Narconon: Helping a Young Musician Get His Life Back Part 2

E’s Story, Chapter 2

Narconon Success

Over The Counter Drugs

E got really into making his band successful. He became a sort of band leader tyrant over all the other members of the group. He would make sure that everyone got to practice on time, and get really upset with anyone who he felt was slacking off. He used drugs heavily at the time but none regularly, except for marijuana.

Prescription Drug Abuse

This was to change, however, and one day someone introduced him to prescription pain medication. He started taking them to give him extra energy and they made him feel like he could play music better. His girlfriend started taking them also.  He would take them every day before he would go to band practice. He started to have to take more and more to get the same effect and it got to be really expensive. He started off taking percocets which are not very strong prescription pain medication. Because his tolerance started to get higher he started to have to spend a lot more money. He then decided to start getting stronger kinds of prescription drugs like oxycontin and roxicodone, which are almost as strong as heroin. He found it was cheaper to buy one of these stronger medications than it was buy ten pills of the other kinds of pain medications that he was buying originally.

 Opiate Addiction

Eventually it got to the point where he got physically addicted to the pain medication and if he did not have it he would go through physical withdrawal. At this point he would not get out of bed and would refuse to practice with his band unless he was high. This got to be very frustrating for his band, and arguments started because of the drug use. Soon after this he found out that heroin was stronger and cheaper than prescription drugs so he started using that instead. His girlfriend’s drug use mirrored his own and soon it escalated to the point where they were shooting up heroin. Once they started doing this everything else fell to the wayside. They stopped going to school and stopped working and E dropped out of his band as well. This was a real shame because E was working in a recording studio and his band had gotten to be really good. They had even signed a record deal and right when it seemed like they may have achieved some success addiction got the best of E.

Speed Balls

After a while of using heroin, E’s girlfriend started smoking crack. Soon they both started using heroin and cocaine intravenously together in what is known as a speedball. At this point E said everything just completely fell apart. They ran out of money, didn’t have a place to stay, and were still addicted to drugs. E ended up selling all of his instruments and many other possessions that had had any value to pay for his and his girlfriend’s drug habit. They started staying in a crack house when they had no other place to go, or alternately they would stay in a very run down seedy motel that was full of drug addicts and drug dealers. Mean while E’s girlfriend’s parents were trying to get into contact with her. They started searching for and eventually found her.

One evening E went out to score some dope for he and his girlfriend. When he was gone, his girlfriend’s parents showed up at the motel where they had been staying. They came with the police and drug her out of the motel room kicking and screaming and had her committed to a rehab. When E came back to the hotel with the bags of heroin, he found her gone and heard from some of the other people staying in the hotel what had happened.

Rock Bottom

He said that that was the time when he realized that he had nothing left for him. His girlfriend was gone, he had no money, he had no way to get more money, he didn’t even have enough money to buy a needle to do the last bit of heroin he had. He ended up snorting it and sitting on some stairs in the back of the hotel. While E was sitting there on those steps the sun starting to come up and illuminated the trees that were behind the hotel.  He realized that he too had life yet in him, and if he didn’t do something fast and get help there was going to be nothing of him left.

Finding the Right Treatment Center

He ended up calling his aunt and told her what was happening. He told her he needed to go to detox so he could get off of the drugs. She took him to a detox center and meanwhile, got in touch with the rest of his family. His uncle knew of someone who had gone to one of the Narconon Centers and had done really well. They found out that there was a Narconon that was close to where his mom was living at the time. They had him flown there after he finished in the detox program and he started the Narconon program.

Narconon Saves a Life

He said that Narconon saved his life. After he graduated he got a good job and a home of his own. He said one of the biggest milestones that showed him that he was actually succeeding in his life and his sobriety was that after a few years of saving up, he was able to buy a brand new car if his own. He said when he was using that would have been something he never would have been able to do. He said he feels really good leading a normal life, and gets a good feeling of satisfaction just doing a hard days work. He is a productive member of society now thanks to Narconon Centers and a lot of hard work.