The Narconon Drug Rehabilitation Program

• Mission purpose: The word ‘Narconon’ means simply ‘No Drugs.’ This signifies both that the Narconon program is a drug-free rehabilitation model, and also that the mission and objective of the program is to enable a person enrolling in Narconon to achieve a stably drug-free, ethical life - that is - living free of drugs and unhealthy/unethical behaviors, not having to take or participate in ‘maintenance’ programs and/or substitutes for the behavior(s) and/or substance(s) to which one was addicted.
• The Narconon network comprises over 150 drug rehabilitation, prevention, and education centers across 50 countries.
• All Narconon centers are individually operated and responsible for their own services, but they all subscribe to deliver the standard Narconon program model with proper administration and standards unmatched elsewhere in the addiction recovery provider landscape.
• Narconon International: These non-profit public benefit centers are licensed by Narconon International, the first Narconon organization to have been granted charitable, non-profit status by the IRS in 1972.The function of Narconon International is to promote the Narconon program and to monitor and maintain the quality of technical delivery worldwide.
• CARF (the international Rehabilitation Accreditation Commission) has accredited and commended Narconon Arrowhead, Narconon International Training Center, as an exemplary Alcohol and Other Drug Programs Detoxification and Residential Treatment facility. CARF is a highly recognized certifying organization for rehabilitation services.

The standardness of the program model across multiple languages and cultures has contributed to making the Narconon network one of the fastest-growing drug rehabilitation programs in the world.

Narconon Program Rationale:

The Narconon philosophy of drug rehabilitation is clearly rationalized. Its procedures and standards of performance are clearly defined and delivered according to manuals, published as a worldwide standard in the early 1990s.

• Since the Narconon manuals were formulated in the early 1990s, over 35,000 persons have successfully completed the full drug rehab program.

These copyrighted materials structure the program into a clearly delineated, logical sequence of steps. There are delivery  manuals for the drug rehabilitation ‘student’s’ use, as well as training and delivery manuals that guide staff in their program implementation.

There are a number of key points that differentiate the Narconon program as well as define it:

• The Narconon program is not a “medical model.”
• In contrast to the failed concept that addiction is an “incurable disease,” Narconon has demonstrated for over 40 years that with the proper rehabilitation and life skills education, an alcoholic or other drug addict can in fact permanently recover from the disability of “addiction.”
• Rather the Narconon approach is that a person is responsible for his own state, good or bad. This concept has been proven to lead to full recovery for the majority of Narconon program enrollees. The delivery concept is that, when given efficient and caring help to learn new personal life skills and to raise his or her ability to solve personal problems, including physical addiction, the recovering addict can achieve true, lasting recovery.
• Thus, Narconon is a social education life skills model.
• The physical aspect of addiction is also addressed through the use of modern nutrition both to aid in faster and more effective drug withdrawal and later in the program thoroughly to unburden the body of stored drug and other toxic residuals through a unique, carefully administered exercise and sauna sweat-out program.
• If drugs are the problem, it is best if drugs are not the solution.

The Narconon program pioneered the concept of treating addiction not as a “disease” (only to be suppressed with substitute or alternative drugs) but rather as the result of missing life skills. Some other programs have now come to recognize the vital importance of life skills. As well, many researchers now condemn the widespread resort to drugs, pharmaceuticals, and medications to address the daily problems of life -- ‘self-medicating’ instead of confronting life. Dr. Alfonso Paredes [i], Member of Narconon International’s Science Advisory Board, has described this tendency as “hedonistic pharmacology,” meaning using drugs and medications as the most expedient means to experience immediate pleasure and to block out that which is denying one pleasure. Such drug use certainly describes what we commonly call “recreational,” although this all too often leads to abuse and addiction.

• Labeling drugs good or bad is false. A drug creates the same effects however it is branded. A prescribed drug used on the street illegally is the same drug. In Narconon a person learns to free himself or herself from dependence on drugs.

The boundary between street drugs (“bad” drugs) and medical pharmaceuticals (“good” drugs) has become inextricably blurred. The non-medical use of controlled prescription drugs, particularly opioids (such as Oxycontin) and central nervous system (CNS) stimulants is the fastest-rising category of drug abuse among youth and adults. This is not just in the United States, but spreading across Europe and much of the rest of the world. Prescription drugs are the second-most commonly abused drugs resulting in emergency room admissions. Abuse of controlled prescription drugs now exceeds that of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine. NIDA, SAMSHA, and the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy have all warned about this rising trend.[ii]

• Narconon drug-free drug rehabilitation has demonstrated itself to be a better option to address both the immediate and the long-term challenges of drug addiction.

Virtually all alcoholics and other drug addicts make destructive life choices during their decline into addiction. Often this starts with one or more inabilities to deal responsibly with unhappy or threatening life situations. Use of alcohol and/or other drugs too easily presents itself as the false, deceitful “solution” to these difficulties. Recovery is not effective long term, if even possible, without bringing up personal responsibility for drug-related self-destructive or destructive-to-others behavior.

