Narconon Blog

Many residential treatment centres worldwide including UK’s Narconon Hastings are sticking to the drug-free route rather than cheaper, but meritless heroin blockers. The goal is recovery, not ‘maintenance.’

“I tried methadone. I tried Subutex. I tried Valium. Neither solved my addiction and they were much harder to come off,” says Michelle, a graduate of the Narconon Hastings programme. “I never bought into the message of ‘learning to live with my addiction,’ taking my daily substitute drug. I wanted to be off drugs. I wanted my life back so I could be a part of my family once again and be worthwhile and valued as a person to myself and others. Only a real, intensive residential programme, like Narconon, can help you achieve that.”

Michelle is not the only person who feels this way. Even Professor Neil McKeganey, Director of Glasgow’s Centre for Drug Misuse, was quoted recently describing the national trend towards drug substitution as “a shameful dereliction of our responsibility…we failed the majority of drug users by keeping them locked into addiction.”

But residential treatment is so much more expensive, some argue back. Really? A University of Glasgow study recently found a 7X better chance to be drug free 3 years after residential rehab than methadone. Many addicts who have enrolled with Narconon report that they did other illicit drugs at the same time they were doing methadone or other substitutes. The drug solves nothing between the ears, they say. It chemically blocks opiate cravings, but that is not the cause of the addiction – that’s only the painful result.

It appears that in the last 15 months 15 out of 100 drug rehabilitation centres have closed in UK. This is because they were dependent on government subsidy. Those rehab centres that are supporting themselves charging fees for service are surviving, if with financial difficulty, because they are filling a real need.

Narconon Hastings, for example, is part of the international Narconon network which has produced over 27,000 drug-free graduates over the last decade. They have always set stably drug-free as their target objective – not living with your addiction, but freedom from. Recent post-programme monitoring of graduates by US Narconon centres, according to www.drugbulletin.org, reports that after a one-year follow up, better than 70% remained drug-free.

So there is good news. UK citizens and tax payers should ask for nothing less. Loved ones’ lives and our communities’ welfare are at stake.

For further information on Narconon Hastings and the Narconon programme, visit www.narconon.org or call (44) 1424 420 036.