Narconon created this site:
https://pastthetippingpoint.net/ which lies about what Narconon really is, a Scientology scam
Narconon created the fake site in hopes that their website would come up on searches when people where looking for the truth about Narconon.
The actual site that shows the danger of Narconon:
http://www.reachingforthetippingpoint.net/
(The fact a rehab center would do this should be one clue that Narconon is NOT a rehab center.)
This is the first page on the real site:
What is Narconon?
Why should I be concerned?
Have you attended a Narconon program? Please consider doing the Narconon Survey here: http://reachingforthetippingpoint.net/narcononsurvey/
Narconon has been receiving some bad press lately. Most recently, there have been news stories about 3 deaths within a 7 month period at Narconon Arrowhead in Oklahoma: on the forum, read Narconon Oklahoma Multiple Deaths, and the death of Patrick W. Desmond at Narconon of Georgia: on the forum, read The Desmond Family v. Narconon of Georgia, Narconon International, et al.
Court filings from the Patrick Desmond case can be viewed and downloaded here: Desmond v. Narconon.
Unfortunately, those are not the only deaths. Deaths have occured throughout Narconon's history. There is an incomplete list in the thread Narconon Deaths.
You would think that, if something as serious as death continues to occur with a particular rehab method, the methods should be changed to incorporate safer and more modern practices. Narconon does not do this, but instead has the attitude that their program is authoritative, and if problems occur, the problem is with the client, not with Narconon. Nothing could be further from the truth.
More About Narconon
Narconon is a controversial drug rehabilitation program based on the ideas of L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer and founder of the Church of Scientology. Many people believe that Narconon is simply a front group for Scientology with the purpose of making money and recruiting new members for Scientology. Although Narconon is recognized as a non-profit 501(c) (3) organization, it does charge for services.
For information about other Scientology-run front groups, visit our What is Scientology? page.
Narconon’s ties to Scientology are not disclosed or readily available to its clients who are making a decision on treatment for drug addiction at a vulnerable time in their lives. Additionally, Narconon’s doctrines and organization are nearly identical to Scientology’s.
Narconon has an aggressive web presence and registers web sites with misleading names, which are presented as objective reviews of drug rehab centers but are actually used as advertisements for Narconon.
When many people hear the name "Narconon," they think it is another name for Narcotics Anonymous. It isn't.
The Narcotics Anonymous (NA) website clearly shows that NA does not charge for services, does not provide residential facilities or clinics, does not provide vocational, legal, financial, psychiatric, or medical services, and is not affiliated with other organizations. Facts about NA can be found here: http://www.na.org/?ID=Home-basicinfo
The Narcotics Anonymous (NA) website uses factual and informative language: http://www.na.org/, and most of their publications are available for free: http://www.na.org/?ID=ips-eng-index
Narconon, on the other hand, uses a highly structured, one-size-fits-all program, which parallels the training sold to members of Scientology: http://www.narconon.org/drug-rehab/narconon-drug-rehabilitation-program.html
The Narconon website uses emotionally charged, marketing-style language: http://www.narconon.org/. No publications are available for free: http://www.narconon.org/bookstore/.
Find out more about the relationship between Narconon and Scientology here: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Narconon/nn-scn.htm
Narconon has an aggressive web presence, including a large number of referral sites that present themselves as unbiased referrals who will refer you to the best rehab for your specific needs, but somehow, Narconon turns out to be "the best" for everyone's needs who contacts them. There are also generic-appearing blogs, which are intended to direct people to Narconon. Phone numbers tie to specific people, known as Field Staff Members (FSMs, a Scientology term), who refer visitors to Narconon, and provide them with a commission of 5% to 10% of the total fees paid to Narconon. There are screenshots from a video teaching how to set up one of these blogs here: http://forum.reachingforthetippingpoint.net/index.php/topic,368.msg2196.html#msg2196
What else is wrong with Narconon?
Hubbard, who co-founded Narconon in 1966, had no medical qualifications and was ignorant of basic medical facts. Despite advances in research on treatment of alcoholism and substance abuse, the Narconon program remains unchanged. Narconon uses unproven techniques and potentially dangerous levels of vitamins far beyond those considered safe by the FDA. For instance, Narconon prescribes niacin in dosages reaching 5,000 mgs to their clients. The daily recommended intake by the FDA is 20 milligrams. When doses this high are given, serious side effects can occur. These side effects include liver problems, gout, stomach ulcers, loss of vision, high blood sugar, irregular heart rate and other problems. These side effects are particularly concerning for patients who may be more vulnerable to liver damage as a result of alcoholism or drug addiction.