• The Narconon program addresses both the immediate goal of stopping active drug use as well as the long term objective to develop in the recovering addict improved ability to participate in society.
• The educational, humanitarian philosophy of the Narconon program is founded on the fundamental assumption that recovering addicts, regardless of the severity of their problems, can and will become able to develop life tools to assume practical, realistic, individual responsibility for their personal behavior.

Narconon program success rate.

• 75% drug-free one to two years post-graduation: Narconon staff regularly perform the function of ‘routine outcome monitoring’ of Narconon program graduates for at least one to two years. This recognized, professional procedure as well as other external outcome reviews have recorded for decades that three out of four Narconon graduates are able to live stably drug-free lives.

Those who have no further trouble with the law are an even higher percentage. This relates to success from Narconon’s earliest days, when the program began inside prison, up through the early small Narconon residential centers, to the present widespread network of programs varying in size from 20 up to 200 students. The Narconon success rate is basically the same no matter the size of center, the culture, or country.

This success is calibrated through Routine Outcome Monitoring, a process of Narconon staff following up with students for a considerable period after their graduation, as well as speaking with family or friends (with the graduate’s permission). There have been a number of reviews and case studies of different Narconon programs, and their results have shown the same basic success percentage (slightly lower for criminally offending juveniles, in one case study.)

Narconon International sends inspection teams into Narconon centers to maintain the highest level of technical and administrative integrity in order to maintain this high level of graduate success. This is the only purpose of the program – saving lives, restoring persons to real ethical control over their own lives for their good and of those with whom they live and work.

History and Background of the Narconon Program

• Founded by heroin addict William Benitez: The Narconon program was founded in Arizona State Prison in 1966 by an inmate, William Benitez, who was addicted to heroin and for whom this was his sixth time in prison.

Benitez had tried all other existing methods to free himself from his addiction, including much of what still exists today – methadone, psychiatric care, the Twelve Steps – and even joining the military, hoping that enforced discipline would free him. Nothing had worked, but he did not give up on himself. Nor was he unintelligent. He was a voracious reader.

• Based on L. Ron Hubbard’s concept of focusing on ability: In the prison library, among thick tomes on psychology Benitez came across self-help works by philosopher and humanitarian, L. Ron Hubbard. Although Mr. Hubbard did not write there specifically of drugs, he wrote about varying approaches to solving problems – being convinced by others to accommodate oneself to his problem (learning to ‘live with it’) as compared to concentrating on ability and raising one’s abilities to solve any and all problems.

Benitez was impressed with the practical exercises developed by Hubbard to develop these abilities. He recognized that, in application, this would be an entirely different approach towards recovery from addiction. He decided to found a program, naming it “Narconon” to signify “No-Drugs,” implying both that drugs would not be used to solve drugs and that a drug-free life was the goal.

Benitez started inside the prison itself with other heroin and other drug addicts. Some months after he started working, he wrote to Mr. Hubbard and asked for help. L. Ron Hubbard was glad to provide all the conceptual and research support he could. Mr. Hubbard is well known as the founder of the Scientology® religion; however, the materials used in the Narconon program are based on his observations of drug abuse and addiction in society and what can be done about them by society.

• Narconon has always been corporately and financially a distinct, separate organization.
• Narconon does not discriminate according to religious creed or personal belief. The program is a humanitarian endeavor that does not promote or proselytize for any particular religion or religious principles. Narconon students are welcome to attend religious services of their choice in the community.  

Upon his release, Benitez established in 1967 in Los Angeles the first Narconon residential drug rehabilitation center. In 1972, Benitez legally incorporated the Narconon program as a 501(C)3 non-profit public benefit corporation (the same that is Narconon International).

As the Narconon network expanded and evolved, Mr. Hubbard continued his inquiries into drug problems and Narconon incorporated additional techniques of his to address the impact of drugs and alcohol on the individual, especially the use of the dry sauna with an exercise and nutritional regimen as a method to address some of the physical effects of alcohol and other drug use as well as a means of alleviating drug craving.  

Narconon Drug Rehabilitation Methodology.

• The Narconon program is usually delivered in residential settings, although there are non-residential Narconon programs.
• Narconon simply describes itself as a social model life skills educational program. (According to Dr. Paredes, applying the American Society Placement Criteria for the Treatment of Substance Abuse Disorders, the Narconon program may be categorized as a Level III Clinically Managed High Intensity Residential Service.)
• All Narconon centers observe Federal and State Confidentiality rules.

The Narconon program is guided by explicit concepts and follows defined procedures:

• Program participants are not clients, nor patients. They are called and are “students,” studying and practicing new skills in a social, non-hospital setting.
• Average length of time to program completion – 3 to 6 months:

In alignment with its educational orientation, the program is structured along eight steps, also called courses. Each step is delivered according to a standardized format outlined in the Narconon program course manuals. Course supervisors monitor and guide students as they progress at-their-own-pace self-paced participant progress through the courses. Once a student has demonstrated competence to understand and apply the skills of one step, he progresses to the next. He or she may take longer or shorter to do this. Individual progress on each course is fully documented. Every Narconon has quality control procedures to assure that rehabilitation services are delivered according to the standards defined in the manuals.

