I went to Narconon Vista Bay and was kicked out AMA

[mefree]

^^^^
This!

[Mary_McConnell]

When they kicked you out, did they drop you at a hotel or homeless shelter?  Or just call your dad to come get you?

- They drove me back to a house where a few staff members live. It was a really nice house. I spent the night there and was dropped off at a train station to go back home. I am scared of airplanes lol.

Can you tell us what year you were there?

- I would rather not say what year I was there b/c they threatened to sue me if I spoke out about my experience there. They even had me sign some papers about it when they issued a partial refund.

This video was leaked recently. It's a staff video, not meant for public. Someone got a hold of it and posted it on the internet. So glad they did. I think you may find it cathartic in some way. These people are crazy and you will see here how they really feel about their jobs.

- Thanks for sending me this. I saw a shorter version of this on youtube, it wasn't 20 minutes maybe 5 minutes at most. This video is disgusting. I know all of the people in the video. Every "staff" member that works there is so brainwashed its not even funny. No one can think for themselves. It really makes me sick seeing this video as I totally get everything they are saying and doing. I'm kinda surprised they would have made this video as they all are so fake and are scared of getting ratted out by each other. I showed the clip of the video I found on youtube to my parents and they were shocked. They were pretty mad about it. My parents really dont like to talk about it b/c they feel like they were conned. Both of my parents are super hard working people and $30,000 was a lot of money to just waste. My dad has actually sent letters to California schools telling them not to allow Narconon in their schools. I found out he did that after showing him this video. I was so surprised my dad did that as thats not something I can see him doing.


Keep the questions coming, even if its something personal or possibly revealing. If its revealing the worst I will do is explain why I won't answer the question.

Hi, Thanks for your replies, above. I certainly understand on both. Kudos to your father! We love it when people use their experience to then help others beware!!

I received some tips lately about Vista Bay. They are trying to get CARF accreditation and had an assessment visit the other day. Just before the visit, 4 staff quit!

Am awaiting information on how the assessment went. They have to lie to get CARF accredited. Only one Narconon is CARF accredited and that was because they had help from an insider.  The same guy trying to help Vista Bay get accredited. Perhaps staff left because they refused to cooperation in the fudging of records and such? I'm waiting for more info.

This is the process.
http://www.carf.org/Accreditation/AccreditationProcess/StepstoAccreditation/

Perhaps you can send  complaint to CARF?

If you do, make sure you mention that they are in the application process and you want them to know first hand your experience. You can do it confidentially or not.

How to submit feedback or resolve a complaint with a CARF-accredited provider
http://www.carf.org/How_to_submit_feedback_and_resolve_a_complaint/

Thanks for speaking up here... your posts are helping others
Mary

[NarcononHater]

I did a google search for "Narconon Book Download." This website was the 2nd search result and it contained links to all books including the sauna book. I downloaded the books again and have them saved properly so I won't lose them. I never got to finish some books so I plan to go read through them.

Has anyone ever analyzed the purpose of these drills. I'm wondering if there is any literature out there where a psychologist or anyone for that matter try to figure out their purpose. My psychologist seemed to understand what they were trying to accomplish but I forget what he said now. I find it interesting.

[10oriocookies]

I did a google search for "Narconon Book Download." This website was the 2nd search result and it contained links to all books including the sauna book. I downloaded the books again and have them saved properly so I won't lose them. I never got to finish some books so I plan to go read through them.

Has anyone ever analyzed the purpose of these drills. I'm wondering if there is any literature out there where a psychologist or anyone for that matter try to figure out their purpose. My psychologist seemed to understand what they were trying to accomplish but I forget what he said now. I find it interesting.

Those books are good for one thing: recycling.  Dont try to figure them out or do the exercises on your own.  Dont go over them with your psychologist as he is not as informed on the abuses of Narconon as someone who has been through it.  I personally have experience in delivering the program and getting real help from real professionals.  There is no comparison.  Its like taking your car to the barber to get the transmission changed.  Stupid.

[source]

Unfortunately, what much of those books are really about have little to do with addiction or recovery.

For example, books 1 and 4 (TRs) are really the basic training to be an auditor, where you must be trained to ask a preclear a question over and over without reacting, handling any originations as they come up.  Narconon tries to put a square peg in a round hole and explain to you that the TRs are really about confronting addiction, communicating and controlling yourself and your environment.  It isn't.  They know it, but sold you a different purpose.

It's sad because it's really a shell game.  Much of the info "seems" like it applies but when you start to understand what the purposes are in scientology, you will feel a bit ripped off.

It's kind of like someone handed you a manual on auto repair and said that it is really symbolic of addiction and recovery.  You might be able to connect some dots and come up with some really interesting "epiphanies" like "wow if I don't take care of myself today, I will start to break down later!  That's amazing"

But in reality, it's just about auto repair.

