The Narconon First Step Program

When families first learn about the Narconon drug rehab program, what they find is a series of effective techniques that help a person emerge from addiction into a new, stable, sober life. From the moment a person arrives at a Narconon drug rehab, there are experienced staff on hand to offer directed nutrition, simple hands-on assists, and orientation and communication exercises, each part designed to reduce the physical and mental pain and sickness of withdrawal. With this promising start, many addicts in recovery realize that this time rehab can be profoundly different - this time, they’ve found a rehab with an excellent track record of achieving lasting sobriety among its graduates.

Outside Narconon-model rehab centers, the early steps of this methodology have been found to help others who may never see the inside of a Narconon center. In many parts of the world, including more than a hundred places in Mexico, the methodology of how to deliver these Narconon ‘first steps’ toward rehabilitation have been instructed in workshops to individuals and staff members of Twelve Step (Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous) and other groups to help them help others. The idea is to make available to others the Narconon tested and proven methodology, to reach as many people around the world as possible.

Over time, these helpful procedures were formally compiled into the Narconon First Step Program. A three-part manual was published to make these procedures readily available for anyone wishing to use them at home, in a doctor’s office, in prison or after release from prison, in a drug rehab, or in a charitable or religious organization. These manuals have been sold from Narconon centers and their websites for many years now. You can see the first two manuals here: First Step Program

What does the Narconon First Step Program Consist of?

Anyone who has been through drug withdrawal or observed another go through it knows what a miserable time it is. While the exact symptoms vary with the type of drug that was being used, it is common for those in withdrawal to feel very sick, to vomit, have diarrhea, not be able to sleep, suffer fevers or chills, be irritable, depressed, and disoriented. Just the thought of going through withdrawal again is enough to prevent many alcoholics or other drug addicts from deciding to “stop.”

In some rehabilitation centers, powerful prescription drugs are given to suppress some of these symptoms. For example, pain killers, tranquilizers, sleeping pills, and even antidepressants may be given to a person suffering from complex withdrawal symptoms. The problem with this approach to dealing with withdrawal discomforts is that most if not all of these “substitute” or “symptom suppression” drugs are themselves addicting and require their own withdrawal. It has been found, however, that proper nutritional support and careful one-on-one work with someone properly trained can eliminate the need for these pharmaceutical solutions.

NOTE: Withdrawal from heavy alcohol or some drugs does require an initial medically supervised detox - a withdrawal that is closely supported by qualified medical professionals. For example, heavy alcohol and benzodiazepine (Xanax, Valium) withdrawals can be dangerous if medical care is not directly available. There are also drugs that must not be cut off “cold turkey,” but tapered off gradually, also requiring supervision by medical staff. In those cases where medical detox is not required, the administering the Narconon First Step Program can be invaluable in making withdrawal much more tolerable and thus successful.

The First Manual, Part I: Nutritional and Physical Body Support

The first manual contains instructions on how to help a person through a rapid, tolerable withdrawal. One major tool used is nutritional supplementation. When substance abusers enroll to commence drug rehabilitation with the withdrawal step, they are universally in terrible physical condition. They may not have eaten or slept properly for months or years. The drugs and/or alcohol they have been using have created a litany of serious nutritional deficiencies, whose symptoms remarkably and closely parallel the symptoms of alcohol and drug withdrawal. The drugs themselves and their metabolites (or what the drugs break down into inside the body) as well as other poisons in the chemical cocktails drug addicts have consumed create toxic conditions in their bodies.

The Narconon First Step Program is based on the common sense and good-science approach that one would better solve a problem of toxic chemicals and nutritional deficiencies with good nutrition, rest and sleep, and hands-on gentle care than with powerful toxic substitutes that may suppress all feelings of discomfort but which are inevitably then followed by their own _worse _withdrawal symptoms.

Replacing Lost Nutrients

By providing supplements that start to replace the lost nutrients alcoholics or drug abusers have been burning up for years, the symptoms of withdrawal reduce, becoming much more confrontable. Equally if not more importantly, the time it takes to withdraw and begin to feel normal and healthy again is _vastly _reduced. It is not considered unusual for an opiate addict to take many weeks to be able to sleep again. With the Narconon First Step Program this is accomplished in one week.

Some of the natural, food-level nutrients used include special, drinkable formulation of calcium and magnesium to reduce muscle cramps and pains, plus balanced combination of B vitamins to raise mood and energy. Vitamin C helps the body process the detoxification that’s going on, and much more.

The First Manual, Part II: Orienting the Recovering Person’s Attention

Besides the dread of withdrawal, guilt and shame regarding one’s past harmful acts are also big deterrents to getting sober. Whenever a person is chemically high, he or she camouflages the deep shame he actually feels, deep down. After all, the alcoholic or drug user has done things he never would have allowed himself to do if not under the influence of alcohol or drugs. He may have stolen or conned thousands of dollars out of friends and family. He may have directly robbed other people to get money for drugs. He may have sold drugs to people who were harmed or even killed by them. He or she could have exchanged sex for drugs. He could have physically harmed others or himself. Life without the continuing, short-term anesthetic of drug abuse looks intolerable to the user.

