From Addiction to Stability: My Path to a Sober Life

I was born in Asheville, North Carolina, and grew up in North Carolina and Hawaii. I enjoyed my life and was considered by my family to be sweet and adorable and basically a good girl. I played the clarinet, though not well enough to consider this as a profession, and I had and loved my pets, including a bunny. I even took up Tahitian hula dancing for fun.

However, at 12 years old, some friends and I bought a bottle of alcohol and shared it. I continued to drink alcohol, which then led to weed, ecstasy, and mushrooms through high school.

After high school, I moved to Minnesota, intending to get away from the party life I was involved in. However, instead of improving things, I started using crystal meth, and things went downhill from there.

I was completely alienated from my family, avoiding them and not communicating with them. I lied to them and said I had a night job. I even closed the door in my uncle's face when he came to see how I was doing.

I was not doing well. I was down to 86 pounds and living a dangerous life, including having a gun held to my head and just ducking another bullet, which went over my head. I know now that if something had not changed at that time, I would have ended up dead.

Fortunately, my family did not give up on me. They talked to me about getting help, and I did try one treatment center but only stayed 3 days.

Then, in 2004, my step-mom decided enough was enough and went online and found Narconon. I received a call from them. I do not remember what they said to me, but whatever it was, I got on a plane with basically the clothes on my back and went to Narconon Arrowhead in Oklahoma.

It was not what I had imagined, and no comparison to the first rehab I had tried. It required some work and study, but there were a lot of wins; I remember that I was really acknowledged for being myself and for the wins I had as I progressed through the program.

At one point after detoxing, I called my boyfriend and realized that I did not really know him, that I had not been myself when using the drugs, and that he and the life I had been living were never going to be part of my life again.

The program took about 5 months, but I am very appreciative of the fact that the staff insisted that I complete the program until I was clean and no longer desired to do drugs. I was looking forward to going out and creating whatever I wanted to in my life. I learned that I could be whoever I wanted in the world. I felt complete freedom.

My father came to my graduation and was very proud of me, and I felt like I was on top of the world.

Today, I have a beautiful daughter who is doing well in life, a pet dog I love, and a career in sales and marketing that I enjoy. I own my own house, my relationship with my family is great, I know who I am, I have a clear mind, and I wake up each morning happy. I have even run marathons and ultra-marathons. I live a sober life and love it.

“This program absolutely saved my life, and I use things I learned in the program to this day.”

What I would tell others who are doing drugs is that there is a place you can find in yourself where you can have peace and that the path to getting close to your heart is not through drugs.

—S.D., Narconon Arrowhead Graduate