A new life

When Christine graduated from the Narconon Program, she screamed with joy. She had kicked her addiction and shown her family, and most importantly, herself that she could do it. A wonderful life was now waiting for her, a drug-free life of which she was in control. Christine is now a staff member at Narconon Sydney, helping others and understanding first hand what they are going through. Read her inspiring story below:

When I came to Narconon in 2000 I was a very distraught and sad individual. A couple of weeks prior I was sitting in Bourke Street Mall waiting to score and I was watching people around me going to work, out with friends, everyday things. I thought ‘how do you people live without heroin, how do you manage everyday without having a shot?” This was my reality, I couldn’t relate to anyone who wasn’t using, I had got to such a state that there was no good anymore, nothing except for heroin could enthuse me or move me - I had effectively disabled myself from living.

On the night of my graduation, I was already 3 months into being a staff member at Narconon Sydney. I had wanted to wait until my mother came up so that I could acknowledge her and my father properly before I had my graduation. I didn’t have anything prepared to say and I was feeling very very nervous.

To me Graduation night is bigger than the Oscars because you’re at the end of what could possibly be one of the most significant experiences of your life. And so it was with me. This program took me to places I never expected in getting rehabilitated. How do I convey this to the parents, students and staff members sitting in front of me! How do I coin such a thing?

I wanted to be sure that the changes I had experienced were not lost in my nerves and that my feelings came out in a very comprehensive way for people to understand. I felt it very important to convey to people that rehabilitation is not a myth and that it is so possible if you so choose. It was very important to me and very special to share with other people that there is a road out of addiction and that it can be a very beautiful one as well as really tough and confronting!

I thought of just remembering one key word in my speech that I could base everything around and that one key word was ‘Honesty” because in essence this was the virtue that I became very familiar with in doing the program and it was applying it with the tools I was given that freed me and took me to places that were so rich!

Ye Gads, It was hard to do at first, be honest about the horrible, destroying disgusting individual that I felt myself to be. It was made an easier journey though because what I found here on the program wasn’t people judging me, I didn’t get evaluations about myself or asked to repent for my behaviour. Instead I found a very open and compassionate way of approaching rehabilitation which was centred around manifesting the ME within and getting rid of the layers of crap that I had let consume me with addiction. What did I think about my actions, how could I solve them, how could I make things go right instead of leaving it up to someone else or God or my mother or a doctor? It was me who took myself through rehabilitation, which is how the program is so ingenious, and slowly sparks of self-recognition went off, slowly I was piecing back a life. I began taking on a responsibility for my life that instead of being the scary thing I had envisioned was an entirely freeing one.

SO there you have it, how do I coin this and give it to the people sitting in front of me???

When I got up on stage I screamed from sheer delight and it felt as though everything I had become came screeching at me in one single moment right there and I know from the few words that I did speak that I reached out to a few hearts in the audience because I saw there on some faces the mark I had left from my unwithheld pure joy at feeling the beat of life. I didn’t want to put my joy AT people; I simply wanted to share it with people. Yes! My words were centred on honesty and that just maybe with the right tools to inspire it, it can give you so much in return.

My enthusiasm for life is growing bigger still every day, and it is now almost a full year and a half since my graduation. What I am experiencing still is the rewards with not having drugs in my life, for not being part of that bad effect that they create, for letting my heart grow into what it wants to be and the discovery of this is so exciting to me.

Life is something that excites me now as I watch it unfold and I have a growing faith that I am able to navigate it in any way I want to. It’s a big leap from the place where I was when I first came here and I will forever grateful and blessed in coming here. Narconon gave me the gift of living, which is the best gift of all.