RSS Overcoming Barriers with Narconon Drug Rehab
In 1973 Jeannie Trahant was the first female graduate of the Narconon drug and alcohol rehabilitation program. Over the last 36 years, a productive, ethical and drug-free member of society, she is sharing her personal story and life experiences with Narconon’s founder, William BenItez.
Jeannie turned to drugs at 14, soon after losing her father. A professional football player in the 1930’s and 40’s, he passed away from “athletes heart.” At the time Jeannie was with her mother who soon after the loss started abusing alcohol. “My mother’s hopes and dreams died when my father died,” explains Jeannie. “I learned at an early age to be on my own, but the loss of him was a major factor of why I turned to drugs.”
At the age of 16, Jeannie was a full blown heroin addict. She had always planned to put the drugs down by 18 but when the time came, she was so addicted that she couldn’t stop using. The addiction got so bad that Jeannie ended up in jail. “I went to jail 3 times and each time promised the judge I would not use drugs but within hours I would be on a binge and wildly out of control,” she explains.
Desperate for help, Jeannie ended up in a psychiatric ward in Los Angeles waiting to be admitted. “I remember the room was filled with many people and children crying,” says Jeannie “I continued to sit there and hang on as I knew if I left I would go directly back out and get more drugs. By the end of the day I was still sitting there and the nurse came up to me and said I would have to come back the next day. I looked around the room and realized all the people were gone and I was the only one left.”
Jeannie needed a solution and quickly found what she was looking for when she started the Narconon drug rehab program a few weeks later. “I knew I had a chance from the minute I walked in the center,” she says.
Several weeks later Jeannie completed the Narconon drug and alcohol rehabilitation program and decided to go to work for Narconon to help others struggling with drug and/or alcohol addictions. “The Narconon Program brought out my true abilities that had been covered up through the drug usage and taught me tools I could use for the rest of my life,” says Jeannie. “I knew at that point life would be an adventure now and a whole new world for me. I knew my life before was behind me.”
While working for Narconon, Jeannie was very lucky to be able to spend time with the founder of the program, William Benitez. Jeannie explains that Benitez visited the first residential Narconon program that he started often to see the staff and students [clients]. “He [Benitez] was one of us one who had beat the addiction through the Narconon Program and won his personal battle forever [drugs].”
Benitez, like Jeannie was a person who overcome barriers in their life and raised their abilities through the Narconon technology. Willie started the Narconon program while incarcerated in Arizona state penitentiary, after reading a book by American author and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard that helped him to overcome his own addiction to heroin. The purpose of the Narconon program has always been to raise the abilities of the individual. Some of the first comments on this purpose have been released in a drug education talk given by Willie when the Narconon program was just started back in 1966.
