The decision to write this post took a long time. It’s a long post too.
First off, I am not a scientologist or ex-scientologist. I understand a lot about the Co$ as I have been following news about it for several years now. After you read this, you'll see why.
Unfortunately, I have to keep the names of the people involved in this confidential. Not because they were involved in Co$, but because of the stigma of addiction. Some of my family members would be appalled if they saw this and they’ve been through enough. Even as I am hitting Submit - I feel really weird about making this public - even in an anonymous way.
Narconon has contributed to the deaths of more people that the poor folks who died while in care at their facilities. Let me explain why.
THE DRUG ADDICTION
My younger brother struggled with drug addiction for many years. He had been to a couple of detox programs and rehab programs, but subsequently relapsed after each one.
It's hard to put across the toll it takes on family members to watch an addict destroy their own and their children's lives. To see them enter treatment programs then quit for a while, get a feeling of elation that this time, finally, they would be freed, only to have one's hopes dashed again at the next relapse. Years and years of this really wear a family down. It also wears the addict down. AA's philosophy is to stop helping, let the addict hit bottom and they will make their own decision to stop. But - there are bottoms - losing jobs/divorce/etc - and deeper bottoms - prison/homelessness/etc - and the deepest bottom of all - death. My brother had hit so many bottoms that we all knew in our guts, the next one was the deepest. It turned out we were right.
So that's how it was when my family encountered Narconon. Knowing that my brother was on the precipice, that death was just around the next corner. Burnt out on the getting clean / relapse cycle.
LOOKING FOR A NON-12 STEP PROGRAM
My brother hated AA. This was partly because my late father had been in recovery and got involved in AA in a "culty" kind of way. I don't believe AA is a cult, but it has some cultish qualities and certain members treat it like one. He attended 1-2 meetings per day, every day, for 15 years. He only associated with other people in AA, believed the people outside "the program" "didn't get it,”, the writings of Bill W were infallible, and that leaving AA meant insanity or death. When confronted with complex questions, many times my father tossed an AA slogan at you in response, instead of actually listening and thinking of more nuanced, less pat answers. It was a cop-out and my sibling hated that, and he extrapolated that hatred, rightly or wrongly, to AA. This is one of the reasons that my brother did not want to attend one of the more established treatment programs like Hazelden.
NARCONON RECRUITMENT
Isn’t the name itself deceptive?. Narconon. Many people would confuse it with Narcotics Anonymous – the spin-off of Alcoholics Anonymous is known as “Nar-Anon”. The association with AA/NA lends Narconon an air of legitimacy it does not deserve.
I'm not sure whether my brother stumbled on Narconon first, or another family member. At any rate, the intake people at Narconon ended up speaking on the phone to another family member, and told them everything they wanted to hear. Narconon said that while other treatment centers had low recovery rates, they had a whopping 70% success rate! The other treatment centers cost (at that time) $25k, but Narconon cost less. I believe it cost as much as $5k to $10k less. That’s a pretty significant amount of money. (And don’t underestimate how drained of funds families of addicts are…)
Most people have little training in or understanding of the scientific method, and Narconon exploits that. They sent my family member articles of “studies” done on their dubiously high success rate. By then, I was starting to research this treatment center and I was highly disturbed by the things I was discovering. I brought up that the success rate was BS and why the studies were not valid. But they just would not listen to me.
My family member also really bought into the idea of the Purification Rundown. On the surface, in a simplistic way, it makes sense. Drugs are toxic. Sweat eliminates toxins. Saunas make you sweat so saunas detox you. Vitamins are good. More vitamins are better. Massive vitamins cure things. But the science behind it is junk science. The studies are flawed and were not subject to peer review.
However, the thing that the staff at Narconon knows is that by the time someone calls them for help, that person is exhausted. They don’t want the daily struggle that 12 step programs promise. They want the magic pill. They want a cure.
My sibling wanted that. He wanted to be cured, once and for all.
No one wants to hear that realistic success rates are more like 17%. Most addicts attend rehab multiple times before finally getting sober. And there’s no cure! No guarantee that the addict won’t relapse again. Who wants to hear that?
So everyone, except me, was gung-ho about my brother attending Narconon Arrowhead. I finally stopped protesting, especially since I wasn’t footing the bill.
(Looking back on it all, I believe I failed to appreciate how skilled the Co$ members who man the Narconon facilities are at manipulation of facts and of people. The more I learned of the Co$, the less anger I felt towards my family members.)
