Narconon in Canyon Oaks (LA County)

The Narconon of Canyon Oaks facility is sorely needed in LA County. They have 46,600 admissions for drug treatment last year, and of those, 42,000 had had prior emergency room admissions. So there's a high incidence of repeat traffic emergency drug treatment traffic. Of those, 52% reported they had failed to get off Meth, 60% reported they had failed to get off Cocaine, and 79% reported they had failed to get off heroin.

The great things about Narconon (which has now been around for 40 years!) is that it does not replace one drug with another (like methodone "treatments" that basically addict the person to methodone!). Instead, the people are put through a purification program and education in the basics of moral living using "The Way to Happiness", a common sense (and non-religious) guide to morals. Narcononalso teaches drug addicts how to communicate with other people, giving them practical life skills they can use to control themselves and live a moral life thereafter. Narconon's recidivism rate is extremely low. Once drug addicts have gone through the program, the majority of them will not ever go back on drugs again. The Narconon program handles the root causes of drug addiction, not just the symptoms.

I liked this recent Narconon graduate's success story:

"At Narconon, I found that standards of ethics do exist. Not moral platitudes enforced on me by someone else, but basic, commonsense guidelines for honesty and happy living. I apply these basic standards to how I live my life now. It has improved my conditions on a very broad scale. But, especially it has improved my relationship with my parents. I am completely straight and honest with them now, and I feel closer to them than ever before."

It resonates with me because when I was young and foolish (back before there was dirt) I did various street drugs before I wised up, got clean and did the purification program myself. That wild period was very hard on my parents--my mother was numb with shock at some of the things I did while on drugs. It took a while to gain back her trust and get back into communication with her again.

Here's a flyer on Narconon Canyon Oaks. If you know someone with a drug problem, get them to a Narconon before they die. My first wife's younger sister came to visit us in the early 80's for a few days -- we didn't know that she was a heroin addict, although she was an obvious "druggie". A week later she was dead in London of an overdose. So my advice based on personal experience is -- don't put it off.