Learn more about L. Ron Hubbard's lack of qualifications here: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Narconon/science.htm
There is a list of Narconon's unsafe practices, including a list of the vitamins and minerals used in the program, here: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Narconon/detox.htm
The Food and Drug Administration's Recommended Daily Values can be found here: http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceComplianceRegulatoryInformation/GuidanceDocuments/FoodLabelingNutrition/FoodLabelingGuide/ucm064928.htm
What about Narconon staff?
Narconon often employs former clients who have recently completed the program. This is a huge risk for newly recovering clients. It is not unusual for former alcoholics or addicts to enter the counseling field. However, this is usually after an established period of sobriety and formal training or certification as a substance abuse counselor has been completed. This is not the case at Narconon. In addition, Narconon of Georgia was recently cited for inappropriate monitoring of drug screens on clients and employees.
What kind of training do Narconon staff members have? Where does the staff of Narconon come from? http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Narconon/staff.htm
The Board of Mental Health of the State of Oklahoma investigated Narconon for certification as a drug and treatment facility in 1992 and found that Narconon hires former students (as clients are called) immediately upon graduation, as well as other alarming observations: http://www.xenu.net/archive/oca/narconon/91report.html
An article from March 21, 2010, entitled "Intoxicated by Narconon" was published in a Canadian newspaper, "le Soleil." Here is the original article in French: http://www.cyberpresse.ca/le-soleil/actualites/societe/201003/20/01-4262723-intoxique-par-leglise-de-scientologie.php. Here is an English translation: http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?t=17001.
This testimony from a former staff member states that many Narconon graduates go on to work at the facility due to pressure from current staff: http://www.anti-scientologie.ch/narconon-testimony.htm
Criminon Second Chance, and other Narconon affiliates
Criminon Second Chance is a prison-based version of Narconon that seeks public funding for the program. Criminon Second Chance was evicted from Alberqueue, New Mexico after breaking an agreement with the City. They were allowed to operate a facility in an old jail to house nonviolent male inmates with a history of substance abuse problems, but were found to be housing violent offenders and women inmates also. After being given a notice to comply with the agreement, they left secretively in the middle of the night with 19 inmates in an old bus, leaving their rent and utility bills unpaid. Scientology promotes this front organization without revealing the connection to Narconon or Scientology. Read more about Criminon Second Chance here: http://forum.reachingforthetippingpoint.net/index.php/page,Criminon.html
In order to avoid the bad reputation that is developing from public exposure of the Narconon program, some "Sauna Detox" programs are using names which do not include "Narconon", but use the same L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology techniques and course material for the program. For addictions that require it, some Narconon-affiliated programs use a medical detox procedure first, and then refer people on to a more standard Narconon-style sauna detox with Scientology-based coursework. Some of these include (but are not limited to) generic names like New Life and First Step, Pur Detox, and Best Drug Rehab; and more specific sounding names like Sunshine Summit Lodge, Huntington Harbor House, Novus Detox, and Suncoast Rehab Center.
Finding a good, legitimate rehab facility
If you are seeking a drug rehab facility, the most important thing you can do is to research the facility by name. Once you have narrowed down to a few that you are considering, check with the agency in the state or country that licenses drug rehab facilities about prior violations and license revocations for the specific facilities. Ask for specifics about the program - exactly what the program entails, how long it will last, who the program director is and what their qualifications are, who the medical director is, what the policy is with regard to employment of counselors and other staff members, and ask to tour the facility first before signing anything. Ask advice on some of the discussion forums that specialize in drug and alcohol rehab. Ask advice from people you know. The main thing you want to do is avoid being in a hurry and not thoroughly researching the facility you choose. There are good programs out there - they may just not be the first ones you find when you search the web.