And the NARCONON program isn't built on parts that have anything to do with addiction.  Any realizations you came to were of your making as you were searching for answers.

And, sadly, you could have taken all of the courses you took at NARCONON for about $2000 total in a scientology Org, including the sauna and objectives.

If you take out the sauna, you could have had all the rest for about $500, I believe.

Not sure current prices, but that's what they were about 10 years ago.

Narconon was just a way to exponentially increase the cost of some very basic courses and take advantage of addicts. 

[NarcononHater]

I would never do those exercises lol. They caused me to go crazy.

Heres a few more things I remembered about my experience:

-I was scheduled to leave for Narconon on a certain date but it got pushed back 3 days. Narconon offered a $2,000 "scholarship" when we told them this. Basically their goal was to get me there as fast as possible and sign the papers. They didn't want us to find out what the place really was. I didn't take the scholarship and then they offered a free flight + $2000.

- One day I was talking to one of the staff and a girl who just got there. The staff member told me that lieing to people to get them to come to Narconon wasn't wrong and that it was ethical because in the end you are helping them.

-One thing that always pissed them off was when I asked them if they thought it was "ethical" that they take thousands and thousands of hard earned cash from families and then won't refund it if Narconon isn't the right fit for them. The word "ethical" is thrown around a lot at Narconon.

-Every 2 days or so a staff member would come around with pieces of paper and pens and they would ask you to write a "Win" on the piece of paper and sign it. I never did this because for one, I never learned a damn thing or had anything positive to say. But also I had this thought that they were doing this so that if you tried to sue them they would have a bunch positive testimonial with my signature on it. I always declined writing these things and they would really try to push it on me. I filled out 3 of them saying things like "Drugs are bad mmmkay?"


During the sauna program they would do something similar. I was in the sauna program for more than a month, every day spending 8 hours in the sauna. At the end of each day there was paper work you had to complete. I found out that everyone was "graduating" the sauna program but me. After awhile all the students caught on to what was going on so they would fill the paperwork out saying how good they feel, they feel like a new person, etc, just to get out of the sauna program because after awhile it starts to turn in to torture. You are punished for coming out of sauna too often. I would fill out the paper work being 100% honest. I had this realization that they were purposely keeping me in the sauna program, basically torturing me, until I wrote how great it was and provided a "testimonial."

When I get out of Narconon and was doing my research. I found out that Narconon would use these pieces of paperwork in their lawsuits. They would use it as documentation that you were getting stuff out of the program, etc.

One day at the sauna I was alone with one of the main narconon employees. His job is(was) to go to the California schools and give speeches to the kids about not doing drugs. He was a highly regarded college football player that was drafted by a NFL football team but screwed it up because of drugs. It was just me and him and I asked him about all the websites that are dedicated to exposing Narconon, and what the motive is behind them if this place is just trying to help people. I told him that there are no websites about other rehabs. His answer was that the pharmaceutical companies (Big Pharma) and psychiatrists are behind it because Narconon gets people off of all drugs even prescribed medications. He went on and on about how and why Big Pharma does this. (I try to avoid big pharma to and dont want to take any medication, but they are taking it way to far, taking people off of heart and blood medications with no doctors etc.)

- One thing I was concerned about when I was there was the amount of vitamins they forced us to consume. 30-40 multivitamins a day. They claimed that the vitamins were all water soluble so if your body didn't need them you would just piss the rest out. I picked up one of the jars of vitamins one day and it said take 1 vitamin daily lol. I'm not sure if what we were taking was toxic but a few websites said it was, I'm still unsure.

- They claimed all this crazy stuff about the Niacin and vitamin cocktails they made us consume like drug residuals would come to the top of our skin and turn it red. Obviously this is just a reaction to the niacin. They told everyone that people would get "high" from the niacin pushing the drug residuals stored in fat back into the bloodstream. So many people would act like they were having an acid flashback, nodding from heroin, speeding from meth. I never felt shit, and I think thats a down right lie. Hell some of the drugs arent even fat soluble lol! I started questioning the sauna program and all I got was bullshit answers, a bunch of "hill billy science." They sent me to talk to a higher up staff member. I asked if they could show me some peer reviewed articles about the sauna program and the science behind it. The higher up assured me he could and even promised to print it off so I could read it. They never printed me jack shit. The higher up explained the same "hill billy science" to me, I poked a lot of holes into what he was just from stuff i learned at university (I'm in the medical field).

- Everytime I used the pay phone one of the staff would stand by it and try to listen to what I was talking about. I think I already told you guys about the undercover staff member they brought who acted like another student from my city. I was using the phone and he came up and started to talk on the other phone. I could tell he was fake talking he was just there to monitor my phone call.