Once the student completes and graduates from the program, he or she returns to his community. At this point Narconon continues to provide after-care services, via a special department that maintains communication with the graduate to monitor his implementation of a personal Individual Re-entry Plan, prepared prior to discharge.

• This department provides support and makes sure that the graduate actually carries out his Re-entry Plan and applies the knowledge and skills learned in his Narconon studies so that he indeed is able to live stably drug-free.

Components of the Narconon Program:

• It is standard Narconon policy that all persons admitted to the Narconon program receive a physical examination by a physician.
• Random drug screening for possible use of illicit drugs is done throughout the program.

0. Non-Medicated, Drug-free Withdrawal:

To state the obvious, new enrollees arrive either under the influence or having very recently used.

• Referral to medical detox: Those individuals who, according to the admitting physician, are in need of medically supervised withdrawal are referred to an appropriate provider to evaluate and manage their symptoms before they are admitted to the Narconon drug-free program. This can include users of large quantities of alcohol or tranquilizers, those under higher dosages of methadone (which requires a monitored step-down rather than going ‘cold turkey’), or an opportunity to receive more detailed blood and other tests, if the doctor so decides. Medical detoxes (or withdrawals) are short term affairs, just long enough to step down to a point where drug-free Narconon withdrawal methodology can be applied, with the approval of the admitting physician.

However, the great majority of applicants do not need these specialized services and are enrolled directly into the program. This includes persons with long histories of heroin or other opiates, cocaine, methamphetamine and other stimulants, lesser-use alcohol cases, etc. Because Oxycontin is a slow-release powerful opioid, some persons with heavy Oxy histories may need a medically supervised initial withdrawal before coming to Narconon.

• Drug-free withdrawal: The Narconon withdrawal program is a drug-free, staff-assisted process whereby clients discontinue their use of alcohol and/or other drugs. The progress of new admitted persons is closely monitored and documented by an onsite nurse or other qualified personnel and the program physician. Provided in what is called a “social setting” (meaning not a “hospital setting”), this drug-free withdrawal intervention is under 24-hour supervision by trained paraprofessionals.

Upon acceptance by Narconon program personnel for admission, 24-hour care begins for the applicant. Staff record withdrawal symptoms and vital signs three times daily, including hours of sleep or rest as well as food and fluid intake, etc.

• Drug withdrawal symptoms are usually the opposite of the primary effects created by the drug. For example, opiates which are pain-killers and soporifics (causing sleep) produce in withdrawal great pain and utter inability to sleep. Tranquilizers in withdrawal produce acute (temporary) extreme anxiety (alcohol, similarly, which is actually more a hypnotic). Cocaine, methamphetamine and other stimulants produce pronounced fatigue, apathy, and acute symptoms of depression.
• Long-term effects after drug use:  In addition to the stress of withdrawing from recent drug use, addicts suffer from chronic effects of drug abuse, often long after they stop. There is a growing body of research tracking these effects including their influence on the body’s nutritional balance. For example, one recently published paper said: “Research is mounting that the long-term effects of drug consumption are greater than has been assumed. It is not simply the case that these effects occur during active drug use, but rather that these effects continue after discontinuation of drug use.”[iii]
•  Narconon use of nutrition during withdrawal: The majority of alcohol and other drug withdrawal symptoms, both physical and mental/emotional, rather closely parallel the deficiency symptoms of Calcium, Magnesium, and the B vitamins, as well as of vitamin C, the amino acids, etc. Therefore, Narconon uses simple, readily absorbable formulations of these nutrients to assist a person to withdraw not only more rapidly than through suppressing symptoms with another addictive medication, but more naturally, as the body can use these nutrients to immediately start the healing process. Alcoholics and drug addicts who have attempted withdrawal in other program models are frequently amazed at the relative comfort and the accelerated pace of recovery using Narconon methodology. It does not go unnoticed by the addict that he is “feeling better” not through the use of pharmaceuticals, tranquilizers, and opiate-blockers, but through basic nutrition.
• Research continues to validate mega-vitamin treatment in therapy. For a few related science references, see at the end of this article: “A partial reference list on nutrition, drug abuse, and treatment.”
• Physical and mental “assists” to aid the person withdrawing: Based on techniques designed by Mr. Hubbard, Narconon withdrawal specialists offer frequent “assists” to the person in immediate withdrawal, no matter the time of day. These include hands-on techniques to help the person maintain communication with his body instead of turning away or trying to “turn it all off” (just exactly what the drugs caused in the first place). Also, techniques to help the person “stay in present time” rather than let his mind and attention wander all over the past and future problems of his life. They also greatly reduce pain and other discomfort.