Are you still considering going to Narconon? Before you decide, please read about the experiences of someone who's been there: My Narconon Story, by Sekh:
SEKH'S EXPERIENCE AT NARCONON
My Narconon Story, by Sekh
Have you attended a Narconon program? Please consider doing the Narconon Survey here: http://reachingforthetippingpoint.net/narcononsurvey/
Would you like to discuss Narconon? Do it in the Narconon section of our forum: Narconon and related groups here: http://forum.reachingforthetippingpoint.net/index.php/board,46.0.html
My story.
We go back to 1990, I was 28, a single mother, with two children of 8 and 2 years old, and a huge heroin addiction. Things weren't looking good, to say the least. I had tried rehab before, and it somehow never worked out, so I kinda gave up on the thought of ever getting clean. Tried to care for the kids as good as I could, but I knew things had to change or I would lose them. Just didn't know how to make that work.
Then, out of nowhere, my ex-husband called me. He was also a heavy drug-user. He told me he was in this place, Narconon, to get rid of the drugs, and it was so different from any other rehab program, it was just great. Maybe I could find help there too.
So we talked a bit, and I told him I would think about it, and he said he would call me again soon, to tell me how he was doing. Though we were divorced, we always remained friends, and I was glad he found a place where people could help him. He called me several times over the next week, and I started thinking about my life, and about the opportunity to get clean, and that maybe I should go there too, so I asked to talk to a staff-member.
No problem, this very friendly guy took over the phone and listened to my story. He really seemed to understand what I was saying, and he really started me thinking about hope. Hope is a mighty big thing when you're addicted, because usually there doesn't seem to be any.
I only had two questions. The first: Could I take my little daughter with me? He said that it wasn't good for her to be with me while I was in detox, but afterwards she could come and I could finish the program with her there. That sounded very sensible. My son had to go to school, so he could not come with me anyway, but he could stay with my parents.
My second question was about scientology. I knew there was some link between Narconon and the Church of Scientology. Had he denied that, I would have exposed him as a liar, but he gave me my first taste of "acceptable truth" right there on the phone. He said:" Our philosophy was developed by L. Ron Hubbard, who also founded Church of Scientology. So Narconon uses some scientology techniques, but is a totally independent foundation, and there are no ties to the church. People from every faith are welcome, we are strictly neutral about religion."
All very reasonable, quite believable. He put my ex back on the line and let him finish the job of luring me in. At the end of the conversation I promised to come the next day. At that moment I believed that I was given a great opportunity to turn my life around.
That night I arranged the staying of my children with their grandparents, and a neighbor to feed my pets and take care of my plants and I packed a suitcase with some clothes and other necessary stuff. Early the following morning I took the train to Zutphen, about one hour from my hometown.
From the station I called Narconon an they sent a car to pick me up. Great service. To my surprise my ex-husband, let's call him Bob, accompanied the driver, and after some hugging, crying and kissing we took of to the Narconon premises.
I wasn't quite sure what to expect; something like a hospital, or maybe a kind of farm-like setting, but it turned out to be a villa in the center of town, built somewhere between the two world wars and in a poor state of maintenance. The first thing that happened was a thorough check of my suitcase, looking for drugs, alcohol and medications. Then a female staff-member asked me to take my clothes of, so she could check my body for “contraband”.
Remember, I hadn't yet agreed to follow the program, hadn't even had an intake-procedure of some kind. I tried to rationalize this by saying to myself that they had the safety of their patients to concern and didn't protest, not even when they took my books, my personal papers,my jewelery and money and even some cosmetic articles away “for storage”. After this visitation I was introduced to the staff, an American lady named Joanna who was the director and some Dutch volunteers who were ex-clients themselves.
Joanna and I had a long talk. I asked her from which state she was, recognizing her obvious American accent when speaking Dutch, but she said she was born and raised in Holland, and had not even been in America. Then where did the accent originate?
She claimed she came from Volendam, a fishing village in the west of Holland, that was why her speech sounded funny for someone from the east of the country like me. What was the woman thinking? That one doesn't hear the difference between a dialect and a foreign accent? Did she really think me that gullible? That was when the first red light in my head went off. But remember, I was desperate, running out of options, trusting my ex-husband and really wanting this to be something good. So I swallowed away my doubts. Not for the last time.
Joanna wanted to know about my drug history, my medical history, especially my psychiatric history. She wanted to know my financial background, my family's financial background, my religious background, and I had to sign some liability wavers, strictly routine of course, and than I was showed the house. There was an office, authorized personnel only, there was a communal living, with some old couches and chairs, and a fairly dirty kitchen annex dining-room.