Another time I caught a staff member eavesdropping on my phone calls. There was a window to the staff conference room about 6 inches from where the pay phone was drilled into the wall. Behind the wall the payphone was screwed into was the staff conference room thingy. I was suspicious of eaves dropping b/c they called me in to question me about my thoughts and mentioned some things they couldn't have known. I peaked in the window and a staff member was against the wall by the window, on his knees listening LOL.

This is all I can remember for today. My hands are starting to hurt from typing. Some of this may sound like I'm crazy or paranoid or something but I assure you that is not the case. All of this is stuff that goes down at Narconon.

[mefree]

One day at the sauna I was alone with one of the main narconon employees. His job is(was) to go to the California schools and give speeches to the kids about not doing drugs. He was a highly regarded college football player that was drafted by a NFL football team but screwed it up because of drugs. It was just me and him and I asked him about all the websites that are dedicated to exposing Narconon, and what the motive is behind them if this place is just trying to help people. I told him that there are no websites about other rehabs. His answer was that the pharmaceutical companies (Big Pharma) and psychiatrists are behind it because Narconon gets people off of all drugs even prescribed medications. He went on and on about how and why Big Pharma does this. (I try to avoid big pharma to and dont want to take any medication, but they are taking it way to far, taking people off of heart and blood medications with no doctors etc.)

Hah! That sounds like Bob Adams. We have a few threads mentioning him around here.
http://forum.reachingforthetippingpoint.net/index.php?action=search2

[Escapee]

Don't know if this applies in this thread, but I'm gonna say it anyways..I was in withdrawal and this guy came over from arrowhead, he was like some super Nn employee lol he told me he saw someone sweat out a bullet!! A damn bullet c'mon I'm coverd in tattoos an they didn't sweat out lol..anyways I got suspended some weeks later and got on the internet! To my surprise jay jay this superstar from arrowhead was on the Scientology website on video giving his success story lol.. A lil more reaserch led me to find out that this jay jay was under investigation for physically assaulting a student who left NARCONON..he was giving him an "assist" and left him seriously physically injured! I wonder what ever happens with that! Also I forget what website this story was on but there was photos my apologies

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Stop-Narconon/Personal/MichaelG/

Here is the link I found it..again sorry if this is the wrong place but I had to have this guy put me thru detox after this should he never ever to be able to work with people let alone addicts..

[10oriocookies]

I was there when the bullet came out of the kids face.  It wasnt because of the sauna though.  He had been shot prior to coming and a little piece came out.  This is a naturally occurring process I believe.  Nothing to do with the sauna.  Ive known JJ for 25 years as well.  You are correct, he and everyone else who works at NN shouldnt be.  Its pseudoscience, destructive and against what the real professionals have to say about addiction.

[Escapee]

I was there when the bullet came out of the kids face.  It wasnt because of the sauna though.  He had been shot prior to coming and a little piece came out.  This is a naturally occurring process I believe.  Nothing to do with the sauna.  Ive known JJ for 25 years as well.  You are correct, he and everyone else who works at NN shouldnt be.  Its pseudoscience, destructive and against what the real professionals have to say about addiction.

Do you happen to know what ever happend with this guy jj over physically hurting this guy? He was ok with me but he had just had a heart surgery, so he was pretty feeble!

[NarcononHater]

They told me that people who paint for a living would sweat paint from their skin. They said when this auto body painter was in the sauna the whole sauna smelled like car paint and green paint would seep from his pores covering the towel in green paint. LOL.

[10oriocookies]

I have actually Never heard of JJ doing anything like this.  The guy should have made a police report.

[mefree]

They told me that people who paint for a living would sweat paint from their skin. They said when this auto body painter was in the sauna the whole sauna smelled like car paint and green paint would seep from his pores covering the towel in green paint. LOL.

LOL!

[NarcononHater]

Esacpee-

I just read Michael G's story. That sounds so much like my story. Everything he experienced I experienced except for the physical abuse.

They won't let you pass parts of the program until you comply / write good things on paper. I never did any of that. Theres a part of the program where you have to write down every bad thing you've ever done in your whole life. They make me spend at least 24 focused hours writing this stuff down on a piece of paper that they keep. I wouldn't do this. I wasn't going to let them have something they could use to blackmail me with later.

Another thing that sketched me out was every Friday we would meet in the big sun room and have a graduation/awards ceremony. For every part of the program you completed you were called up to a podium in front of everyone at the facility to give a speech and say what you got out of the program, thank people, etc. They always had a video camera and would record everyones testimonials. Every time I was called up there I just said thank god i'm done with this part, and would sit down. They really didn't like this. I didn't want them to have any documentation that I was getting anything out of this sham-of-a-program.