These techniques put the recovering addict in better control and establish the concept of self-responsibility, even at this early phase of the program. One, he is fully aware of what is going on the whole time and is personally participating. Two, as symptoms of withdrawal are not camouflaged but directly treated, the person is able to see the actual effects of his drug use on his or her body and mind. Three, at no time is he a “patient.” Right from the first hour, he is a student, involved in the learning process.

• Length of Narconon drug-free withdrawal: Under normal circumstances, initial physical withdrawal is normally accomplished within one week, hardly ever more than two. This includes heavy heroin withdrawal. The withdrawal step is not complete until not only the supervising Narconon staff but the person himself is willing to “attest” that he has completed withdrawal. That a heroin addict can begin to rest and sleep after only a few days in withdrawal is considered by them rather a miracle. Quite standard with this procedure.
• Narconon First Step outreach programs: Not only Narconon drug rehabilitation centers, but other centers worldwide including many traditional Twelve Step centers are now using these Narconon First Step drug-free withdrawal procedures. Narconon International has provided workshops in how to use these techniques to centers throughout Mexico (known there as Narconon Primer Paso), in the Philippines, Pakistan, India, Africa, Australia, as well as in the United States and Europe. Police, social workers, drug enforcement or anti-narcotic agents, pastors and priests, and medical doctors interested in using these techniques in their own clinics have taken these workshops and applied the methodology in many different environments, far beyond residential treatment facilities. Even family members or friends can learn how to use these techniques to help an addict step down off his drugs of choice and withdraw at home, voluntarily, with the help of persons who care for him.
• Abatement of drug withdrawal symptoms: It is understood that there are longer term mental and emotional withdrawal symptoms that will take many steps of the Narconon program before they fully abate and/or disappear. But from the Narconon perspective, these are not considered chronic symptoms, just persistent.
• Drug-related “depression” and “anxiety”: What about what is commonly called “dual diagnosis,” that is, evaluating a person’s mental and emotional state as well as physical? That an enrolling alcoholic or drug addict would be experiencing moderate depression and/or anxiety is not surprising. There can be many causes of such “depression” beyond any hypothesized “chemical imbalance” in the body. These would include the circumstances of the person’s life – for example, a drug dealer from whom he stole money looking for him with a crowbar, a wife who has said she might divorce him, his own criminal or irresponsible acts haunting him, upcoming court dates. Feeling ‘down’ is not at all inappropriate in such a life circumstance. Diagnosing this as ‘depression’ and chemically suppressing it is the very opposite of the Narconon approach. As the Narconon student studies and completes the standard, successive steps of the Narconon life skills program, his self esteem and overall state of well being routinely improve -- not from chemical treatment, but from increased ability which will serve him the rest of his life. Ability is the focus.

Once the Narconon enrollee no longer has physical symptoms of acute withdrawal, he or she begins the first of eight Narconon program steps.

2. Communication Skills: The “Therapeutic Training Routines.”

Under the self-destructive influence of alcohol and other drugs, addicts progressively withdraw from their friends and family and are perceived to be more and more unable to engage in constructive social interaction. Particularly to those who share conventional social values, they have “dropped out of communication.” But the truth is that drugs have impeded their ability to communicate, or worsened what may have already been a vitally missing life skill. Instead, they with deviant peers they introvert on their own perceived (perhaps real) problems and swelter in their self-disabling emotions.

This is evident on the surface. How to address it “from the inside out” is the challenge. The Narconon program gives very high importance to helping its students regain (or develop for the first time) a real ability to communicate effectively, to comfortably interact with others, and thus to regain self control around others. The “TR’s” are drills where students, practicing in pairs with one another, practice step by the step the actual skills involved in being able to be there and confront others, to listen, and to communicate. They are quite remarkably effective. And, what is more important, are a lot of fun, too. A course supervisor assists them, but does not instruct them. They must learn for themselves. The supervisor does not so much “answer” questions from students, as assist them to find their own answers.

3. The New Life Detoxification Program – the ‘sauna sweat-out’ protocol.

The word ‘detoxification’ here is used not with its more recent definition of ‘physically withdrawing from drugs’ (‘stopping usage’), but in its original sense – ‘reducing the body burden of residual toxins.’