Upstairs were the bedrooms; 2 to 4 persons of the same sex in a room. I was given a bed in a 2-person room. Luckily there was no other female to share with, so I had the luxury of my own bedroom.
Old mattresses, used by many people, and the laundry was changed just once a week, even for those in detox. The bedrooms didn't smell too good.... People kicking heroin tend to sweat a lot.
Down in the basement were the therapy-rooms and the famous sauna. It all looked rather primitive. Not that that was of the most importance, I could take that if they could cure me, but I did start wondering if it would be a good idea to take my two year old daughter to such a dirty and poorly maintained place. I also didn't see any other children in the house. It turned out that the promise about bringing my baby was another example of acceptable truth according to LRH. No way they were going to let me have my kid there, they just knew that I wouldn't have come if they said NO right away.
After the formalities were done I was offered a cup of tea in the living-room. To my surprise I met Jay there, a good mutual friend of Bob and me. He'd been at Narconon for some weeks now, he recruited Bob and Bob recruited me. One big happy family.....
Jay's mother came from a very wealthy family. She died of cancer about a year before this all happened, and, knowing about her sons drug-addiction, she put up this trust for him with a generous monthly allowance until he reached the age of 35 (He was about 25).
At 35 he would come in complete control of his inheritance, which amounted to a multimillion sum. His mother was afraid he'd spend it all on drugs, so she built in this safety, hoping that age would make him a little wiser. She, of course, never considered the lawyers of the Scientology church. More about that later.
To stay at Narconon you had to pay 100 guilders a day. Jay paid this for his friend Bob. My parents were willing to pay this for me. They were not rich people, but they had some savings and since I'm their only child, they thought it worthwhile. I made the arrangement with Joanna that I would pay for the first week myself, and that they wouldn't bother my parents about money before the second week. In the past I screwed up several rehab attempts during the first week because I couldn't stand the pain of cold turkey detox. I knew that, if I passed the first week, I'd probably complete the program. I didn't want my parents to be bothered about money before there was a fair chance of success. Joanna promised me that she wouldn't talk to my parents before day 7 and not without my knowledge.
The detox treatment consisted of massive doses of vitamins, weird communication trainings, and so called assists. I remember staring into each others eyes for hours, answering nonsense questions for hours, the so called bull-baiting, trying to upset the other over his/her weaknesses, the body-com, an assist to focus your thoughts on the here and now, went like this. While laying on a bed a volunteer put his/her hands on parts of your body, said “ feel my hands” and then you had to say thank you. And this went over and over again. Another was the nerve assist, which I personally found somewhat effective, but basically it was no more than an elaborate relaxing exercise.
Well, you can say that these things don't harm, but they don't really help either. What harmed were the absurd doses of vitamins and minerals without any medical supervision. Sure, you’d get a checkup before the sauna-treatment started, but the Church of Scientology doctor lived in Amsterdam, a two hour drive from Zutphen, and they didn't take you to a local doctor, not even in emergencies. I never saw this doctor.
That's why I never made it to the sauna, thank goodness. It is dangerous and scientifically unsound, it doesn't even make sense according to LHR's theories. Toxins, according to Hubbard, store in fat. By sweating you loose water, no fat, so what's the use? 5 hours of sauna daily plus strenuous physical excercise cause exhaustion and dehydration, even in people in great shape. Most drug-addicts are not. Combined with sleep deprivation, which comes naturally when going cold turkey, bad food, sessions of repeating the same nonsense for hours, badgering, bullying and bringing on fear (If you leave here you die, we are your last chance) this program is an example of classical brainwashing which the Chinese and the North Koreans couldn't improve.
After three days without sleep things became funny. I started wondering why we had to greet L. Ron Hubbard's portrait every morning, and why it was strictly forbidden to look into the course-material of those who were further along in the program. I started asking questions, first to myself, later to other people, and nobody came up with answers that made sense.
