LEARNING
TO CURE
YOURSELF
OF
DRINK
& DRUG
ADDICTION.
BASED
ON 50 YEARS OF INTERNATIONAL SUCCESS.
As
you may well have noticed, you can't live somebody else's life for
them, and equally, nobody else can live your life for you.
So
that, whether we like it or not, life is a do-it-for-yourself
activity.
This
means that becoming addicted to drink or drugs is also mainly a
do-it-for-yourself activity AND ALSO that escaping
from addiction is something you must do-for-yourself, provided you
know how to go about it.
A
self-help residential programme of addiction recovery training for
lasting relaxed abstinence is vastly different from other addiction
rehab systems because, instead of offering “treatment”, it
“TRAINS” addicts in HOW TO CURE THEMSELVES.
And
it is the many differences in a self-help training programme which
make all the difference to the results which such programmes obtain
first time through in from 55 to 69+% of cases.
The
FIRST Difference: between a self-help training programme and
other forms of rehabilitation is found in such programme's view of
the individual addict who is regarded as an “addiction victim”
and designated as a “STUDENT” rather than as a “patient”, a
“client”, a “bum”, a “criminal”, a misuser, an abuser or
a “service user”.
An
“addicted patient” for psychiatrists and pharmaceutical producers
is a client with an addictive demand who should be “treated” by
doing something “TO” him or her in order to have that addict as a
consumer of substitute addictive medication for as long as U.K.,
taxpayers via the NHS, will go on paying for prescribed supplies of
drugs such as methadone and Subutex, etc.
The
definition of a “criminal drug user” varies from country to
country and from time to time, but the intention and effect of the
“criminal” label is to punish
what any particular jurisdiction currently regards as a crime
– which in practice across the world can mean anything from being
given a caution or being sentenced to a fine, imprisonment, a whip
lashing or even execution !
And
interestingly, the above “criminal” view of addiction is usually
concerned only with smuggled, stolen, illegal and designer drugs, and
so does not include the vast majority of addictive substances such as
licensed ALCOHOL and prescribed MEDICAL drugs – each of which are
vastly bigger problems than smuggled, stolen, illegal and designer
drugs.
The
defining of an addict as a “student” recognises four things:
a) That
70 to 75% of all drink and drug addicts who have been using for more
than 3 weeks, 3 months, 3 years or 30 years desperately want
to quit, and although they have thus tried and failed on
numerous occasions (often daily) to do so, they nevertheless
have no lack of willingness to stop. Their problem is simply
and actually “finding out HOW to stop”.
b) That
– (because life is obviously and inescapably a
“do-it-for-yourself” activity) – addiction is NOT just
about a chemical substance but is a condition permitted by the
individual's lack of a real understanding of life, mainly brought
about by misinformation & lies from vested commercial interests
in the massive alcohol and medical supply businesses, as well as from
criminal sources.
c) That
an addict is no longer in total charge of his or her life and so
wishes to again take control, and,
d) That,
to again take control of his or her life, an addict needs training in
self-help addiction recovery techniques, with which they can
concurrently procure lasting relaxed abstinence for
themselves, and thus thereafter be able to easily apply
what they have learned - for life.
So
the first vital difference is that a self-help programme does not
“treat” drug addicts, nor does it transfer addicts from one
addictive substance to another as in so called Opioid Substitution
Therapy where addicts are moved from illegal heroin to legally
prescribed but more addictive methadone or Subutex, thus basically
ensuring they remain as prescription drug addicts for life.
Self-help
instead TRAINS THEM to cure themselves !
GIVE
A MAN A FISH, AND YOU FEED HIM FOR A DAY.
BUT,
TEACH HIM HOW TO FISH, AND YOU FEED HIM FOR LIFE.
This
is the difference between treatment in most rehabs and training in
self-help addiction recovery.
Give
a heroin addict methadone and you satisfy his habit for that one day.
But teach him HOW to take control of and get rid of his habit, and
you give him the gift of recovery of the natural state of relaxed
abstinence into which he was born, and which he can then maintain.
Which
brings us to self-help's very different recognition of “WHY”
addiction occurs.
SECOND
Difference: Psychiatrists, psychologists, politicians, social
workers and police, etc., assign a large variety of reasons as to why
an individual becomes an addict. They ignore completely the fact
that the UK's largest group of addicts (over 2 million) are NHS
patients prescribed into involuntary addiction by the medical
profession, and instead blame “peer pressure”, wanting a “thrill”
or a “high”, irresponsibility, lawlessness, recklessness,
criminal inclination, misuse and numerous other “possible”
causes.
But
for centuries medicine, alcohol and drugs have been used to
solve problems, and that is still the reason for their usage
today. For certain heart problems we take aspirin, for a headache or
toothache we take paracetamol or some other pain killer, for the
problem of travel sickness we take another tablet, for the problem of
shock or family loss we are prescribed Valium or another “benzo”
drug, and to solve shyness or anxiety many take spirit alcohol or
another chemical stimulant, etc.
And
it is the misinformation and even downright lies which are used to
make the guy (who has what he “considers” a problem)
use an addictive drug in order to solve it.
