The Narconon Redwood Cliffs program is entirely drug-free, meaning that the program does not use drugs or medications to treat addiction. While this may sound obvious, most drug rehab programs use medication in an attempt to manage and treat “disorders” that the patient has. Our philosophy is that you don’t solve a drug problem with more drugs. Instead, we address the very basics of a person’s health through proper nutrition, supplements, light exercise and other natural remedies. The Narconon program is neither psychiatric nor medical, but rather a social-education model of rehabilitation.
Persons enrolling in the program must receive a complete physical by a qualified M.D. whose purpose is to evaluate and ensure the safety of the addict, and ensure they are medically qualified. Narconon clients are not considered or treated as “patients” but as “students” who are learning to regain control of their lives. This is an important distinction. A student at Narconon does not attempt to treat an “illness”; but instead the focus is on getting health back while learning about life and gaining new abilities and tools that can prevent life from going down the wrong path again.
Graduating students are provided with “re-entry” programs to follow as they start their new lives. While support through positive people is always encouraged, the full Narconon drug rehabilitation program is intended to bring about people who can stand on their own feet and live drug-free, ethical lives thereafter. A Narconon graduate has the tools needed to survive and is not required to go to weekly meetings for months after completion, nor does he describe himself as “recovering” endlessly.
A student who has graduated from the Narconon program has completed a specific result. He or she has regained their health, realized how their life went wrong, confronted and addressed these issues and learned new tools for living a happy life without drugs. Once this is done, if the student uses the tools he has learned, a Narconon graduate can stay well.
The premise of the Narconon model is that a former addict can achieve a brand new life. This is not just theoretical. This goal is routinely achieved every single day at Redwood Cliffs and there are tens of thousands of graduates who will swear by it.
If graduates do run into serious difficulties, they can return to Narconon Redwood Cliffs where they inevitably find a specific part of the program that they earlier failed to fully understand or could not apply in the travails of daily life.
The Narconon program routinely takes three to five months to complete. During this time, some might consider the Narconon program a “therapeutic community,” but it would be more appropriate to say that Narconon students are going “back to school”--this time to get real tools for leading a happy and successful life.