Another thing that bothered me was the money. There were about 30 pupils in the house. Private patients paid, at that time, 100 guilders per day. Part of the pupils were paid for by the Dutch Department of Corrections. According to Dutch law you can spend the last months of a prison sentence in a rehab-facility. The state paid 150 guilders a person a day. That totals about 3500 guilders a day. The groceries were about 200 guilders a day, of-course they had to pay mortgage on the house and the electricity bill, but 30 x 3500 makes a whopping monthly 105,000 Guilders a month (about 40,000 US$). Average per capita income in those days was about 1800 Gld. a month. Except for the director all of the staff volunteered, so hardly any costs were made on personnel.
Nevertheless we all had to write letters to businesspeople, in which we told about our addiction, our wish to become a productive member of society again and our poor widowed mother who couldn't pay for treatment. If they could be so kind to give something, completely tax-deductible, they would do so much good for the world..... Addresses came from the yellow pages, chamber of commerce, business-guides etc. Every story was a great big lie, copied from printed examples, but 30 people writing up to 100 letters every day make up for a lot of donations, even if only one percent would give something.
I asked where all the money went, why we had to eat cheap starchy food with chemical colorants and few proteins and vitamins in spite of all the ranting about food chemicals storing in our body fat. It sure is easier not to put them in in the first place, instead of spending hours in saunas to get rid of them. And why sit on smelly second hand furniture with burn-holes when there was such a stream of money coming in? No answers.
When in full withdrawal from opiates you have little control over your emotions. :oops: You laugh and cry at the most inappropriate moments. I started laughing during the daily LRH-greeting ritual and they became so angry, it scared me. They reacted as if I was painting pentagrams in a Baptist church. I didn't mean anything disrespectful, it was just the idea that struck me as being funny. I was taken to the office and three or four staff-members were browbeating me about being respectful of their religion. What religion? I was told they were religiously neutral, an independent and secular foundation that only used some of L.Ron's techniques.
Meanwhile they forbade people to read non-CoS religious books during treatment. They grudgingly allowed the Bible because it would cause too much adverse publicity to ban Bible-reading and the Department of Correction-inmates had the constitutional right to the Holy Scripture. But the Holy Books of other faiths were outright forbidden. Especially the books of the Bhagwan were scorned, probably because Rajneesj was the greatest contender on the souls-in-need market at the time.
I turned my head away to avoid the anger in their eyes and happened to see some faxes from the CoS HQ in Los Angeles. Couldn't really read them, but I could see they were about money. Meanwhile I was getting really sick from withdrawal, and still hadn't seen a doctor. Bob was there for almost two weeks by then, but he also hadn't seen a doctor yet.
Despite this lack of medical care he'd been through the worst of detox and had been in the sauna for several days. They say you get the sauna-treatment only after a thorough medical checkup, but only if the right doctor is at hand.
Rules are stricter now. Since the nineties several people died from heatstroke and exhaustion after the sauna, but in those days they were rather easy on the medical, in Holland at least. We didn't have wrongful damages and malpractice-trials and things like that in those days. By now we have. Suing is not just an American hobby anymore.
Anyway, the whole thing started to awake the innate sceptic in me. Too many things just didn't fit.
I saw too much that didn't fit. Suddenly I couldn't phone my parents anymore. There was a rule, they said, no phone-calls during the first week. I had phoned home all the days before, nobody said that I could not. That was, so they said, a BIG mistake of the staff-member that let me make those calls. They all did, and Bob was allowed to call me every day in his first week. Another rule that was invented on the spot. I found out that Joanna went to visit my parents, against our agreement. She denied it when she came back, but later that night told me that it was not a call about money, but just a social call, to explain family members about the program etcetera.
Funny thing was; she only went to parents that were supposed to pay the bill. Nobody visited Bob's parents, Jay paid for him. Jay's father, who was divorced from his mother long before she died and had no money of his own, never saw them. The solicitor who controlled his trust did get a visit. The parents of the jailbirds never saw anyone to explain the program, their offspring was provided for by the state. Only the milk-cows were visited. And milked dry.
I got so angry over this, that I couldn't sleep, couldn't stay in bed, had to do something.
A weird phenomenon with heroin-withdrawal is that, though you don't sleep, throw up, have cramps and sweat profusely, at some point in time everything becomes as clear as crystal. It's like a heightened form of perception, you hear, see, smell everything in your environment.
The mind also gets extremely clear, it starts making connections it would miss when at ease. This is a dangerous point in the process. Enlightenment can tip over to psychosis at any moment. It's hard to explain, but everything gets so real that it becomes unreal. This was the state I was in when things really got bizarre.
