Hi everybody,

The second part of the story about my experiences with Narconon Netherlands. The introduction can be found in the Narconon forum, under the topic " Narconon Netherlands fundraising for new building"
Got so angry when I read that, that I felt it was time for my story to get out in the open.

O well. I can just as easyly paste the first part here too, so you don't have to switch

Part one of 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 SOC. 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 SOC. 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 families financial background, my religious background, and I had to sign some liability wavers, strictly routine ofcourse, 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 where 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 payed 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 nervassist, 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 SOC-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 payed, at that time, 100 guilders per day. Part of the pupils were payed 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 payed 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 sauna's 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. 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 H. Script. 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'll finish my story in my next post. Time to go to bed now. Folks, thanks for reading, sharing and encouraging me to get this out. Love, Sekh.

Thank you SO much for posting, Sekh!
These personal accounts are nearly priceless, I we all appreciate the time you have taken to write them -- your English is amazing!

Anyway, I just wanted to comment about the "red light" feeling and swallowing it up... I've had that experience, too. It's difficult, because when you tell the story to other people, they'll say, "But when such-and-such happened, didn't you know...?" but when we believe in advance that a person or organization is trustworthy, I think that we tend to ignore the warning signs because we think "it's just me."

And also, I have to think that as someone recovering from drug addiction, your judgment/perceptions weren't at their best. What an evil thing for Narconon to take advantage of the fact!

Anyway, thank you again for posting, and I'm really, really glad things seem to be better for you now!

Well written, Sekh.
Thanks for this latest piece. A lot of revealing stuff in there like the piece I have quoted above.

Yeah, as with everything to do with Co$, it's primarily about money.

Yes, thank you Sekh,

Your story is so clearly expressed and adds to the evidence against $CN. You had and have a lot of common sense.

The PR director at the Oklahoma NarCONon used to write promo letters about how NarCONon helped "me" kick the habit and had "clients" sign them in $CN's attempt to get certification forNarCONonfrom the state of Oklahoma.

The goal of CO$ certainly is to make money and to get more people to make more money. But I believe some of the individual SCN'sts have been so "conditioned" they think they are doing the right thing....i.e. the ends justify the means.

re: the touch assist ......My ex was so into those. Once I heard my five year old daughter screaming to high heaven. I found her father dragging her around making her touch things. He said he couldn't stop because it would be harmful if the process wawn't completed. He didn't stop until I threatened to call the police. He honestly thought he was doing the right thing.

Waiting to heard the rest of your story when you're ready to tell it.

Best Wishes,

Tigger

HI everybody,

The final part of my Narconon story. I honestly hope it can be of use to someone.If it starts only one person having second thoughts about going to Narconon, its purpose is fulfilled.

IM looking forward to your reactions, with love, Sekh



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 payed 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 formula’s. The fear of losing’s 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 BSH 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 SoC. 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 Anonymus-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 loose their money. The unlucky ones loose 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 loose 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 America's.
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!

Love, Sekh

WoW, Sekh,

You are one brave lady and smart too. Threatening to go to the media was the right thing to do, but it took guts. LOL, I can just imagine the panic you caused when you said that. It didn't take them long to get your money for you and get you out of there.

Thank you so much for your story.
It's too bad Jay didn't escape with you and Bob, but $CN had too big a hold on him.

I hope your country stops sending people to NarCONON soon. There's power in numbers....perhaps you can find other people or their parents who have been cheated and/or damaged by NarCONon to help you change that policy.

In any event, you can tell your story and you do so very well.

Best Wishes,

Tigger

You've written a great account of your experiences there, Sekh.

So, a big THANK YOU. I'm sure your story will play its own part in helping to expose the underbelly of this organization.
That Narconon is used as a conduit for luring vulnerable people into Co$ must be made public knowledge.
And again, in your last piece, it is clearly illustrated that the cult pays particular attention to those from whom higher sums of $$$ can be leeched.

I hope your story is widely read, Sekh.
Glad you came through ok and that things worked out for you & Bob. Though it was sad that Jay wasn't also by your side in the better days.

Best Wishes

Sekh, what an amazing story. Your English is astounding.

First of all, congratulation for not falling for the scam. It's great you were able to see all of these red flags, and then stand up to them.

Second, it is insidious how they slowly brainwash these vulnerable people. And then to go to your parents to get money! What scumbags.

Lastly, it is sad about Jay. It's almost like he got sucked into the vortex, and you couldn't grab him. But you are right that it's good that you had Bob to talk to, so it wasn't all of them against you. Who could stand up to that? Especially if you're detoxing.