[NarcononHater]

It was common for other "students" to get so frustrated they would flee the Narconon property with no money or any form of communication. No one knew their way around and the farthest place people would get was a gas station. Most of them ended up coming back but there were a lot who didnt.

I can remember 2 older guys quit and left the program after being there for awhile. An older woman left. A girl's mother came to pull her out of the program and was getting so much resistance that she called the police. The mother entered Narconon with a sheriff and pulled her daughter out of the program. My roomate was really religious kid, he had his girlfriend drive from Idaho one night to come pick him up. He sneaked out at out night and never saw him again. I'm still not sure how he arranged that as his girlfriend didn't know the area, nor did he, and he didnt have any means of communication. In the morning they found out he left and they tried to punish me! I logically countered every argument they proposed as to why I should be punished and ended up not avoiding punishment.

[ethercat]

Those videotaped "success" stories seem really unethical to me.  First, people having to do them in the first place to complete the different parts of the program; and secondly, the implications of people possibly being put up on YouTube who aren't aware of (or concerned with) the fact that they might be seen by potential employers and other people they might not want to know they'd had an addiction problem.  This just does not strike me as something a legit rehab would do.  HIPAA violation?  And thirdly, the possible use of them in a lawsuit or as blackmail that you mentioned.

Of course, that's in addition to all the other unethical behaviors on the part of Narconon.

[source]

To pull someone out of NARCONON is considered a great evil.  When it happens they refer to their tech and feel like it must be that the mom, girlfriend, roommate, etc is a suppressive person and probably why the addict uses drugs in the first place.

It gets kind of creepy when you are a student and you have a family member that starts to get antagonistic towards NARCONON.  They start to refer you to Book 5 and try and get you to "realize" that your parents are the cause of your addictions.  I think this policy is really scary.  In other words, right away they lay a foundation that if mom is against scientology it's probably a sign that she caused your addiction. 

Even if they pull someone out of NARCONON and put their kid in a premier drug rehab, it is considered a suppressive act because they are pulled out of NARCONON.  Choosing any rehab other than NARCONON is considered a suppressive act. 

Although people probably wouldn't care, but asking for a refund also puts you on the blacklist of suppressive peoples.  It's the same policy at an Org.

Creepy stuff.

[NarcononHater]

Source- good point. I believe thats why I was kicked out. Once I started to question the program they were telling my parents awful things, trying to turn my parents against me. Sadly to say, they achieved this. My parents thought I was just making stuff up trying to get out of treatment. I had the money to get back home and was planning to leave but Narconon convinced my parents to disown me if I did so. Once my parents did some investigation they were disgusted. My father wanted to fly out to Narconon to take a look around, and they didn't like this. I was kicked out literally the day my dad demanded to come visit. Go figure.

I just can't wrap my head around how stupid people can be, no offense to anyone but this is how I really feel. I say that, but honestly I can see how people fall for turning into a NarCONon lifer. By lifer, I mean the people who end up working there and supporting its cause. Many times I would try to reason with these people on the things they said. Its almost impossible. They are so brainwashed and they have different definitions for words. They change the meaning of words to support their cause.

Anytime mentioned I wanted to leave NarCONon and receive treatment somewhere else I was constantly threatened with "you already signed a legal contract, if you leave, you will not be refunded $30,000." I think that is the reason most people don't up and leave.

After they kicked me out of NarCONon I was driven a few hours away to a train station to get dropped off at. On the way I had a chat with the the guy driving me. He worked in the ethics department. I'm surprised he said a lot of the things he said. He said that his whole family doesn't like NarCONon and they want him to find a job somewhere else and how they are at odds. I thought it was really sad that this guy is so brainwashed into fighting for the NarCONon cause that he is at odds with his whole family.

[BigBeard]

Most legitimate rehabs encourage family support and visits, unlike narCONon. Turning families against each other this way should be a red flag to anyone looking at NN.

[mefree]

I just can't wrap my head around how stupid people can be, no offense to anyone but this is how I really feel. I say that, but honestly I can see how people fall for turning into a NarCONon lifer. By lifer, I mean the people who end up working there and supporting its cause. Many times I would try to reason with these people on the things they said. Its almost impossible. They are so brainwashed and they have different definitions for words. They change the meaning of words to support their cause.

You're bright, and correct that Scientology uses LWrongHubbard's made-up lingo to keep the sheeple in line.

When Mary Rieser, ED for Narconon of Georgia was interviewed by WSB-TV, she was obviously lying, but between that interview and her depositions in the Desmond case, I had the impression that she believed her lies. That certainly seems like brainwashing to me.

http://forum.reachingforthetippingpoint.net/index.php/topic,8408.msg19367.html#msg19367