On Sunday December 6, 2009 Narconon Heredia in Costa Rica celebrated the grand opening of their new center.
Guests at the Costa Rica center opening
Narconon center in Costa Rica
The Executive Director, Roxana Aguirre, opened the event with a warm welcome to all of the guests and special thanks to all those who assisted in making this new center possible.
Many people were instrumental in the opening of this center by providing donations, office equipment, the new sauna, as well as many hours of volunteer work. They were all presented with a commendation for their help.
This was followed by a presentation from the Executive Director of Narconon Latin America, Charles Tennison, who spoke about the unique methods of the Narconon® program which has a very high success rate. He then presented a special commendation to the board member and founder of this center, Didier Rodriguez.
Executive Director of Latin America and Founder of Costa Rica center
For the finale, the ribbon was cut with an enthusiastic applause from the guests.
Is there a simple way to reach kids and get them to turn away from drugs?
The answer is YES. This inexpensive booklet is packed with tips and techniques that parents and caregivers can use to communicate with their young kids or teens to help build an everlasting, trusting relationship.
You can help them to understand what drugs are, why people use drugs, how drugs can stay in the body and how different drugs cause different effects.
There is much to know about drugs and it’s up to the parents to ensure that their children are educated about drugs to help keep them away from drugs.
Who does your kid turn to when there is a problem? See how you can get your kid to turn to you in the time of need and not someone who could lead them to drugs.
This booklet is a must-have for parents raising a young child to help keep them drug-free.
This month Narconon Albania hosted a series of events to acknowledge the opening of the Narconon program in this country.
A special event was held at the European University in Tirana with 50 invited guests from different ministries and local NGOs, as well as representatives from other rehab centers. Executive Director Narconon Albania Vitorja Leila and Deputy Executive Director Narconon Europe Ole Thiemer gave an overview of the Narconon® program and how it can help address the rising drug abuse in their country.
Albania attendees
The representative from the ministry of social affairs thanked Narconon for their efforts in making a difference for Albania by preventing kids from using drugs and helping to rehabilitate addicts. Representatives from a rehab center in Kosovo expressed their wish to implement the Narconon Program in their center.
The following day, Narconon representatives met with the Minister of Health who acknowledged the importance for effective solutions in the field of drug education and rehabilitation services and offered his his help and support.
Narconon Europe staff also delivered a drug education presentation at the Petro Nini Luarasi High School in Tirana. The school psychologist was very impressed with the presentation and has requested Narconon presentations in the elementary schools in the city.
In celebration of the establishment of Narconon in Albania, staff and guests gathered for an opening of their new Narconon office.
New consumers of cigarettes, alcohol and users of other drugs like marijuana, cocaine heroin and methamphetamines are youth. First use of drugs most often begins before 18 and continues into adulthood.
Parents can help prevent their teens from using drugs by teaching their kid how drugs can affect the body, mind and them personally.
This Narconon book of facts about drugs can enlighten anyone about what an addict may be experiencing and what can be done to handle the drug addiction or give parents information needed to educate their kid about drugs.
Many times the obvious toxic effects that drugs have on the body overshadow or mask the mental effects that are occurring simultaneously making it more difficult to understand what has happened to the mind.
To understand drugs, one must understand what the mind is composed of and how drugs effect the mind, body and you. This Narconon book lays out the facts crucial to understanding these and much more and what can be done to handle the drug addiction.
Drugs effect the mind, body and the individual and his emotions, ambitions, goals, relationships as well as those around him or her.
If you know someone on drugs, you can help them address both the mental and physical effects of drug abuse with proper drug rehabilitation treatment, such as the Narconon program, using nutritional supplements, exercises, sauna baths counseling and life skills which can help them to get their life back and succeed.
To help avoid experiencing a loved one turning to drugs, you can educate them about drugs to ensure they understand the dangers of using drugs so they won’t try drugs.
A lot of false information about drugs can make drugs look safe and fun and can get teens to try drugs so teach your kid about drugs to help keep them away from drugs.
Coordinated efforts of the highly successful drug education and rehabilitation program bring the truth about drugs to students across the country
Los Angeles, CA – Narconon International’s management office in Los Angeles worked with its drug rehabilitation and education centers throughout the country in a combined effort to speak with thousands of students and other community members during Red Ribbon Week.
The National Family Partnership’s (NFP) Red Ribbon Week is considered the nationwide observance of drug prevention activities and is held during the end of October each year, which began in 1988. Narconon staff and volunteer activities stretched the span of the country to participate in helping kids stay away from drugs.
In California, Narconon Vista Bay received a proclamation from the Mayor of Seaside City and delivered drug prevention presentations to hundreds of students in the local area. In Oklahoma and Texas, Narconon Arrowhead drug education staff visited several schools and presented to over 1,500 elementary, middle and high school students.
Narconon Georgia held a large event for Red Ribbon week at Woodruff Park in Atlanta complete with live music and educational literature for the many who attended, ranging from government workers, to tourists and students, who combined to promote a drug-free world.