NARCONON's "TREATMENT"
I spoke to my brother once or twice while he was at Narconon Arrowhead. He seemed to be in good spirits. I do not really remember much about the conversations, except this:
He said that he was taking a lot of vitamin B and his skin had turned red or purple or something. He also talked about saunas and going for a run after a sauna.
He told me that he was doing these exercises with a partner where they would stare in each other’s eyes or at the wall or something. I thought it sounded really dumb, but he said he enjoyed it. I failed to see what it had to do with recovery though.
RELAPSE
My brother relapsed within a month of leaving Narconon Arrowhead. He actually could have saved my family the money since he was capable of staying clean that long with no treatment at all.
Narconon conducted no follow-up care that I know of. I don’t know how they get their success rate stats, since they have zero interest in their actual outcomes.
DEATH
Within six months, my brother was dead. He basically died of a sort of congestive heart failure. It was most certainly brought about by his drug use.
However – I also believe that the Purification Rundown contributed to the poor condition of his heart. Why in hell would anyone give toxic doses of Niacin to someone with an already compromised liver and cardiovascular system? While Niacin’s liver toxicity is well-documented, it is also known to affect the heart.
EVEN IF NARCONON’S TREATMENTS ARE NOT SCIENTIFICALLY VALID, WHAT’S THE HARM?
This is an argument I heard a lot before my brother entered Narconon and afterwards. Dear reader, I hope you have made it this far because this is the main point I’m trying to make.
Every addict who enters Narconon’s doors is being denied legitimate, even life-saving treatment.
My brother could have gone to the Betty Ford center, or Hazelden (despite AA), or some other treatment program. Maybe, just maybe, it would have been the rehab attempt that made all the difference.
But he didn’t. He didn’t because Narconon preys on vulnerable, suffering people for their money. Narconon makes promises it knows it cannot deliver and dupes people into trading legitimate treatment for a bogus magic cure-all.
And now he’s dead. He’ll never see his child graduate, or get married. He’ll never know his grandchildren.
Don’t get me wrong, I know it was his addiction and the powerful drug he was into that bears the brunt of the blame. But we only had a handful of chances to help him. And Narconon snatched away the last, most important chance we were given.
(Sorry if I sound like I’m ranting. It’s been several years since his death, but writing this brings it all up)
P.S. Thank you David Edgar Love for getting the Canadian Narconon’s shut down. Please focus on Narconon Arrowhead next!
First off, I am not a scientologist or ex-scientologist. I understand a lot about the Co$ as I have been following news about it for several years now. After you read this, you'll see why.
Unfortunately, I have to keep the names of the people involved in this confidential. Not because they were involved in Co$, but because of the stigma of addiction. Some of my family members would be appalled if they saw this and they’ve been through enough. Even as I am hitting Submit - I feel really weird about making this public - even in an anonymous way.
Narconon has contributed to the deaths of more people that the poor folks who died while in care at their facilities. Let me explain why.
THE DRUG ADDICTION
My younger brother struggled with drug addiction for many years. He had been to a couple of detox programs and rehab programs, but subsequently relapsed after each one.
It's hard to put across the toll it takes on family members to watch an addict destroy their own and their children's lives. To see them enter treatment programs then quit for a while, get a feeling of elation that this time, finally, they would be freed, only to have one's hopes dashed again at the next relapse. Years and years of this really wear a family down. It also wears the addict down. AA's philosophy is to stop helping, let the addict hit bottom and they will make their own decision to stop. But - there are bottoms - losing jobs/divorce/etc - and deeper bottoms - prison/homelessness/etc - and the deepest bottom of all - death. My brother had hit so many bottoms that we all knew in our guts, the next one was the deepest. It turned out we were right.
So that's how it was when my family encountered Narconon. Knowing that my brother was on the precipice, that death was just around the next corner. Burnt out on the getting clean / relapse cycle.
LOOKING FOR A NON-12 STEP PROGRAM
My brother hated AA. This was partly because my late father had been in recovery and got involved in AA in a "culty" kind of way. I don't believe AA is a cult, but it has some cultish qualities and certain members treat it like one. He attended 1-2 meetings per day, every day, for 15 years. He only associated with other people in AA, believed the people outside "the program" "didn't get it,”, the writings of Bill W were infallible, and that leaving AA meant insanity or death. When confronted with complex questions, many times my father tossed an AA slogan at you in response, instead of actually listening and thinking of more nuanced, less pat answers. It was a cop-out and my sibling hated that, and he extrapolated that hatred, rightly or wrongly, to AA. This is one of the reasons that my brother did not want to attend one of the more established treatment programs like Hazelden.