Experienced psychotherapists, secret-service agents and cult-converters recognize this state of mind. Here the patient gets crazy, converts or runs away, loudly screaming. I suppose I did the last (without the screaming part) because they made three big mistakes in handling me.
In hindsight I think, first of all, the handlers they used just weren't that good. The real good ones are put on the celebs and other big fish like heirs to family-fortunes. In their fixed worldview they couldn't see some average middle class junkie beat the tech. The thought just didn't come to their brainwashed minds.
The second mistake was their greed. They should have waited a little longer with putting the fishing rod in Bob's hand. He wasn't turned completely when I arrived; that gave both of us the chance to talk to a known, trusted, and not totally brainwashed person. Had they given Bob the time to turn, I would have been alone against the entire group. The odds would've gotten much worse for me and my freedom of thought.
Third mistake was the given opportunity to investigate on my own. Again these prejudices about drug-addicts that are only interested in drugs and their own short term gain. They just couldn’t fathom the idea of a heroin-user being capable to have independent thoughts.
And they should have given me the sense of love, family, belonging, purpose or whatever it is most people desperately try to find, instead of creating an atmosphere of paranoia, lies, greed and secrets. Any popular book about cults could have given them the basic techniques.
NEGATIVE: sleep deprivation, physical exhaustion, poor food, humiliation, imprinting by repeating absurd formulas. The fear of losing life and sanity if leaving the cult. General society is dangerous and out to get you, be it (depending on the cult) drug dealers, Satan, the CIA, the KGB, or the psychiatry-mafia, the world is a perilous place.
Thus separating you from your true family and friends, so you have nowhere to go.
POSITIVE: Creating a sense of trust, “you can tell us anything, we've been through the same, we understand." Creating a false sense of family, offering a chance of redemption, an opportunity to set things right, creating an atmosphere of warmth, love and kindness, once the first phase, the detox or the drilling or the introduction or whatever it is called, is over. WE LOVE YOU!!!
Main mistake in my case was their failure to see me as a person, they just saw the addict. And I've always been a strange one among addicts. For instance, I hated lies,and I never stole from friends and family. And even in my worst periods, I kept a keen interest in the world around me. It simply didn't occur to them that they really pissed me off (excuse my French...)
When everybody was in bed I went back to the living-room, and started reading the course-material of the higher level students. I read about the thetan in me, acceptable truth, which means that you are allowed to lie for a good cause, getting clear, and a lot of BS about engrams, auditing, LRH as Savior of Mankind through Scientology and all the mad rantings about how psychiatry caused every evil in the world. I literally got sick to my stomach. I knew there and then that I was trading my addiction for something far more insidious and far more dangerous; a mind-controlling cult.
The thing about the acceptability of lies shocked me, since I was being told that drug-users are liars, which is a bad habit, and I always had to be totally honest. To reach the desired level of honesty, one needed Narconon.
And there, in the book, it was written that lying was alright when it suited the cause of CoS.
WOW.
Even though I knew I was not supposed to, I tried the office-door. To my surprise it was unlocked. I took a closer look at the faxes lying on the desk, but they didn't make too much sense to me. Lots of lingo I didn't understand. But there was a steady stream of contact between Zutphen and LA-HQ, and money went from Narconon Holland to the Church of Scientology. Independent organization. Right. LIARS!
The next morning I talked to Bob and Jay about my doubts, and the feeling we were being brainwashed into the Scientology-church. Bob started getting his own doubts, but Jay was further along the line, and they've put a lot of energy into him. Big fish. I demanded a phone-call with my parents within the hour, else I would leave, and Bob would probably come with me. From that moment on Jay was effectively screened off from the both of us, and they tried to persuade Bob that I was a bad influence on his recovery. They tried to persuade me that it was a misunderstanding, that the phones where down and whatever, and that Bob was just wanting to make a prostitute out of me, like before.... (Sorry boys, but that simply never happened, just another assumption about a male and a female drug-addict living together), but I stood my ground. Either I'd speak to my parents and hear they did not pay my treatment yet, or I'd leave the place and go ask them myself.
They wouldn't budge, so I left. I suppose they finally realized that they couldn't stop me, and that, even if they could, I'd be a bad influence on the rest, so they let me go. Bob wanted to come with me, and since he nor his family had any money, they didn't try too hard to keep him. Damage control.