Narconon Freedom Treatment Center in Michigan held an open house and helped educate people in the local community about the true dangers of drugs and addiction, while Narconon Hawaii provided prevention seminars to local ninth- and tenth-grade students and had them sign a drug-free pledge. One student was quoted as saying, “My thoughts changed because I feel that taking drugs can only lessen your chances of being successful and making life harder for you to live. Staying away from drugs can help me live an easier life and make better choices.”
In southern California Narconon San Diego was out in the community with participants signing drug-free pledges and Narconon Drug Prevention and Education in Los Angeles spoke with more than 2,000 students throughout Southern California just that week.
Drug education and demand reduction activities are vital to stopping addiction before it starts, and Narconon is proud to have worked with millions of young people throughout the world over the last four decades to help them learn the truth about drugs and what they do to a person’s mind and body.
According to a study of Narconon’s drug education program published in the Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention and Policy peer-reviewed journal, “…youths who received the Narconon drug education curriculum showed reduced drug use compared with controls across all drug categories tested. The strongest effects were seen in all tobacco products and cigarette frequency followed by marijuana. There were also significant reductions measured for alcohol and amphetamines. The program also produced changes in knowledge, attitudes and perception of risk.”
For more information about Narconon education and rehabilitation programs, visit www.narconon.org. To learn more about Red Ribbon Week visit www.nfp.org.
Narconon Vista Bay receiving a proclamation from Seaside City Mayor
In Hawaii, 9th and 10th grade students sign poster pledging to live a drug-free life.
Narconon of Georgia is helping with prescription abuse problems through an interesting program.
Narconon Georgia is sponsoring a campaign called “Operation Medicine Cabinet” together with a local sheriff’s department in an effort to reduce the amount of prescription drug abuse problems among the people of Georgia.
Basically the way this works is by providing a safe way to dispose of prescription medication in Georgia so that it is dealt with responsibly. This is to ward people (and children) from taking and/or abusing these drugs, thus reducing the prescription drug abuse problem in Georgia and reducing the damage of these drugs.
So as you see, the Narconon of Georgia is very busy working to help the people in its area and in their article about “Operation Medicine Cabinet” Narconon of Georgia stated that this program should be implemented around the country in different states to lower prescription drug abuse around USA.
A lot of parents aren’t aware that 80% of the nation’s high school students and 44% of middle-school students have witnessed illegal drugs used or sold and students drunk or high on the school grounds.
This survey was conducted by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Colombia University, which Joseph A. Califano Jr. founded and directs.
“This fall more than 16 million teens will return to middle and high schools where drug dealing, possession, use, and students high on alcohol or drugs are part of the fabric of their school,” Califano says.
Need any more be said? You’d think not, but the truth is that while each year people are warning others about how common drug use is becoming all across the nations, it seems the numbers and percentages keep getting higher.
What does this mean? It means parents aren’t paying attention or taking these numbers and percentages too seriously so parents aren’t educating their kids about drugs to the fullest.
Sad, but true, a lot of parents may not worry about this until they’re a victim to their kid using drugs, which by then is too late.
That’s why it’s important to educate kids about drugs no matter how much of an angel you may think your kid is to prevent the cycle of drug addiction from ever occurring.
You can be most certain that one day your kid will have to make a decision to use drugs or to not use drugs. The way society has made drugs seem like they’re so great and how so much false information about drugs is scattered out and about, it may not be so hard for a kid to say, “yes” and give drugs a try.
That’s all it really takes. Just one try and then the cycle of drug addiction can begin.
But who really cares anyway? Maybe the schools care. You can leave the problem up to the schools and hope your kid is getting educated about drugs, but who’s educating the kids, the teachers or the students?
This is the story of ex-meth addict, Kyle. He came to Narconon® weighing about 165 pounds of “skin and bones.” says Kyle.
Kyle’s parents got him to rehab as they realized his addiction was really dragging him down. His addiction went from being slightly controlled by meth to being absorbed by meth. His parents came to his house and said “Hey we found a place called Narconon and its out in California, would you like to go?” Kyle at this point was looking for help so he jumped at the chance to get help with his addiction.
Now at this point you may wonder how Kyle got into meth and thus became addicted to it. In his video, Kyle says that he was a weekend party man and some “friends” of his brought meth to the party. Kyle tried it and says that he couldn’t get enough of it. He thought he wouldn’t get addicted to meth as he didn’t know too much about it and compared it to cocaine. His hopes about meth were proved wrong and he dropped into an approximate 4 year addiction.
Here’s what Kyle said about the Narconon program: “When I came to Narconon I knew I wanted help, I didn’t know if it was going to work or not, I didn’t know much about the program at all and I came, I was willing, I did what they asked and sure enough here I am 4 years later, clean and sober.” “Addiction is something that you can overcome you just have to put your trust into somebody and you need to find a way to get to Narconon. If you can get to Narconon you can find sobriety, you can find happiness, you can achieve the things you never thought you could and I’m proof of that.” You can watch Kyle’s video interview on his journey from addiction to a drug-free life.