NARCONON RECRUITMENT
Isn’t the name itself deceptive?. Narconon. Many people would confuse it with Narcotics Anonymous – the spin-off of Alcoholics Anonymous is known as “Nar-Anon”. The association with AA/NA lends Narconon an air of legitimacy it does not deserve.
I'm not sure whether my brother stumbled on Narconon first, or another family member. At any rate, the intake people at Narconon ended up speaking on the phone to another family member, and told them everything they wanted to hear. Narconon said that while other treatment centers had low recovery rates, they had a whopping 70% success rate! The other treatment centers cost (at that time) $25k, but Narconon cost less. I believe it cost as much as $5k to $10k less. That’s a pretty significant amount of money. (And don’t underestimate how drained of funds families of addicts are…)
Most people have little training in or understanding of the scientific method, and Narconon exploits that. They sent my family member articles of “studies” done on their dubiously high success rate. By then, I was starting to research this treatment center and I was highly disturbed by the things I was discovering. I brought up that the success rate was BS and why the studies were not valid. But they just would not listen to me.
My family member also really bought into the idea of the Purification Rundown. On the surface, in a simplistic way, it makes sense. Drugs are toxic. Sweat eliminates toxins. Saunas make you sweat so saunas detox you. Vitamins are good. More vitamins are better. Massive vitamins cure things. But the science behind it is junk science. The studies are flawed and were not subject to peer review.
However, the thing that the staff at Narconon knows is that by the time someone calls them for help, that person is exhausted. They don’t want the daily struggle that 12 step programs promise. They want the magic pill. They want a cure.
My sibling wanted that. He wanted to be cured, once and for all.
No one wants to hear that realistic success rates are more like 17%. Most addicts attend rehab multiple times before finally getting sober. And there’s no cure! No guarantee that the addict won’t relapse again. Who wants to hear that?
So everyone, except me, was gung-ho about my brother attending Narconon Arrowhead. I finally stopped protesting, especially since I wasn’t footing the bill.
(Looking back on it all, I believe I failed to appreciate how skilled the Co$ members who man the Narconon facilities are at manipulation of facts and of people. The more I learned of the Co$, the less anger I felt towards my family members.)
NARCONON's "TREATMENT"
I spoke to my brother once or twice while he was at Narconon Arrowhead. He seemed to be in good spirits. I do not really remember much about the conversations, except this:
He said that he was taking a lot of vitamin B and his skin had turned red or purple or something. He also talked about saunas and going for a run after a sauna.
He told me that he was doing these exercises with a partner where they would stare in each other’s eyes or at the wall or something. I thought it sounded really dumb, but he said he enjoyed it. I failed to see what it had to do with recovery though.
RELAPSE
My brother relapsed within a month of leaving Narconon Arrowhead. He actually could have saved my family the money since he was capable of staying clean that long with no treatment at all.
Narconon conducted no follow-up care that I know of. I don’t know how they get their success rate stats, since they have zero interest in their actual outcomes.
DEATH
Within six months, my brother was dead. He basically died of a sort of congestive heart failure. It was most certainly brought about by his drug use.
However – I also believe that the Purification Rundown contributed to the poor condition of his heart. Why in hell would anyone give toxic doses of Niacin to someone with an already compromised liver and cardiovascular system? While Niacin’s liver toxicity is well-documented, it is also known to affect the heart.
EVEN IF NARCONON’S TREATMENTS ARE NOT SCIENTIFICALLY VALID, WHAT’S THE HARM?
This is an argument I heard a lot before my brother entered Narconon and afterwards. Dear reader, I hope you have made it this far because this is the main point I’m trying to make.
Every addict who enters Narconon’s doors is being denied legitimate, even life-saving treatment.
My brother could have gone to the Betty Ford center, or Hazelden (despite AA), or some other treatment program. Maybe, just maybe, it would have been the rehab attempt that made all the difference.
But he didn’t. He didn’t because Narconon preys on vulnerable, suffering people for their money. Narconon makes promises it knows it cannot deliver and dupes people into trading legitimate treatment for a bogus magic cure-all.
And now he’s dead. He’ll never see his child graduate, or get married. He’ll never know his grandchildren.
Don’t get me wrong, I know it was his addiction and the powerful drug he was into that bears the brunt of the blame. But we only had a handful of chances to help him. And Narconon snatched away the last, most important chance we were given.
(Sorry if I sound like I’m ranting. It’s been several years since his death, but writing this brings it all up)
P.S. Thank you David Edgar Love for getting the Canadian Narconon’s shut down. Please focus on Narconon Arrowhead next!