In
fact, Mary Wakefield the deputy editor of the “Spectator” once
commented that the pharmaceutical industry has grown into possibly
the largest industry in the world by manufacturing “A Pill for
Every Ill”.
“Drugs
solve problems” - or so we are told from an early age, not only
by psycho-pharms, but also by Grandma, Dad & Mum, our local
doctor and even the local pub barman.
It
is therefore not at all surprising to find self-help students finding
and recognising for themselves that they decided or agreed to take an
addictive substance IN ORDER TO SOLVE WHAT THEY THEMSELVES (and
usually them alone) CONSIDERED A PROBLEM OF
SURVIVAL IN THEIR DAILY LIFE OR ENVIRONMENT.
In
other words: DRUGS ARE A SOLUTION – NOT A PROBLEM.
But
strangely enough, most “treatment” forms of addiction
rehabilitation, EXCEPT self-help, basically consider drugs as
“a problem” which doctors believe can only be solved with some
form of medication.
A
solution is simply an action adopted by individuals to handle some
problematic situation in their life.
Those
readers with the benefit of self-help training will know that a
solution comes under the heading of “a self-determined change”.
i.e. It is not something forced on the individual.
So
the second difference is that self-help training recognises that the
initial cause of addiction is not a search for thrills, or highs, or
misuse, or abuse, but that the cause is the desire of an individual
to solve what he or she considers a worrying personal problem by
employing a solution which he or she is wrongly advised or led
to believe involves using an addictive substance.
So
they are a VICTIM of both the addictive drug and the misleading
information given them in order to persuade them to try a few doses.
In
other words, they make a disastrous decision to use an addictive
substance based on a lie or on some misunderstanding, and become
addicted because it is addictive drugs themselves which
are what impose and enforce addiction on the
user.
This
is obvious, because NO-ONE CAN EVER BECOME ADDICTED TO A
DRUG WHICH ONE NEVER EVER USES !
THIRD
Difference: From the above we see that the goals of self-help
training are:
1)
knowledge of recovery techniques,
2)
resurrection of personal responsibility, and
3)
the regaining of relaxed control of one's life - leading to
self-determination
of one's life.
But
for other addiction rehabilitation systems the goal is often to be
able to struggle through each difficult day - one day at a time -
without taking the drug to which they are addicted, just by
courageously fighting their craving.
Whilst
this can eventually bravely lead some to increasingly relaxed
abstinence, because other rehab systems make no attempt to remove the
individual's store of drug toxins and metabolites lodged in the fatty
tissues of the body, there is always the possibility of
re-stimulation from the breakdown of such deposits, their release
into the blood stream, a consequent re-triggering of desire for the
drug, and a return to addiction. Release of such addictive deposits
is triggered by increases in body temperature usually caused by
physical work, exercise and / or weather hot enough to lead to
sweating.
Which
brings us to an examination of the technicalities and nomenclature
involved in recovery from addiction.
FOURTH
Difference: When self-help training says: “detoxification”,
we mean flushing from the addict's body ALL drug residues,
metabolites, hormones and other toxic deposits built up by addiction
and life in general.
When
a psychiatrist, doctor or pharmacists says: “detoxification”,
they misleadingly mean the stopping of the regular taking of any
further doses of a particular addictive substance. (What
self-help regards as: “withdrawal”.)
So,
when an addict is given medication to stop him taking heroin, that is
the psycho-pharm idea of a “heroin detox”. The addict is no
longer adding to the store of toxic heroin metabolites in his body,
but nevertheless he still retains whatever damagingly poisonous store
of them he has already built-up.
However,
IF in order to stop the heroin intake he is prescribed methadone or
Subutex, etc., (which is normally the case), IN ADDITION TO
his existing store of heroin metabolites, he then starts to
build up a further store of methadone metabolites or Subutex
metabolites, etc., any or all of which (including the original
heroin) – by engaging in hard physical work, energetic sport or
just warmer than normal summer weather conditions – can by sweating
be released from the body's fatty tissues, re-enter the bloodstream
and lead to a return to a former state of addictive desire.
“Recovered”
and “rehabilitated” are other words which for self-help trainees
have different meanings from those which other addiction
rehabilitation systems assign them.
For
us: “recovered” means returning to the natural state of
lasting relaxed abstinence into which 99% of the
population is born. To fully understand why this is different –
try ringing a local rehab and asking what THEY mean by “recovered”
! Or ring your local MP and ask what he or she (mis)understands by
“recovered”.
Self-help
training goals (and achievements) are seen by many as sky-high when
compared to the goals of most other rehabs.
FURTHER
Differences:
Because
of the fundamentally basic differences between the self-help
“TRAINING” approach and psycho-pharm “TREATMENT” approaches
the reasons why self-help is totally different becomes
apparent in every aspect of an addict's journey through his or her
programme.
Self-help
training “withdrawal” procedures are DRUG-FREE. Many
other withdrawals are not. In LASTING RELAXED ABSTINENCE
terms self-help programme results run at a 55 to 69+% success rate,
normally reached in 11 to 13 weeks.