Drug addicts are sometimes thought to be unemployed, poor and from the inner city and an addict only if they need to use drugs everyday or if they have withdrawal symptoms from quitting drugs.
Misconceptions like these can lead more people into trying and using drugs or people assuming that there is no way their loved one can be an addict.
The real deal is that there are a lot of drug addicts who appear to be functioning normal and are employed and may not use drugs everyday and so they don’t experience physical withdrawal when they stop using drugs.
If you look around, you can spot the obvious drug addicts in the streets, but if you look even closer in the work place, homes and schools you can probably spot drug addicts here and there if you know the signs and symptoms of drug use.
Below are a few signs of drug use, but shouldn’t always be assumed that someone is using drugs because of these symptoms, but can be further looked into to make the decision. Once you’re sure the person is using drugs, you can make the right approach to help them get off drugs. If you still don’t know if the person is using drugs, but have a feeling, then you should ask them out of love and they may tell you. If the answer is no, then you may want to see if there are some other problems that need to be addressed which lead you to think that they’re using drugs.
Cannot look at you comfortably in the eyes when speaking, being spoken to or approached. This can be a sign of shyness or lack of communication skills
Not dependable. Late to work/school all the time with no progress in showing up on time.
“Not caring” attitude, sad or grumpy. A person could just be like this, but it can also be a hint that there is a prolonged drug use problem.
Doesn’t listen well and has a short attention span. People can have this problem. Kids can be going through a growing phase. You can observe though to determine if there is drug use involved.
There are other signs and symptoms of drug use and they can even be narrowed down to determine which drug is being used. There is a little booklet called Drug Facts that covers these signs and symptoms for alcohol, marijuana, heroin, crack and cocaine, lsd, pcp, crystal meth, oxycontin, inhalants, steroids and ecstasy and it even covers some of the drugs nicknames. It’s packed with useful information and is very inexpensive.
The important thing here is to be alert and aware of sudden changes in behavior patterns and to get that person some help to get off drugs. Drugs can lead to prison or death and a lot of unnecessary heartache.
If you want to get someone off drugs, there is the First Step Program book which has proven itself to be effective in helping people withdrawal from drugs and even alcohol.
Lets hope that you don’t need to withdrawal anyone from drugs. If you don’t need to withdrawal anyone from drugs, then you should look at how to prevent drug use so that you won’t ever have to go through the tragedies that drug use can bring about on a family. There are successful ways to prevent drug use and would be worth looking into.
Drug prevention starts with drug education, so the key is to educate the dangers of drug use and to expose the false information about drugs that society is working hard to promote. Drug education videos are an easy way to educate kids and others about the dangers of drug use.
Give it a try. You have nothing to loose and a chance to prevent drug use and help the world become that much more drug-free!
The only way we’ll achieve a drug-free world is to help get the ones that are on drugs off and to educate others about drugs so that they’ll never use drugs.
Drug addicts need someone to reach out and help them get off drugs and kids need people to give them the truth about drugs to help prevent them from trying drugs.
That means it’s up to the people who care and who can do something about it!
Allison says “Someone can definitely achieve a drug-free life.” Why is this important? Well, Allison was a drug addict herself, before she went through the Narconon® drug rehabilitation program.
Allison was addicted to xanax, cocaine and crack. She had been using these drugs for quite some time and they were destroying her. She lived in a trailer, had a job and barely had enough money to live off of, after an expensive drug addiction. As for Allison personally, she was not in any healthy state and didn’t weigh very much as her body was so deteriorated thanks to her drug addiction.
After all that bad news there is a change that can be spoken of. Allison doesn’t do drugs anymore! She did the Narconon rehabilitation program and is completely drug-free and changed her life around. Now that Allison doesn’t have an addiction to worry about she has given positive messages back to Narconon, “The Narconon program is about more than just getting off drugs or getting drugs out of your system. Its about learning how to live your life all over again, learning how to be with your family again, learning how to be with your friends again, learning how to be comfortable being you and then once you have that you can move forward and tackle your life, achieve everything you’ve ever wanted to.” Allison said this about the Narconon program: “My life now is great compared to when I started, like I said I was a mess when I started, I didn’t have anything to my name. Now I’m a self-functioning individual, I can pay my own bills. My family life is great I can call up my parents and say ‘hey lets go to dinner and have a good time’. I don’t call them with bad news anymore. My life totally turned around its great I don’t have any problems anymore.”
Now you know Allison’s story about her change during the Narconon program for the better. Let us hope more people don’t have to fall down the dangerous road to addiction and eventual rehabilitation, but programs like Narconon are here if people need it.
Check out some videos of Allison and her brother. So you may ask, “is a drug-free life possible for anyone hooked up on drugs now?” Allison is one of the many that complete the Narconon drug rehabilitation program.
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New consumers of cigarettes, alcohol and users of other drugs like marijuana, cocaine heroin and methamphetamines are youth. First use of drugs most often begins before 18 and continues into adulthood.
