The Narconon Drug
Rehabilitation Program
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Those enrolled in the Narconon program study courses and learn communication skills which address the reasons why they became addicts in the first place – and give them a head start in a drug-free life. | |
very day, in all parts of the world, the problem of drug abuse is a sinister reminder of man’s darker moments. It reminds us most dramatically in the form of crime — especially severe and violent crime. Drug smuggling, armed robbery, arson, auto theft, prostitution and murder are all routinely associated with drug dealing or addiction. Even white-collar crimes frequently connect to substance abuse and drug money.
The resulting cases jam our courts: misdemeanors, felonies, even capital offenses. The prisoners crowd our jails and sponge away tax dollars needed to sustain them and to build more and greater facilities to hold them. In fact, more than 60 percent of all federal prisoners are in jail for drug-related offenses. The crimes consume ever-increasing law enforcement attention and result in added expenditures. A vast — and growing — number of government attorneys at state and federal levels do nothing but prosecute offenders. But there is a way out.
Freedom has reported extensively on the widely acclaimed and uniquely successful Narconon drug rehabilitation program. (See Freedom, Volume 27, Issue 3.)
Narconon utilizes an exact series of drills, exercises and study steps which enable an addict to not only “kick his habit” but assist the person to address the problem areas in his life which were a direct cause of his addiction. It also utilizes a major discovery by Mr. Hubbard — that residues of drugs and toxins lodge in the fatty tissues of the body and stay there for years after they have been ingested. These residues can create adverse effects on the individual causing fatigue, lack of perception and confused thinking. This discovery forms the basis for a revolutionary detoxification program which removes residual toxins and drugs from the body.
Further steps in the program include a series of communication drills which assist the person to improve his relationships with others, a course which teaches the basics of how to study and courses to help the person deal with the various situations in his life. The end result is a person who knows that he is free from drugs and drug residuals and also free from any desire to take drugs again.
Narconon deals with the source of much of today’s crime by taking addicts and rehabilitating them so that they no longer desire or depend on drugs. And it has been enormously successful. Studies show that while 73 percent of those who come to Narconon dealt in drugs before the program, zero percent did so after the program. Similarly, while 62.2 percent committed robberies before Narconon, zero percent did afterward.
Curing Addiction Cures Crime
One man’s story illustrates the effectiveness of the program and how Narconon truly helps make society safer.
More than 25 years ago, Michael Gosselin was growing up in the Southern California community of Sunset Beach. He was a champion competitive surfer, ranked 13th in the world at his prime. He made money working in a local pizza parlor.
As the drug culture grew around him in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he started to use drugs and then became interested in the lucrative business of smuggling and peddling drugs. “To a guy who was used to making hardly any money,” said Gosselin, “it was very seductive — all the money to be made from drug dealing. I sure wasn’t going to make that kind of money surfing and selling pizza.”
Soon he was smuggling marijuana, and occasionally cocaine, into California from Baja — “literally tons of it,” said Gosselin. He would sell it to anyone who was interested, while still spending time on the beach and surfing when he could. After a while, his surfing fell away to even more involvement in the drug trade, and drugs became his lifestyle.
In 1971, he was arrested by federal agents on charges of smuggling and dealing drugs and assaulting an officer — when Gosselin broke the nose of an arresting officer and took his gun. He “celebrated” his 21st birthday during a five-year sentence at Terminal Island.
When he got out, nothing had changed. “Drugs were available everywhere in prison — even the guards were involved, using and dealing,” said Gosselin. “The time inside only made me more of a criminal. I came out a total anarchist, a real animal — no one you would want to meet in a dark alley.”
Within 90 days, Gosselin was back in prison, this time in Folsom, serving a five-year sentence for a botched armed robbery. He was later transferred to San Quentin and released in 1980.
“At this point, I saw that I was in a revolving-door situation. Everyone I knew was using drugs and involved in crime. I had to get away,” said Gosselin. So he left Southern California altogether, moving to isolated Yuba City in Northern California where he worked as a farm hand, laying low to get through his two years of probation without getting picked up for another offense.
Then, in 1983, he moved to Southern California with his girlfriend and soon found himself running with the same crowd he’d tried to escape from a few years before. And that year, he was picked up for another botched robbery attempt and served 16 months in prison in Chino, California. “When I got out, I was determined to get away again. I moved up into the mountains in Northern San Diego County,” Gosselin said. He still used drugs, but managed to stay away from organized crime for a short while. “That was when my brother told me about Narconon and what it could do for me,” he said. In 1988, he went to Narconon Los Angeles and started the Narconon program there.
“The first step of the first course was all it took,” said Gosselin. “I knew it was the truth, and it worked. Everything began to make sense, and I saw how I had gotten into drugs in the first place,” he said. “It was the beginning of a new life for me — I left drugs and crime all behind me, and I’ve never used a drug since. And I’ve never looked back.”
A New Life
For Michael, life has been “straight up” ever since he did the program. He started working for Narconon as a counselor, and after more than seven years there he became on executive of Narconon International.
“I have a great career, I’ve been married for seven years now and I know I have a future. I want to help everyone who was like me, and we help hundreds of people every day through Narconon,” said Gosselin. “I can even get my criminal record sealed now — something I would have had no hope of if I had not found this program.”
Michael’s story is just one of many that happen every day at Narconon centers across the world. “Every person, like Michael, who successfully does the program means one less criminal — and one more contributing member of society,” said John Duff, former president of Narconon International. “The results tell the story. This is the way to reduce crime and unburden our courts, not more jails or agents.”
Gosselin agrees. “The problem really isn’t building up borders or adding more agents and weapons to our national arsenal. That’s just battling the symptom, not the core problem.
“Drugs are a matter of supply and demand — the problem is that people want them, and no matter what barriers you erect, people will find a way to get them if they want them. With Narconon, we help people to rid themselves of the desire for drugs. With that problem solved, you solve the drug problem and the crime that goes with it.
“Narconon is the solution. With it, people can leave their lives of drugs and crime behind them. I know — I did,” adds Gosselin.
For more information on the Narconon drug rehabilitation and education program, call Narconon International at (800) 468-6933.
