"Regained My Honour"

I was a hometown athlete. After high school, I turned down a football scholarship and a wrestling scholarship to go into the Marine Corps. Did eight years in the Marine Corps amphibious marine recon.

After I got out of recon, I went back home. Yeah, I’ll admit, you know, I drink here and there. But that was like at barbecues and stuff, before I started drinking really heavily, and I was able to control it. But the last two years it just really took over.

I was hiding, trying to hide the alcohol from my brothers and my sister and my parents. I had quit work. And by the time I had quit work, I was up to two fifths a day. Just, that’s all I really cared about was the alcohol.

Basically, I didn’t have a life anymore, didn’t have my family nearby because I'd cut myself off from them. Friends that I did have, I stopped talking with them. I just hung out in my bedroom and drank.

When I got here to Narconon, didn't really talk to anybody, just kind of walked around like this you know, kept my head down. When I started getting sauna, the more I was in sauna, I was starting to feel a lot better as the stuff was coming out of me. I could start to think a little bit clearer, my judgement wasn’t as cloudy. And every day, day by day, I started feeling better and better and better and better about myself and who I was again.

The place saved me. I was really going downhill in a fast way. And if I wouldn’t have come here, I probably would have been dead by now. Narconon gave me my life back. Helped me get my pride back, helped me get my honour back. The difference is I’m proud to look in the mirror again. I’m not afraid to look in the mirror anymore. And when I look in the mirror, I see a whole new me. It’s a great feeling.