I Owe a Lot of My Success to This Program

 

I was born in Abington, Pennsylvania and grew up in Lower Gwynedd. I attended Shady Grove Elementary School and was heavily involved in music and sports. I started playing the piano when I was 4 years old and by the time I was 10, I had a brown belt in Aikido. I participated in swimming, played baseball, soccer and more. I learned how to play the trombone and was in various jazz bands and orchestras. In addition to my schooling I was raised Jewish so I did 7 years of study of that too.

I had a very strong family foundation. My father was Russian-Ukrainian Jewish, worked at General Electric as engineer and then went into life insurance. My mother was raised in Cuba and her family came over to the US in the 60s. We lived in the suburbs with my sister. So, all in all, I had a very unique upbringing culturally and educationally.

I became an athlete and participated in marathons and did cardio and weightlifting. I had different jobs from landscaping to being a sous chef in a Cuban restaurant.

I graduated with a 3.2 GPA and got an academic scholarship to the University of Delaware where I studied sports medicine and nutrition. I even became part of the rowing club.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to graduate due to an accident and a spinal injury. In 2006 I was snowboarding at a Ski Resort on Martin Luther King Day. My best friend was filming me doing tricks. I jumped about 20 feet in the air and landed upside down. I blacked out and woke up in a helicopter to emergency service personnel cutting my jacket off with a surgical knife. The next thing I knew I was waking up in hospital. I had been essentially brain-dead with my spinal cord paralyzed. I could only respond with one word and suffered brain damage. I wouldn’t be alive if I had not been wearing a helmet. I was only hanging on by a thread and to me, it was a near-death experience. I didn’t have any fractures but it did limit my mobility. It felt like I had leprosy, my muscles were dissolving.

I still have some problems from it and it has been an ongoing healing process. After that, I was in so much pain and I felt that the only release I could get was from cannabis. My father caught me smoking it one day and said that I had to go to rehab.

And that is how I ended up in Narconon Arrowhead. It allowed me to find healthier coping mechanisms. It gave me a platform to find healthy alternatives like exercise and music.

I was always very shy growing up. What Narconon did was allow me to meet people I could relate to. People that had a similar mindset. I broke out of my shell and became more sociable. It also allowed me to be kind to other people. You don’t have to like everyone, but you can respect them and understand that they might be going through something.

The food was phenomenal. It made me interested in a healthy lifestyle. I started exercising every day, which I still do now. I owe a lot of my success to this program.

I loved the sauna program. I believe that the THC stored in the fatty tissue can be sweated out. The nutrition and exercise cleanses the bloodstream of toxins.

“For the past 3 years I have been clean and sober. There is not a thought in my mind to use anymore. My goal is to help others.”

I graduated the program and then worked in Narconon and put about 31 students successfully through rehab. I was able to continue helping people. For the past 3 years, I have been clean and sober. There is not a thought in my mind to use anymore. My goal is to help others.

I have been writing a self-help book and I love reading and writing. My relationship with my family is so much stronger and more resilient.

There have been ups and downs, but I have made peace with my past and live in the present and look forward to the future.

Sometimes life is difficult, but I learned from Narconon that we can lean on each other and that helps us carry our own crosses.

It’s not about what you go through. It’s about how you respond. I have learned patience and am very engaged spiritually. I hope to start a family one day. I am grateful for my health and my family. I’m in a good place and I’m healthy and practice self-care. I feel confident in my own skin.

Brad S.B., Narconon Graduate