I am a 22-year-old former heroin addict. I went to high school in a suburb just outside of Detroit and began using random drugs starting at the age of 11.

At first it was drinking, then weed, then acid and coke. Using drugs eventually moved on up to heroin when I was the age of 15.

It started out as something to help forget what was really going on with my life; I had just gotten out of a relationship with a physically abusive boyfriend. I went to a friend that was a known heroin user and just plainly asked her to hook me up with some and she did.

From the first time to the last time I used it was always intravenously. I thought that I would be able to afford this habit and live like a normal teenage girl, but this did not last for very long.

Very soon I had sold all of my belongings that were worth anything, and I began selling all of my family's belongings. I stole any and everything that I thought I could possibly get some money; I did not care whose it was, I had to get my fix.

My parents eventually caught on, my grades had dropped from a 3.8 GPA to a 1.5 and they were continually getting calls saying that I had skipped school. I barely graduated high school and at the commencement ceremony I was so high that the person next to me had to wake me up when my name was called.

When my parents found a bag of syringes, they did the only thing that they could, kick me out.

I checked myself into a hospital; I stayed there for a couple of days, did the 12 step thing and cleaned up. When I got out I immediately started up using again and ended up in the same vicious cycle that I was stuck in before.

I tried a couple of more times going to different rehabs, but each time I would use almost immediately after I walked out of the door. The last rehab I was in I met a man and became involved with him.

We lived together in various motels in the city, doing whatever necessary to get the money to pay for our constantly growing heroin habits. I came home from work one day and found him dead on the floor, he had overdosed.

Now I was completely alone, my family wanted nothing to do with me, all of my "friends" were either dead from drugs or on the way to death. I called my family and told them what had happened, hoping for some kind of help. I was definitely at the absolute end, I knew that if I did not get any help that I would be dead myself, extremely soon.

My mother, the angel, found a place on the internet in Oklahoma called Narconon Arrowhead. She told me about this place and asked me if I would go, I told her that I would do anything to get me out of this situation that I was in because of the drugs.

So, I came all of the way out to Oklahoma and started the NARCONON® program. As I progressed I began noticing things about myself that I had never seen before; I was actually finding my true self. I was out of this junkie haze that I had thought for so many years was reality, I was finally able to see everything for what it actually is.

I began taking responsibility for my actions in the past and the present; this helped me feel like I was actually a part of the human race. This program has helped me to realize that I do have the ability to make choices in my life and that I am not powerless or a victim and I'm in control of my life.

I have purified my body and my mind; I am now the person that I should have been all along. Now whenever someone asks my mother how her daughter is doing, she starts crying and says, "I got my Jenny back."

I now have almost 2 years clean and I know that I would not have been able to accomplish this without what I have learned and realized in the Narconon program.

J.R. - Narconon Arrowhead Graduate

Narconon.  The Road Out