Anyway, thanks so much for your story. You are an excellent writer. Please stick around, check out some other parts of the forum. I think your input would be valuable.

Thank you so much, sekh! All of your words are true and powerful -- I liked the following, I think, the most:

"I knew there and then that I was trading my addiction for something far more insidious and far more dangerous; a mind-controlling cult."

On a slightly lighter note, it was amusing, in a sad way, how they made you salute (?) the portrait of the L. Ron Hubbard each morning!

Didn't they even see the irony? It seems that later in life, he could have used a little Narconon himself. Perhaps his could be first in the series of an "Addicts Wall of Fame."

That would have been poetic justice. Imprisoned in his own rehab facility. I doubt anyone would have recognized him... surely he no longer resembled the portrait on the wall.

@skeptic2girl; yeah, saluting the portrait. And they really didn't see the irony of it. SO serious, these people.

L. Ron never made a secret of his drug experiments, but I suppose he was a special case. Like the Romans said:
" Quod licet Jovis, non licet Bovis". *
Our empire-building predecessors already knew how the world went round.

*That what is allowed to Jupiter, is not allowed to the cattle (or, to the bull). It is clear into which category L. Ron placed himself.

@Tigger & Maarten; Thanks for your reactions. I hope my story will be useful, and I'll definitely stick around to see how things go here. Meanwhile I'll keep an eye out for news on local CoS/Narconon activity.

If anything interesting shows up, you'll hear from me.

Again, thanks for listening, and best wishes for every member of this forum.

Love, Sekh.

That's one crazy story. I'm very happy you shared it with the board. It's something we don't hear that much of, the horrible things that go on in Narconon -- we hear about "regular" Scientology all the time, which is still good to get the word out, but there are relatively few Narconon stories. I do believe this story will help people... unlike Narconon itself. You laid it out really well, with details that people need to know.

Hey... you know those e-mail FWD's we get from usually older relatives or friends that don't know a lot about the Internet? You know, those stories of "my friend went to the mall and there was a man waiting. When he asked her question X, she got hit on the head and robbed! So if a person asks you question X, run away!" Or whatever. The people of Narconon remind me of people who base their entire world view on the contents of those e-mails. We all know how little training they get there, but it's unbelievable just HOW little they know. The assuming you'd ~obviously~ been prostituted because you were a woman is just wrong.

Thing I don't understand is why did that Joanna lady lie about being Dutch? What would it matter to anyone if she was born in America? It wouldn't affect her ability to treat drug addiction. It's like they're so used to lying, they just say anything. They'd probably swear the sky is red when it's obviously blue if they thought it would get them something they want.

I think you should consider passing on your story to your local legislative bodies. It's only one letter, but with the way you and Bob were treated, and especially Jay's life getting ruined like that, someone in there should take you seriously. They ARE an insidious cult, and they need to be stopped.

One big contradiction I'd love to ask of DM is, "If Hubbard's methods work so well, why not openly associate Narconon with the Church of Scientology? And acknowledge that Narconon is a religious organization?" (I anticipate that he'd say that it's not secret it's affiliated, blah blah blah.)

But here's my thinking: let's say Narconon defied all odds and actually worked miracles in treating people trying to recover from addiction. If this really did happen, it would make such great p.r. for Scientology!

@skeptic2girl; Yeah, a miracle cure for addiction would make great PR. Unfortunately for he Scio's the miracle doesn't deliver on its promises.
In Holland Scientology has always had a dubious reputation as a cult. Cults scare the Dutch. That's why Narconon can't openly acknowledge the ties to the church. Traditional protestant Christianity is still a strong political factor here. Open ties to CoS would have raised questions about sending prisoners there on tax-payers money.

This anti-cult stance was, in those years, combined with anti-American sentiments. Many Dutch didn't like the ties our government had to the NATO and the US Army. An American cult was even scarier than an oriental one, like TM and the Bhagwan thing, that was also great in those years.

@Sinonymous; I suppose this is part of the reason Joanna lied about not being American. They knew, even before I came there, that I was somewhat wary about the Scio link. I presume she must have thought that I would trust her more if I thought she was Dutch, because everybody knew Scientology was American. Or maybe you're right, and she's just a pathological liar.