Methadone
achieves only 3% abstinence after decades of prescribed usage.
Twelve Steps does better at 20 to 30% achieved in 9 to 36 months or
longer.
And
even the cost of delivering self-help training residential recovery
is different from other residential rehabilitation operations,
because of our willingness and ability to offer the choice of
“Payment by Results” as an alternative to the usual full up-front
fee for attendance on course rather than for an agreed result.
Depending
on local property and
wages costs, which can vary from one part of the UK to another, the
current self-help programme
fee for the newest
Centre in the expensive south of London counties is £29,000
on a Payment by Results
basis. But other
residential rehabs cost from
£12,000 to £39,000 or
more, for treatment periods far shorter than
self-helps 12
weeks and
with full payment due
irrespective of the result.
And
of course results of 20 to 30% abstinence are nowhere near as
valuable as the self-help training results of 55 to 69+% of lasting
relaxed abstinence and recovery – first time through the programme.
There
is also another important difference.
Psycho-pharm
treatment prescribing considers ALL addicts as nearly impossible to
cure, as a result of which they say they should ALL be put on Subutex
or methadone Opioid Substitution Therapy (OST).
On
the other hand, self-help training centres know from 50 years
experience of training addicts to cure themselves, that 70 to 75% of
addicts who have been using for months or years WANT TO QUIT,
have tried at numerous times (often daily) to do so and yet, having
again failed, STILL WANT TO STOP.
THEIR
PROBLEM IS THEREFORE NOT WILLINGNESS,
IT IS LACK OF RECOVERY KNOW-HOW.
The
other 25 to 30% are resistive cases who for the three well known main
reasons have no desire or intention whatsoever to quit. These are
the horses you can lead to water, but who will not drink. So, with
no willingness, how can they ever be trained ?
The
other 70 to 75% of addicts need, want AND DESERVE
Self-Help Training Technology. And the rest of the
society also needs them to have it, because addicts are the 5%
of the UK population which impinge most heavily on the
lives of the other 95%.
It
is therefore encouraging to observe that internationally more
citizens and a majority of policy-makers are now recognising the
direction in which addiction inevitably takes our families and
society, and have seen that the most important first step is to
REDUCE THE DEMAND which can arise from within a family from vested
interest and criminal advice leading to poor parenting.
Westminster,
Brussels, Edinburgh, Belfast, Dublin, Cardiff and other parliaments
are now increasingly aware that amongst the problems which drug and
alcohol addicts cause are the following:
* Addicts
and drunks cause most accidents at work.
* Addicts
mug and rob old people.
* Addicts
and drunks cause most road accidents.
* Addicts
sell drugs to children (and others).
* Addict
increase the numbers of prostitutes and toy boys
in
our towns and cities.
* Addicts
disrupt our schools, the education of our children
and
the life of our communities.
* Addicts
bankrupt businesses and destroy jobs.
* Addicts
break into and burgle people's homes.
* Addicts
spread HIV, AIDS and hepatitis.
* Addicts
and drunks commit the most crimes,
and,
ADDICTS
ARE UNDOUBTEDLY THE REAL CURRENT THREAT TO
OUR
LIVES AND TO EVERYBODY'S FUTURE.
AND
THIS INCLUDES ADDICTS ON ILLEGAL, LICENSED
AND
PRESCRIBED DRUGS.
This
is because their addiction controls them, and
THIS
AFFECTS EVERYBODY – EVERYONE'S FAMILY, EVERYONE'S
INCOME,
EVERY JOB, EVERYONE'S HEALTH AND EVERY ONE'S
HOME
– INCLUDING YOURS.
The
above is about addicts in general and the increasing damage which
they do to all walks of society and to our whole economy.
They
are also the reasons why (although we might believe it is not our
fault or our problem) WE MUST
ALL DO OUR UTMOST TO POSITIVELY
HELP ADDICTS reduce their numbers and their dependency on those of us
who do not use drugs.
Because
we have the truth staring us in the face, we can be sure it is no use
relying on government alone to solve the substance addiction problems
which are daily causing anxiety, crime, violence, terrorism, damage,
accidents, injuries, disease and even death.
Every
one of us is needed to solve this problem because, in the final
analysis, it is OUR problem, even if our family and children have so
far managed to avoid actual drug usage and the direct results of
addictive behaviour.
SO,
IT IS SINCERELY HOPED YOU AND YOURS WILL NEVER HAVE
TO
DIRECTLY FACE ADDICTION, AND HOPED ALSO THAT YOU WILL RECOGNISE THAT
SUCH AN ESCAPE WILL MAINLY COME ABOUT BECAUSE YOU HELPED STAMP OUT
ADDICTIVE DRUGS
BY
HELPING VICTIMS OF ADDICTION TO RECOVER !
-------------------------------------------------------
For
further information, you may wish to contact:
Elisabeth
M. Reichert, Field Staff Member
for
Narconon United Kingdom,
who
can arrange for you to inspect (without obligation),
and
talk to the staff and students at,
the
NARCONON UNITED KINGDOM Training Centre,
at
HEATHFIELD, East Sussex, TN21 0DJ.
