One Example: Narconon Primer Paso (First Step) Arrives in Mexico

From their headquarters in Los Angeles, Narconon International staff observed for some years the increasing wave of violence and killing that went hand-in-gun with the narcotics flowing through Mexico up into the affluent United States. In some areas in Mexico, it became apparent that the drug cartels (los narcotraficantes) are the ruling power, more so than the government. The ‘narcos’ rule with violence, silencing objectors or those disaffecting from the drug gangs with machine guns, machetes and hangman’s rope. Federal police trying to arrest cartel members were (and are) gunned down on any street corner. Or they might be lured and recruited into the ranks of the cartels with their ill-gotten gains.

What many people may not realize is that as the American market for illicit drugs became saturated, the cartels began to distribute their deadly products to their own countrymen. Statistics of Mexican citizens addicted to methamphetamine, heroin, crack cocaine and marijuana have climbed steeply, even among the cartels themselves. If some cartel members then tried to get off drugs by enrolling in Mexican rehab centers, they sometimes found themselves dragged out onto the street and shot, or worse, machine gunned to death inside the center along with whoever else was standing by.

Confronting the desperation of this situation, Narconon International staff and volunteers began to travel to and around Mexico to instruct rehab center directors how to use the Narconon First Step tools to help those who had come to them for help. Those who responded to this humanitarian offer of assistance the most enthusiastically were operators of Christian or Catholic Twelve Step centers (the program known as Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous). Center directors found that when these Narconon techniques were added to their existing programs, they made it possible to get their clients through the first parts of their recovery with less pain and more security, in more comfort and — importantly — with better result. Their clients would then calm down enough to really learn how to apply the Twelve Steps to their lives. Clients of Twelve Step centers utilizing the Narconon First Step, as one doctor’s study found, became less argumentative and more receptive to participating in the recovery process.

After great success in dozens of rehab centers in Mazatlan and other cities in the western state of Sinaloa, word spread around Mexico, and Narconon staff and volunteers were asked to come present the training workshops many more times. Dozens of workshop presentations later, more than 140 Christian/Catholic Twelve Step rehab programs are now offering Narconon First Step procedures to their clients along with their existing program.

Mexican First Step centers have spread across the country, including the following locations:

• Baja California (North)
• Baja California South
• Sinaloa
• Sonora
• Jalisco
• Michoacain
• San Luis Potosi
• Morelos
• Guanajuato
• Veracruz
• Oaxaca
• Mexico, D.F.

The Narconon First Step is also being used now in Guatemala and Ecuador, and there is increasing interest throughout Latin America.

At any one time, as many as 8,000 individuals in these Mexican Twelve Step centers may be using Narconon _First Step _techniques to aid their recoveries. It’s a vital, expanding grassroots movement.

The purpose behind sharing these rehab techniques with our Mexican and other Latin American neighbors is simply to help those who are helping others to do so more effectively. If your neighbor’s house is on fire, you do not just watch. Especially in this challenging, turbulent environment south of the U.S. border, these individuals and the directors of these rehabs need every bit of help they can get. Narconon International and its volunteers have been very happy to bring help where help is needed.

Contact Us.

To learn more about the First Step program or find out how you can learn to offer these techniques in your center or city, call 1-866-971-6609 today. Or email info@narconon.org. (Spanish spoken)