I've found an interesting article , written by Rob Ruggenberg, a Dutch journalist, in 1992. He came in as an objective observer with an open mind, but his conclusions are about the same as mine. Unfortunately the article is in Dutch only, but I'll be happy to give a summary in English if anyone wants one. Interesting coincidence: When Rob asks a staffer about sponsors, he gets a vague story about Roman-Catholic monasteries and churches who sponsor destitute clients, but he never gets an answer when he asks which monastery or church. Same vague shit that they still use in their fundraising-flier.

http://www.spaink.net/cos/essays/ruggenberg_narconon.html

And a link to the homepage of Lady Joanna. No secrets about her being a Scientologist here.

Again, only in Dutch. She doesn't tell anything about herself or how Narconon works. Just some uncontrollable "success-stories" from ex-clients from Croatia. Of course they went back to their own country, to help the drug-addicts there. How convenient.

link to her personal page:http://scientologist.myhomepage.org/joannakluessien/myself.htm

Goodnight to all of you, love, Sekh

Hey Sekh, I'm curious. You say you're OK now, what finally worked for you? I'm guessing it wasn't NarCONon, lol. If you don't mind talking (you don't have to give too many specifics) about it, that is; I believe it'd help a lot of people to see there are things that really DO WORK.

@Simonymous; What worked for me was a combination of professional help and the support of my family.

When I left Narconon I was still in full withdrawal, and once the adrenalin rush faded away, the pain and the sickness came creeping back. Had I gone home, I would have phoned the dealer and just got on using dope. Remember, I really wanted to stop and had been through four days already. I went along with my father to his house, and started making phone-calls from there.
The state-organized addiction counseling centre had a crisis facility for short term treatment and I agreed to go there for 10 days. This facility focussed on physical withdrawal only, for further treatment you had to go somewhere else. I didn't feel like going to a long term residential program, so I opted for outpatient counseling. It turned out that wasn't enough for me.

Within months I was back where I started. Ther wasn't much choice in those days. Most addiction rehab centers still worked with the Synanon system. That meant dressing in overalls, shaving your head, getting shouted at and walking around with signs around your neck like "I'm a liar" or "I'm a thief". The theory was that the will of an addict had to be broken down and than built up again. It all seemed kind of cultish too. Reminds me of the "what's your crime?" thing in Co$. There also most ex-patients ended up as staff-members because they couldn't function in the outside world anymore.
This was not for me, I was way too proud and too self-assured to let some jerk shout abuses at me without any good reason.

This crisis-intervention center I went to also did a residential diagnostic program for three weeks. The place suited me well, you were treated like a human being, the staff was properly educated, they had real doctors and the property was clean, so I took that program. They advised me a six month residential treatment founded on behavioral psychology. In those days that was something very new, by now it is obsolete, but it did help me to get a better grip on my addictive behavior.
It didn't cure me, but it was the start of healing.

What followed were some years of ups and downs. Slowly the ups got longer than the downs, and the downs got less deep.
There were times I used medication, but never more than strictly needed. Antidepressants helped through some very rough spots. I had a social worker to help me with the practical things and a psychologist for the inevitable childhood trauma's, but the help and support I received from my family was fundamental.

Nowadays most rehab's work with the twelve steps program. I never tried it, but it seems to make sense. Some places work with religion. No problem, if you feel comfortable with that particular religion and they are open about it right from the start. True religious conversion can cure people from addiction.
But if they hide it, like Narconon does, something is very wrongCULT-ALERT!!!

In Holland, like in most West-European countries, rehab is payed for by the common health insurance. There are some private centers where you have pay for part of the treatment yourself. But then you get extra's like luxury rooms, gourmet dining, swimming pool etc., things the community doesn't have to pay but should be available for those who want- and can afford them.
When you have to pay all, like in Narconon, and there are no luxuries, the place is not recognized by the state medical board and likely a scamFRAUD-ALERT!!!

In America things are a bit different, but there one has to use a little common sense. Is the service worth the price?
No? Than go somewhere else. If you pay for luxury accommodation, you should get it. Wether it is a rehab or a hotel.

To conclude; What finally helped me was a combination of professional help and community support, my willingness to change things, the responsibility I had as a parent and time.
You are addicted for life. But it gets easier when you get older. The need to party gets less and other things get more important. There is not one perfect system that works for everybody, people have to find out what works for them. Never stop trying, that's the best advice I can give. If one therapy doesn't work for you, try something else.
But don't give up on yourself.
And families of addicts, don't give upon your child. Make your boundaries clear, but let your child know that you are there when he/she is ready to make a change for the good. Disconnecting from your child will hurt the entire family.
Never give up hope.

And DON'T buy the crap Narconon tries to sell you.

Love, Sekh