Drug Addiction Stories

How did you find out about the Narconon program?
I found out about Narconon because of an overdose:  While I was in Toronto I would come home sometimes for a few weeks and then run away again and hitchhike back.   One time while I was in Toronto, I overdosed on heroin and my parents were there, which was very embarrassing.  They arrived at around 2:00am after they got a call.  They decided that they would find a solution for me – and this was Narconon.

At the time (1998) Narconon was just getting set up in Quebec Province so I was one of the first people on the program here.  At first I was scared and by the third day I wanted to go back to drugs, of course.  For the first two weeks I was staying at home while on the program, as it was not fully set up, and all I talked about during this time with friends on the phone was heroin.  That’s all I thought about and all I talked about.  My life was heroin and I still sneaking it, even though I was on the program.  I convinced people I knew from high school that it was a good thing to do, so they would do it with me.  My motivation was to have people doing it with me; people would not give me a guilt trip or try to get me off it because they were doing it too.

Did you stick with the program?
I eventually ran away back to Toronto and started panhandling and doing drugs every day.  It got so bad it even got up to twice a day.  I remember getting sick when I stopped using and thought it was just a cold or something, but of course as soon as I took drugs again all the symptoms disappeared – so then I knew what was actually happening.

I recall someone afterwards offering me cocaine, but I said “no thanks,” as I was not interested anymore. I knew then that the Narconon program is really effective.

After a couple of weeks I woke up one morning all depressed and everything hit me: what I was doing to myself, what I did to my parents by running away and so on.  Then I was overwhelmed with a lot of grief.  I called my mother but I couldn’t even talk because I had this knot in my throat.  There was my pride and at the same I felt broken from my own doing.

She told me to call the director of Narconon in Canada, who fortunately was in Toronto, and I went to see him looking and smelling like a dirty street kid.  He was really cool and very understanding of where I was coming from.  After that I was on the bus that night and in the morning when I arrived in Montreal, someone from Narconon picked me up and that was it.

So now you wanted to get off drugs?
It wasn’t so much that I wanted to get off drugs; I just didn’t know what I wanted at all.  I didn’t even think I had a problem because I was doing drugs which is what I thought I wanted (back then) and that was it.  But I was depressed and I did the program because I felt bad for my mom and dad.

Then at some point, while I was at Narconon, it turned around for me: I no longer cared about drugs – my only interest was doing the program.  The Narconon staff had a lot to do with that because of their knowledge, experience and their understanding.

I recall someone afterwards offering me cocaine, but I said “no thanks,” as I was not interested anymore.  I knew then that the Narconon drug addiction rehab really effective.

What benefits did you get from doing the Narconon program?
One big win for me occurred one day during the Detoxification program: I actually remembered my past!

Before that I had not realized that I did not really have a past or a future.  I was not in present time and I was just kind of “there.”  In the sauna, all these memories of me being a kid with my parents – all these happy memories came back.  And that was a huge win.  It was like “Oh my God, I was a kid at one point!”

Another win was being rehabilitated in other ways: I was a vegetarian before I started drugs and when I was living on the street, the more drugs I used the less I cared about my health or what I was eating.  Free food was free food and I would eat whatever.  While I was on the program I started caring again about what I was eating.

I also remembered that I was an environmentalist (as well as a vegetarian) and that I cared about all these things.  I would then go through Narconon to make sure that the recycling was properly separated from the garbage; I would ensure that I was eating healthy again and so much more.  I actually cared once more!  And this included wanting to help people – and this was because of the Narconon drug rehab program.

TO BE CONTINUED…