Dr. Paredes, in describing this unique step of the Narconon program, has written, “L. Ron Hubbard had an early interest on the effects of environmental toxic substances such as industrial chemicals, pesticides, foods additives and preservatives and radiation. He saw parallels between the toxic effects of many of these substances and the effects of drugs used in medicine particularly psychiatric drugs and drugs of abuse. With these concerns in mind, in 1978 Mr. Hubbard developed the New Life Detoxification Program—an intervention including exercise, prescribed periods in a low-heat, well-ventilated sauna and vitamin/mineral supplementation—as a means to release and accelerate the elimination of toxic chemicals including drugs and their metabolites from body stores. He felt this would help to gain mental stability and spiritual improvement.”[iv]

He continues, “In regard to drugs of abuse, it is known that drugs and their metabolites may be retained for extended periods of time in body tissues usually in tissues of high in fat content, such as the brain and adipose tissue, where, depending on the drug, they may remain for an extended time.[v], The prolonged bodily storage of commonly abused substances was documented as early as 1957 for LSD[vi]; by 1988 for cocaine[vii]; and 1977 for amphetamine compounds[viii]. PCP (phencyclidine) has also been shown to persist in fat and brain tissues, which is thought may account for some long-lasting behavioral effects[ix]. THC, an active ingredient in marijuana, has been detected in fat tissue for up to four weeks after last use[x]. Sensitive measurement techniques have detected THC in blood and urine up to two months following discontinued use, a fact that strongly suggests that the presence of the THC was due to its release from storage in fatty tissue[xi]. Given the above, Hubbard’s interest in finding a method to eliminate drugs from the system has validity.”

There is a specific regimen. The student must receive physician approval to follow the protocol, but almost all persons can.

There has been a great deal of scientific study and review of the Hubbard sauna detoxification method with regard to industrial and catastrophic exposure, environmental,  and indeed all forms of human toxicity. Many published or conference-presented papers are available at the website of the International Association of Detoxification Specialists (www.detoxacademy.org).

One of the key vitamin supplements used is niacin (B3) which is delivered only in its instant-release crystalline form in gradually increasing amounts, balanced with other vitamins and minerals. Slow-release niacin is not used, which has been shown in a few studies to be damaging in high quantities to the liver. Instant release niacin, to the contrary, has been shown to help heal the liver.

The New Life Detoxification regimen has been used within the Narconon program for more than 30 years with the students attesting significant personal gains. Narconon does not claim health benefits for the procedure, although these have been manifested in the many case studies of the procedure. But it does seek a psychotherapeutic benefit. Students themselves state this most simply they near the end of the procedure.

• “The drugs aren’t talking to me anymore,” students often state, or in similar words.

That is the expected gain and it affects both recovering from past use and helping the person not relapse in future, as well.

The rehabilitative program just outlined is provided on a daily basis, seven days a week.

Life Improvement Courses:

The balance of the Narconon program consists of a series of educational, life skills courses. They deal with improving problem solving skills (what may be called “coping” skills in other programs) and with confronting one’s own personal ethical and moral perspective. The purpose is to help the student to get his life back under his self-determined control. Equally importantly, it is to rediscover his self-worth and personal dignity, which he himself (and his family and friends) may have thought he had lost forever to drugs.

These courses are studied only after symptoms of drug withdrawal have been relieved and the client begins to experience physical and emotional well-being. After completing these courses, the student should be able to construct a personal sense of ethics and right and wrong which will function well for him when he returns to society.

3. Learning How to Study, Learning How to Learn:

This simple but powerful course addresses specific barriers to study and comprehension  and how to overcome them. Many alcohol and other drug users began to consume early in their schooling and, as a result, did not do well in school. Many feel they “are not good learners” or that they “cannot study.” This is only an apparency.

• This course reinvigorates interest in and desire to study, and actually shows simply but accurately how to study successfully.

This is essential not only to complete the Narconon program, but to use in work and family and life situations.  

4. Communication and Perception Course: Alcohol and drugs are toxins. Over a span of time these poisons create a similar effect to other severe stresses in life – they cement the person’s attention in the stressful (toxic) moments of his past. The addict falls further and further out of present time, and in fact cannot be in present time, in the present moment operating off of “right now” information. Instead he or she lives, mostly unknown to himself even if observable to others, in the past, acting out his past misery and stress in the present.

How can one help the recovering addict bring his attention (and mindfulness) more into the present so that there is, so to speak, “more of him” here and now? The drills and exercises of this course are uniquely designed to bring the person into better perception of the present and into better self-control of body and mind. The exercises are done in teams of two, each student helping run the other through the drills in turnabout.

* Taking responsibility for someone outside oneself is an important component of recovery.

5. The Ups and Downs in Life Course – Differentiating Friends from ‘False’ Friends

The Ups and Downs in Life Course invites the student to identify and recognize those characteristics that are often associated with an ‘anti-social’ person, that is, someone who is destructive or opposed to the growth and improvement of another or who opposes anything constructive. Comparing these to a similar set of ‘social’ characteristics, the Narconon student can examine the behavior of past friends and other associates and determine those few who are really not his or friend and who should be, if not avoided, dealt with carefully.

* One of the principal causes of relapse after earlier drug rehabilitation success is from association with destructive ‘friends’ in the work, environment, at home, or anywhere.

 The “getting better” and then “getting worse” wave of “up and down” is much associated with this, hence the name of the course. The student may learn a great deal about his own self-destructive or anti-social behavior of the past. This is not a bad thing. One cannot change what one cannot see.

