From Alaska’s Resilient Roots to Recovery: How Narconon Arrowhead Helped Me Find Life Beyond Addiction

 

I was born in 1947 in Unalaska, Alaska, in the Aleutian Islands. My family moved to Kodiak, Alaska, on Kodiak Island. This was the boom period in Kodiak, and my father got a job running the local theatre and, in the late 1950’s, bought it. I helped run the theatre, which was packed all of the time.

Some of my happiest moments when I was young were taking vacations to see other places in the United States such as Seattle, St. Louis, and California.

The Great Alaska earthquake of 1964 and the tsunami that followed it destroyed the theatre and it had to be rebuilt; it was completed about 1968 and has been in the family since. I finished school, went to university in Seattle, and then joined the Air Force for 4 years, working as a medical technician at Travis Air Force Base. The 1970s was a boom period for Kodiak—both for fishing and the opening up of the oil fields—and the population of Kodiak doubled, so I left the Air Force and returned home to help my mother run the theatre as it was so busy.

With this boom, drugs came into the area in a big way in 1973 and 1974. I managed to avoid them until the late 1990s when I started going to bars to socialize and hoping to find a lady to have a relationship with. The cocaine dealers found me and sold me cocaine and I became addicted.

It got to the point that I would be high on cocaine while cashiering at the theatre, and I started spending all night in the bars. One day, I was sitting thinking about my life, with a gun on my lap. My accountant, seeing what was happening, grabbed me, called Narconon Arrowhead, and took me there.

By that time, I very badly wanted to quit using cocaine. Once I started the Narconon program, I knew that if I left and did not complete it, I would be right back doing cocaine. One very good thing was that Narconon Arrowhead was out in the middle of a park and well away from any drug influence. I liked the staff and could tell that they wanted to help me, and they did help me─I completed the program and have been off cocaine for 24 years.

What I learned stayed with me. At one point after doing the Narconon program, I was back in Alaska and started dropping by the casino for a few drinks. One day I suddenly thought to myself, “What am I doing?” I left the casino and have never gambled or had another drink since.

“I decided for myself that I wanted to live life, be clean, and do what I am supposed to do. I thank God for Narconon─I don’t think I would be alive without it.”

My wins on doing the Narconon program and getting off drugs are that my perceptions changed on why I was doing drugs. I decided for myself that I wanted to live life, be clean, and do what I am supposed to do. I thank God for Narconon─I don’t think I would be alive without it.

My advice to others is to decide they want to get off the drugs, then get away from the people that were leading you into drugs and the drug lifestyle, and go to Narconon.

—R.F., Narconon Graduate