So from the very first day, even in the very first hours of withdrawal, it is vital to help a person realize that the present environment in which he or she is coming down, is safe and oriented around recovery, not more drug or pharmaceutical solutions to misery. The more the person in withdrawal can accomplish this first step in a non-medicated, sober state, the faster the past will stop haunting him. Part of tolerating withdrawal in Narconon is to include exercises and procedures for helping the recovering person to confront the environment around him and his own body and its rapid changes. Interestingly, this does not make things worse, but much better. Confronting the facts of the real world are both the goal and part of the procedure of achieving recovery from addiction.

Novel procedures to accomplish this goal were developed by L. Ron Hubbard, the American author and humanitarian whose work was adopted by William Benitez, the founder of Narconon in the mid-1960s and developed over time into the full Narconon drug rehabilitation program.

Assists to Orient the Person

One such orientation exercise is called a ‘Locational Assist.’ The word ‘assist’ means simply providing someone specific assistance toward a specific goal. And the word ‘locational’ in this case means helping the person locate where he really, physically is as opposed to being dispersed, disoriented, and/or stuck in sad or horrible memories of the past. It is as simple as asking a person to locate and/or touch specific objects in the immediate environment - a chair, a window, a book, a table. By gently guiding a person’s attention in this way, the trauma of the past begins to lose its grip. The recovering person begins to see that now is now, that the threat, danger and toxicity of the past are over.

Assists for the Nervous System

Another technique in this manual is called a Nerve Assist., or an assist to facilitate the relaxing of the nervous system as the body recovers. This is somewhat like a very specific, but gentle massage. A person’s body is stroked in an exact pattern that parallels the pattern and structure of the nervous system. Gender-sensitive parts of the body are omitted. The actual purpose is to put the person himself back in touch with his body, to confront how it actually feels. This process seeks a gradient, but progressive effect - that of a relaxation and release of the nerves that are tensed and frozen by trauma, shock and the assault of poisonous substances.

Assists like those and similar others are done repetitively, many times each day, including in the middle of the night, as necessary.

The Second Manual: Beginning to Engage Again with Life and Those Around One

In the second phase of the Narconon First Step Program, the person is guided through his or her first training in certain life skills that are an essential component of maintaining sobriety or recovery. Manual Two contains the instructions on fundamental confronting and communication skills.

Any family member or friend of an addict knows that an addicted loved one lost his ability to communicate honestly and directly long ago. He can’t make eye contact. He evades any direct questioning. He avoids confronting almost everything factual about his life and the consequences of his addiction. He swears by obviously false promises he’ll never be able to keep. His life has become a giant mass of secrets that must be preserved and hidden, answers that must not be provided. The house of cards, even when utterly collapsed, is pretended to be still standing. It’s a terrible state to live in, if not worse for those around the deteriorating alcoholic or other drug addict.

The truth and fact is that the person in withdrawal has to begin to confront and re-engage with the world and persons around him even to withdraw. This is not something to put off until later, but to be exercised simply and gradiently even during withdrawal. The Narconon First Step Program begins even on day one to restore those life skills obliterated by the heavy weight of past drug abuse.

Instead of continuing to sedate oneself with street drugs or prescribed pharmaceuticals, the person in withdrawal learns that he can confront the specific world around him, even the person or persons helping him, and himself. He learns he can confront himself and his actual condition. This is not small. It is a huge gain, but accomplished in baby steps. What accompanies this, happily for the addict and those around him, is that the addict rapidly learns to confront and control his own emotions. He quickly becomes more able to face another person, and then others, and to communicate with them and accept their communication. It’s as simple as that. A significant discovery in the Narconon program is that one does not wait until later to start working on these skills, but includes them in the very physical, emotional process of withdrawal.

In gentle steps, each person in recovery learns the small skills that add up to a renewed ability to communicate. These gentle steps are practiced with a trained person daily, until greater confidence results. In fact, a person can and will continue to practice these steps later in his recovery to gain increased competence and self-esteem.

These steps may seem deceptive in their simplicity. In fact, they are foundational stones to recovery at dozens of Narconon drug rehab centers around the world. In Narconon centers, these beginning steps are followed by many more educational modules that help persons in recovery find profound and long-term relief from guilt and a return of integrity, a brighter perception of one’s immediate environment, and many other improvements that have proven vital to recovery.

Years ago, Narconon International and its many licensed centers around the world decided to develop a way to share these ‘First Steps’ with other centers, other persons, doctors, probation officers, counselors, and even family members to help addicts get through withdrawal and/or reduce relapse after withdrawal is completed. Hence, these Manuals were created. They can be used by any individual or group that wants to help loved ones or community members find relief from past drug use and/or step down from current drug use. This is the vital first step of long-term recovery from drugs.

The Manuals have been instructed in workshops to government and other personnel around the world, including the Drug Enforcement Agency of the Philippines, the Anti-Narcotics Forces of Pakistan and Jordan, throughout Europe and Russia, even India and Africa. And of course to interested groups and persons in the United States and Canada, such as Native American tribal communities and certain church groups.

To read about one example of intensive delivery of the Narconon First Step in Latin America, click here.