6. The Personal Values and Integrity Course: Not just Narconon but many other drug rehabilitation programs (such as the Twelve Steps, in particular) ask the recovering addict to look to his past and to confront the harm he has done others and himself. And rightly so, for this is the essence of respsonsibility. Narconon does not take this up until the student is physically totally recovered and has enough of his attention truly in the present to be actually able to do this difficult self-assessment.

He is guided in the process by examining his life through 8 “dynamics” or vectors of survival in life. The addict normally is thinking too much or only of himself, and this is the start – survival as self, physically and mentally. But then he must look outward to a widening circle of his involvement in the survival of others, his effect, past and present, on them and theirs on him. This starts next with the second dynamic – sex and family. Then groups – work, clubs, associations, political, etc. Then as modern civilization has amply shown, the next dynamic is all mankind, our survival not just as individuals but through mankind, our effect on all mankind. Then all life forms, as in what is called ‘ecology’ today. Then survival through the physical things of life – one’s things, house, car, the state of the land, air, and water around one. And then into the spiritual realm, one’s interrelation with the highest spiritual qualities of man, art, culture, and spirit itself. And finally, in a non-didactic sense, one’s personal relationship with the Creator, infinity, eternity, whatever one’s understanding of this is.

• Regarding this point: it is important to note that the Narconon program is non-religious, secular.

It recognizes each individual’s right to his own religious or spiritual belief, understanding, or creed. In fact, during the program, students are encouraged to continue or re-start their participation in their own church and escorted to these on appropriate days, if they so choose.

ALL of these dynamics of survival and action are considered in the personal, private, but very detailed write-up that the Narconon student does.

As a result, he or she experiences great relief and a resurgence of common feeling with friends and family. One cannot have self-esteem when one is hiding oneself from others. With this course, the Narconon student begins to construct his own personal concept of rational and pro-survival ethics, taking into account the wellbeing of others as much as his own.

7. Changing Conditions in Life Course: Having taken the time, as long as it takes, to successfully complete each of the earlier steps, the recovering student is now ready to learn very practical skills that will help him actually change the various conditions he has found himself to be in. The concept is that there are some rather common sense, although perhaps also very clever and powerful, steps that one can take to improve the condition of some area of life. One needs to understand that, for example, when things are ‘normal,’ that is, ‘going along well all things considered,’ he just continues doing what he is doing. ‘If it is not broken, don’t fix it,’ as the old saying goes. But if things are worsening, he must take different measures, change his operating basis, not continue doing things that did not work. Or if they are really going downhill rapidly, he must recognize the incipient danger and handle it and then recognize what unethical or irresponsible actions of his own had contributed to that. Similarly, if there is a sudden affluence or sharp uptrend, this too is not ‘normal,’ but requires a different approach to maintain the gain. Too many people work very hard and get their just reward and then…waste the opportunity.

How to handle these very different circumstances of life, good and bad, are the extremely practical tools of this course. The student studies them and then, right there, begins to apply them to the conditions of his life. As one can see, the Narconon student is progressively put more and more ‘at cause,’ put in charge, enable to take control and then shown how to do so. This is a uniquely personal activity and must be worked out individually for each student by himself, for himself (with a little help and supervision from the course supervisor and the student’s “twin,” or companion who is doing the course with him, each working with the other.)

 8. The Way to Happiness Course: The final course of the Narconon drug rehabilitation program utilizes a simple, but powerful book of the same name, written by Mr. Hubbard. This is a non-religious, but very ethical, common sense set of good choices that a person can make who wishes to approach closer and closer to whatever ‘happiness’ may signify for him.

* A descending scale of less and less responsibility: A person falling into the more and more miserable state of addiction descends through levels of disability. When he can think and make personal decisions ethically, life should be going pretty well. When he cannot do that, he can at least follow the moral codes of his group. But because of drugs and other confusions (perhaps, as a soldier in war, or when as an addict he is living on the street), sooner or later he cannot even obey the moral codes he was raised with. If he follows at least the law, he may not get in too much more trouble. When he no longer cares for the law, then public justice enters in, and a judge will begin to tell him what he must or must not do. If, again because of drugs and/or personal disability to think rationally, he cannot even obey the judge, then the lowest level of control is through pain and penalty.

This describes the descending scale of responsibility, but interestingly also inherently describes how to move in the other direction. A drug addict who is sick several times a day and desperately trying to figure out how to survive, but is not surviving, is living under duress, pain and penalty.

• The concept that happiness may even be possible might seem rather dim. But if one is offered a set of precepts that help you to make common-sense good choices, this might help as a guide.

It has proven so. Particularly, after Narconon students have done all the earlier steps of the program, now when they read chapters on the 21 precepts of The Way to Happiness, they discover that what others call ‘common sense’ is something might have been utterly lost while he was an addict, but that he can now reconstruct. The precepts start very simply: “Take care of yourself” (exercise, keep your body clean, eat well, get enough sleep, take care of your teeth) – simple enough. But also later, precepts such as “Be competent” – if one wishes to get and retain work, he needs to understand that improving his competence is part of the way to a happier life. Also, “Do not harm a person of goodwill” – supporting those who are doing their part to hold family, or the workplace, or society together. “Be industrious.” And many other precepts, each presented with an essay. There is also a film of the book which offers visual real examples.

