him. That’s where it all started. After smoking pot for about a year, my grades slipped and I stopped caring.

My mother got married again, and I wasn’t even allowed to go to the wedding.

I was always on restriction for my grades. I started sneaking out of the house to hang out with my friends. It got to the point where I wasn’t coming home until an hour before I had to wake up for school. I got hooked on No-Doz and Simply Sleep. I would take No-Doz all day in school and when I came home, I would take a sleeping pill and sleep until my mother woke me up for dinner.

My mother put me in a “Safe-Place” shelter for 3 weeks, thinking that it would help me to straighten up. The day I got out, I snuck out of the house again and my mother sent me to my father’s.

My father was a very bad alcoholic. I lived with him for three months but I ran away when I could not take his drinking anymore. I caught a bus, went to Savannah and stayed from house to house. My mother had the police looking everywhere for me.

When I turned 17, I went back to high school and graduated in 2001 as a piano major. My father and I had made up over the years and when he died in 2005.

I was absolutely devastated and really started to go down. I inherited over $150,000. I gave half of it to the guy that was supporting my habit. I also bought him a brand new truck and put it in his name.

Within 6 months, I was completely broke because I’d had $60,000 disappear and spent the rest on crack. I started to hate myself for losing everything that my father had worked his entire life to give me.

I signed my condo over to my mother and her husband and went to living on the streets. I continued trying to bury my self-pity in crack and just did it every chance I had.

I got to a point in my addiction where I was living in a tent that I’d helped steal out of someone’s shed. The next couple years were filled with awful times – there was a lot of crack smoking, a couple of arrests, Ilving on the streets and tons of “bad luck.”

Going from disaster to disaster and through failed rehab, I finally hit rock bottom. I thought it was the end.

How did you get out of this mess?

I went through a five day binge. I was driving around Mobile, AL all the way to Gulfport, MS. I was in Gulfport for a couple days.

I was walking around a truck stop, bumming money wishing that it would just end. That’s when I went to get in my Blazer and the police pulled in.

They were there to arrest me because they thought I was prostituting. That’s when I told them that I was trying to bum money for gas to get back home to Mobile, AL and that I’d been up for 5 days smoking crack and couldn’t stop.

I asked them to take me to jail. Since I had a fugitive warrant on me, they took me in.

It took 2 weeks or more to extradite me to Savannah. When I got there, it was the day that I had to be in court.

So, I had to wait for a new court date and handled my charges. When my mother came to pick me up, my grandfather and I had already spoken about me going to rehab.

My mother had found Narconon on the internet. She showed me the website, and I called my grandparents and told them that with the research my mother had done and what I could see this was the place for me.

Three weeks later, I came to Narconon of Georgia.

How did the Narconon Program help you?

This program has absolutely saved my life. While I was here, I learned how to confront the things in my life that I was running from.

I dealt with and accepted the death of my father. I stopped punishing myself for what I’d done to my life.

This place gave me the confidence and skills that I needed in order to move forward and start my life back on the track I was on before I started abusing drugs.

What would you say to others who are battling addiction? I understand what you are going through. You don’t need to continue to feel guilty – just get some help.

I would also tell them that no matter what has happened to you, Narconon is the right place for you.

Many former addicts report that their cravings are greatly reduced after this program.   Here is a success story:

“I have had great gains from the sauna program. I also lost some things too, but it was things I needed to lose, like anxiety.  I sleep more, I am happier and my activity level is higher.  I am less tired and more willing to participate in activity around me.   This includes doing simple things in life like cooking and cleaning, which I had a hard time with before.

My body feels healthy and my senses and focus have come back.  I have lost the desire to use drugs- I just don’t think about them anymore.  The manifestations of drugs have diminished in my mind and I just don’t glorify them anymore.  I have also lost laziness and apathy and I am more driven.  I feel ready to learn new things with this group to help me be a better person.

I have written a list of things that I want to accomplish before I get out of here and I feel very condiment they will be accomplished.  I came out of sauna the best that I could and I plan on coming out of what I learn on course to give me opportunities I have never seen.

Doing this program is one of the best opportunities of my life.  I am going to be successful.”

Every day we get success stories like this at Narconon.  We also get successes from those who have graduated from the program and are doing well in life.  In fact, our success rate comes out to be 70 to 80 percent, year after year.

Narconon drug rehab is the new life program.  Not only do we expect the majority of our students to maintain sobriety, we expect them to be successful in life as well.

He was told that his drug addiction was a problem that he would have to struggle with for the rest of his life.

Jason isn’t alone there are 25 million drug addicts in America and the problem is only getting worse.