We left, I called my father at the nearest phone-booth and heard he did pay the 3000 guilders for one month treatment, and he wasn't too happy when I told him that his hard-earned cash went to the Church of Scientology. My skeptical streak didn't come from a stranger.
I asked him to come and get us, which he did. He picked us up at the station, we drove to Narconon, and I rang the door. Joanna's car was in the driveway, her coat was hanging in the hall, but the staff-member who opened said I was an unacceptable person now, only Joanna was allowed to talk to me, and she'd be gone all day. We could come back tomorrow for our things. I told him that we would be back in an hour, that I wanted both our belongings and the money my father payed. They could keep the money for the days I spent there, but the rest had to come back. Which was, of course, impossible, the money was in the safe, only Joanna had the key, she'd be gone all day, bla, bla.
At that moment I had another short flash of revelation. I realized that threatening with violence would make me end up in jail, threatening with the law wouldn't help because they have better lawyers and they know it, but there was one excellent option left; their fear of negative press-exposure.
I told them that I would give the whole story, everything we both experienced, saw and heard to a reporter of a magazine that was strongly anti-Scientology and had some good lawyers of its own. Their publisher had just won a lawsuit against the church about an article they published. Great timing.
I also told them I would invite this journalist and the local radio-station to witness how we we would not get our rightful belongings back.
The miracle happened. When we came back Joanna was there, with all the money minus the 500 for the days I stayed there, and all our possessions stood outside. Must have touched a sore spot...
I got money back from the CoS, which makes me one of a select few.. (Technically, they still scammed me for 100 guilders. I'd only stayed four days, not five. But what the ####) Bob asked to speak to Jay. But he was too scared, too intimidated, to come outside and talk to us.
That is the one thing I regret most, we couldn't save Jay. The last will his mother made up when she knew she was going to die, was contested by Scientology-lawyers. They won. The entire fortune was given at once to this poor insecure boy, who spent it all on Scientology-courses and was kicked out for drug abuse when the money was gone. Last thing I heard of him was that he was in prison for robbery, to finance his heroin-addiction. They took this gentle and vulnerable kid in, sucked him dry and left him to rot. They are just as bad as drug dealers. Maybe worse, the dope at least gives you some pleasure for your money, albeit only temporary.
And dealers are honest about their motivation. They don't pretend to save your soul while picking your bank-account clean.
I'm OK now, so is Bob, but it still makes me sad when I think of poor Jay. He never stood a chance.
Over the years at least two people have died at Narconon Netherlands, and it is still a registered charity, gifts are tax deductible, they put their fliers at youth counseling centers, centers for addiction advice, doctors offices etcetera. The Justice Department is still sending prisoners there. It is bizarre.
I really do think people get mixed up about the name. Narconon-Narcotics Anonymous-Alanon, it all sounds alike. Either that or they just don't want to hear, I don't know. It makes me angry that nothing has changed. The same scheme is still played and desperate people still lose. The lucky ones only lose their money. The unlucky ones lose their sanity, their freedom and sometimes even their life.
Victims are also volunteers that truly believe in what they are doing, and only want to help people. It is just that the organization is corrupt, so it doesn't work, no matter how well-motivated individual staff-members are. They are also victims, giving away their time, their energy and their caring spirit to make a couple of crooks rich beyond measure. Like the clients, they will only lose in the end. No retirement or disability plan for them when they get old or sick.
And in their Hollywood mansions or on their yachts Mister Miscavage and Mister Cruise and their minions and mistresses are having a great time, living their lives of luxury and laughing out loud about the stupid suckers who fall for their evil schemes. At least, that's what I think. But I'm just supposing. What do I know?
No matter how bad your situation is, no matter how addicted you are and to what substance, you don't need Narconon. There’s better options for treatment, both in Europe and in the Americas. I'm sure there are options in the rest of the world too. Fight your addiction, but beware of this dangerous scam. They are not there for you, just for your money.
Thanks for listening to my story, and for those whom it concerns: FIND HELP!
Sekh's story was originally posted on the Operation Clambake Message Board.
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A trifold flyer with information about Narconon is available here: http://www.reachingforthetippingpoint.net/NarcononFlyer-2010-06-11.pdf