Happiness is most predictable, even if one is not sure how to define it, when one takes steps that lead toward a more ethical life. This is the theory, and practice bears it out. Now it is for the student completing his residential or non-residential period of drug rehabilitation to practice and find out for himself.

Additional Student Resources

In addition to the above courses and steps, there are other services available to Narconon students as needed:

Review Counseling: Some students have difficulty learning a part of the Narconon program. For some studying is a much more difficult activity than for others. These persons are referred to a specially trained staff member who will review with a student a course or concept he is having trouble with and then take measures to help him ‘get it.’ Often this means finding what earlier was misunderstood and clearing that up. (You cannot build a bridge on pylons that are defective, or raise a pylon on a foundation that was poorly laid, etc.) A lot of it has to do with the meanings of words. These review sessions are done one-on-one until the student has overcome his or her difficulties and is ready to continue learning the materials presented in the normal classroom environment.

Personal counseling for those who run into trouble during their program: Among alcoholics and other drug addicts, there are some, of course, who make themselves rather impossible to deal with. They are so out of control that efforts to help them learn self-control do not progress well. Meanwhile, they actively make the environment uncomfortable or unsafe for others. The Narconon perspective is that often such persons can be dealt with one-on-one and brought to see through their acting-out of their bad feelings to the need to rein themselves in long enough perhaps to improve conditions so they don’t feel so bad all the time. This is simple to state. Doing it is another Narconon specialty -- a very precise activity, known in Narconon as ‘working with the Ethics Officer.’ This staff member consults with the student outside the course environment, not just about the ‘rules’ he has broken, but about the underlying problem the student was trying to solve by breaking the rules. Once they come to an understanding, the student is given a customized ‘ethics’ program to complete under supervision. This may include study and practice activities from a Narconon course or a personalized activity to address the particular disruptive behavior (sometimes making amends to the group and asking for their permission to re-enter.)

Importantly, the purpose is not punishment, nor penalty, but rather empowering the out-of-control student to regain control and then get on it. Self-control is why he came to Narconon in the first place. It is not easy to come off drugs. One can fall back and momentarily act out former drug-related behavior. But one can learn from his mistakes. Sometimes that is the most powerful learning of all.

If working with the Ethics Officer fails, there may be a temporary ‘suspension’ (with a program to be done if the person wishes to return). Under certain circumstances, a person who is too destructive to others will need to be dismissed, but this step is only taken when there is nothing else to do.

Program Completion and Discharge:

Individualized Re-Entry Program: After a student has completed the full Narconon program, before he or she departs, the Senior Case Supervisor (case manager) reviews each step. The objective is to detect any areas that may not have been adequately covered. If needed, the Case Supervisor creates a customized program to ensure that each student is able to apply what he has learned during the program upon re-entry into his society and community and to his own specific life circumstances.

Then the soon-to-graduate student meets with special staff who, while he has been doing the program, have been in regular contact with family or others important to the student’s life, as available. Based on their input as well as the student’s personal data, the staff and student formulate a thorough re-entry plan.

As Dr. Paredes describes it, this is a “therapeutic contract that specifies the strategies that will be applied by the student once he is back the community.” Part of this plan consists of a detailed assessment of the personal problems and situations that may have led the person into drugs in the first place.

Routine Outcome Monitoring: The student agrees to a follow-up schedule of calls. A typical follow up schedule is: Once a week from month 1 to 3; once every two weeks from month 4 to 6; once per month from month 6 to 12; and once every three months from month 13 to 34. During each call the specialist discusses with the graduate the program he or she has made on each of the goals defined in the discharge plan. Changes in the plan are made if necessary.

• CARF (the Rehabilitation Accreditation Commission) has praised this Narconon Routine Outcome Monitoring. The procedure was even reviewed by a team studying use of follow-up surveys for the Center of Substance Abuse Treatment of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

If the individual has difficulty moving into his new life, Narconon staff will seek to provide assistance. If the situation is severe enough to warrant it, the staff member will encourage the graduate to return to the Narconon rehabilitation center so that the difficulties can be reviewed, addressed in depth and corrected.

It is important to note that Narconon staff share responsibility for the success or failure of the student. Of course, each individual is responsible for his own condition, but the whole concept of the Narconon program is that ethics implies working with others, not being separated out from them. It is partially because Narconon staff take responsibility to reach out even after the intensive rehabilitation process is complete to maintain communication with graduates that the Narconon program has such an excellent record of long-term, stably drug-free lives for its graduates.

A Partial Reference List on Nutrition, Drug Abuse, and Treatment:

1. Regarding drug abuse having long-term effects:

(A) Altman, J, A biological view of drug abuse, Moi Med Today 1996; 2:237-41.

