Driving From City to City

Driving from city to city, J.T. Daily sits in his car (all six feet seven inches of him) pondering where to stay for the night. 

Although cooked-to-order omelets and fresh-squeezed orange juice in a five-star hotel would be nice to wake up to, he decides to pull over to the nearest clean motel.  After all, he's on a tight budget.  This happens to be a pretty routine exercise for J.T., as he spends most of the week on the road between several states.

J.T. Daily doesn't have a life of glamour and fame; at least he's not famous to the general public.  He is special though, and thousands of students and teachers think he's a hero.  You see, Daily is something called a Drug Prevention Specialist.  His primary purpose at this point in his life is to educate young and old alike about the true dangers of drug use.   

Daily's passion for his chosen profession comes from personal triumph over tragedy.  He was a former drug addict who nearly lost his life to substance abuse and has been able to beat his addiction at a rehabilitation center called Narconon Arrowhead. 

"I like to talk to kids because it gives me an opportunity to share knowledge about drugs that I didn't have growing up," explains the 23-year old former college basketball player.  "Sure people told me drugs were bad, but I never knew exactly what happened to a person's mind and body when they were taken."

One piece of information that a typical presentation by J.T. contains is the fact that drugs store in the fatty tissue of a person's body and remain there for years after use ceases, causing intense cravings for the drug.  This was discovered by American author and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard.  The remedy for that problem, which is not addressed by typical programs or introduced in our public schools, was also discovered by Hubbard in the form of a sauna detoxification program. 

In fact, the majority of the world's population doesn't know what happens internally when toxic substances such as drugs are ingested and how they continue to affect an individual's physical and mental health.  Vital information such as that combined with J.T.'s charismatic delivery and sincerity makes him a hit in every school he visits.

"I keep thinking of my younger niece and nephew," says J.T., "and that I hope that I can be a positive influence on their lives too.  I don't want anybody to have to go through the pain and agony that I had to deal with because of the drugs that I did.  Nobody ever thinks that they are going to become addicted; kids don't think it will be them that get hurt." 

This is part of a message that Daily has given to thousands of kids.  Surveys show that kids appreciate the honesty from someone who has "been there", as is the case with J.T, and who can accurately depict what the life of a drug addict is really like.  The fact is, drug addiction can not only be overcome, but it can be effectively prevented as well.  This is a small piece that shows how much of a difference just one person can make in the lives of thousands.

Many of us were raised to think that there are such things as good drugs, such as different types of medicine, and bad drugs, like cocaine or heroin.  The simple fact is that they are all still drugs.  In order to understand the issue of drug addiction, it is important to know exactly what a drug is.  All drugs are essentially poisons; the degree they are taken determines the effect.  A small amount typically acts as a stimulant, while a greater amount acts as a sedative.  A large enough amount of any drug acts as a poison and is lethal.

Most drugs simply mask the pain and discomfort for which they are taken and don't actually "cure" anything.  Aspirin, for example, doesn't cure a headache.  It simply "short circuits" the person's ability to get the pain messages coming from the cause of the headache.  The nutritional deficiency or physical problem that originally caused the headache is still there, but it is simply temporarily no longer perceived by the drug user.  Usually, when the drug wears off, the ache returns and will often be more severe because the original problem has become worse as it was masked or hidden and not directly addressed or handled.

Looking back at the history of drugs, we find words from ancient Greece such as pharmakon, meaning medication and poison.  There is also the Latin word venenum, which translates to drug, potion and poison.  Either way, the commonality of the definitions is that they are both considered to be poisons. 

Even as late as the end of the 19th Century, we saw the use of over the counter medications using drugs that are the most illicit today, such as heroin used in Bayer aspirin and cocaine toothache drops.  At the time these drugs were considered to be useful to aide in the treatment of ailments.  Now we spend billions of dollars trying to prevent them from even entering the country.

Though it is true that there are many drugs that seem to help a person live with a condition or malady, it does not negate the fact that even those drugs have adverse effects.  These "side effects," as they are often referred as, are prevalent on prescription bottles, cold medicines and even the many television commercials promoting the latest legal drug. 

Unfortunately, the approach to covering up the problem with another drug is even applied to substance abuse.  This is clearly evident in the case of methadone and other substitute drug therapies designed to get the person to stop using heroin or something similar, remembering that even that was at one time perfectly legal and used for other "cures".  This form of treatment obviously doesn't cure drug addiction either, for the addict is still taking another drug.

There are effective solutions available.  The Narconon® Drug Rehabilitation and Education Program operates in 35 countries around the world.   Narconon staff have visited a number of countries in recent years at the request of government officials and rehabilitation professionals and found that they are desperate for a workable method that will help their people.  This includes India, where the President of Narconon International Clark Carr is spoke at the Hope 2002 conference in Bombay, as well as Pakistan, China and Jordan. 

Narconon literally means "narcotics-none" and was founded by a former heroin addict named William Benitez in Arizona State Prison in 1966.  37 years later, Narconon is still considered a new, proven approach to ending addiction through the drug rehabilitation methodology of L. Ron Hubbard. 

This program is totally drug-free and it consists of communication and confront exercises, sauna detoxification to rid the body of the old drug residues and a series of courses that empower former addicts through cognitive life skills therapy.  The practical workability of the Narconon program's social education model continually achieves extremely high success rates for helping individuals to overcome their addiction and become happy, ethical and productive members of society while remaining stably drug-free.

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