(B) Bucher R, Obrocki J, Thomasius R, et al, Long-term effects of ‘ecstasy’ abuse on the human brain studied by FDG PET. Nucl Med Commun 2001; 22:889-9713.

(C) Morgan CJ, Riccelli M, Maitland CH, Curran HV, Long-term effects of ketamine: evidence for a persisting impairment of source memory in recreational users. Drug Alcohol Depend 12004; 75:301-8.

2. Some examples of alcohol drug-induced nutritional deficiencies:

A. (Vitamin A, B1, B6) Mechanisms of vitamin deficiencies in alcoholism, Hoyumpa AM, Alcohol Clin Exp Res 1986 Dec 10:573-81.

B. (Vitamin E) Bjornboe & Bjornboe, 1993, Alcohol and Alcoholism Vol 28: 111-116.

C. (Vitamin E) Odeleye et al, 1991, Alcohol Vol 8: 273-277.

D. (Vitamin C) Adult scurvy, Hirschmann JV, Raugi GJ, J Am Acad Dermatol 1999 Dec 41:895-906; quiz 907-10.

E. (Vitamin B1) Merck Manual of Diagnosis & Therapy, Chptr 195  Drug Use & Dependence: Alcoholism, 2002

3. Calcium and Magnesium in rehab treatment: “…in one drug rehab study, treatment with Calcium and Magnesium as well as other vitamins and amino acids has shown rapid improvement in psychological test scores.” (Methodology: Use of Orthomolecular Techniques for Alcohol and Drug Abuse in a Post-Detox Setting, Libby et al, 1982, Orthomolecular Psychiatry Vol 11: 277-288.)

4. Thiamine (B1) plus B12 and folate have been shown to prevent alcohol-induced psychosis, or Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome. (Mechanisms of vitamin deficiency in chronic alcohol misusers and the development of the Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, Thomson AD, Alcohol Alcohol Suppl 35 Suppl 1:2-7.)

5. Mega-vitamin therapy in treatment: “Nutrients commonly used in current treatment programs include niacin/niacinamide; B Complex vitamins especially B1, B5, B6; antioxidants such as vitamin C and vitamin E; calcium and magnesium…Each of these facilitate a large number of metabolic processes and their deficiencies can be associated with mental disturbances. Some programs support nervous system restoration by including amino acids as neurotransmitter precursors…and essential fatty acids…

“Safety studies indicate that adverse effects from short-term use of high dose vitamin, mineral and/or amino acid combinations, such as are used during withdrawal or rehabilitation, are negligible. With the exception of synthetic vitamin A, it is most likely that adverse events associated with high doses of a single vitamin are actually caused by resulting nutrient imbalances.”

Quoted from paper: “Are we ignoring effective substance abuse treatment solutions? Vitamin therapy as an essential treatment component.”

K Kerr, M.D., M Cecchini MS

Presented at Third International Conf on Human Detoxification, New York City, Hunter College, 2005

6. Nutrient malabsorption by alcoholics: (Alcohol, nutrition and malabsorption, Green PH, Clin Gastroenterol 1983 May 12:563-74; and Nutrition and vitamins in alcoholism, Ryle PR, Thomson AD, Contemp Issues Clin Biochem 1984 1:188-224.)

7. Use of B1 and  B complex: (Merck Manual, op cit., Alcoholism:Treatment/ Withdrawal.)

8. Use of Pantothenic Acid (B5): (“Opinion of the Scientific Committee on Food on the Tolerable Upper Intake Level of Pantothenic Acid,” 18 April 2002, http://europa.eu.int/comm/food/fs/sc/scf/index_en.html.)

9. Vitamin C and drugs references go back 70 years:

A. UK Expert Group on Vitamins and Minerals, pg 9 ff, EVM/99/21.Revised August 2002; and

B. Baroriak JJ,et al., Journal of Nutrition 63, 601, 1957; and

C. Nutritional Review 15, 185, 1957; and

D. Sulzberger MB, et al., Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. Med. 32, 716, 1935; and

E. Cormia FE, Canadian Medical Association Journal 36, 392, 1937; and

F. Cohen MB, Journal of Allergy 10, 15, 1938; and

G. Dugal LP, et al., Endocrinology 44, 420, 1949.

10. Use of megadose niacinamide (a metabolite of B3): In one study in Italy, 1.25 grams of niacinamide was used to counteract the liver-damaging effects of continued consumption of 750 ml of wine: “…results indicate that nicotinamide counteracts the acute hepatotoxic (liver-damaging) effects of ethanol by ameliorating the redox state.”

(Nicotinamide counteracts alcohol-induced impairment of hepatic protein metabolism in humans. E Volpi, P Lucidi, G Cruciani, F Monacchia, G Reboldi, P Brunetti, GB Boll, and P De Feo. J. Nutrition 127: 2199 – 2204, 1997.)