Into The Abyss And Back Again

An Entrepreneur Recounts How Drugs Destroyed His Career, Devastated His Family And Nearly Cost His Life

– And How Narconon Helped Salvage The Scene And Brought New Hope…

Before he fell into that dark chasm of drug addiction, John Vereecke had a life many of us would envy: A successful career, a six-figure income, great social standing, a loving wife and two beautiful children.

He had it all – and lost it all.

In this interview he candidly recounts how his life crashed after he started using drugs. Within a shockingly short time he descended from the corporate boardroom to walking the streets, begging people for money to survive and “picking up cigarette butts off the sidewalk.”

Most importantly he also tells of his personal experience with Narconon, the most effective drug rehabilitation program available, and how it made it possible for him to recover his family and, in short, get his life back.

Why did you choose the Narconon Program?

I did the Narconon program because I was addicted to cocaine and because the program is drug free. My wife discovered the program for me as she knew it would suit my needs:

As a youth I was adopted and the lady who became my mother was basically a pill popper since the 1960s. She knew that with anything that was pharmaceutically-related, in terms of an addiction rehabilitation program, within a couple of hours the addict would be on antidepressants or some other drug. She knew this because she was a very bad abuser of pharmaceutical drugs and from her I’ve always had a stigma against that. So when my wife was looking for a rehab, she was looking for something that was drug free. That was Narconon.

How and why did you start using drugs?

I was abused as a kid and had a lot of misfortune. I had some fortune as well, but the bottom line is that I had a lot of emotional scars from my childhood. As I got older, I got out of the small Ontario town that I lived in and became educated into being a professional investment advisor. That’s something that I always wanted to help people with. I became very affluent in that field because I was successful.

In saying that, the situation which led me down a bad road was the fact that I had children and this was very rough for me, because I did not really know how to be a dad. I have two children, an eight-year old daughter and a five-year old son. My life was not going well and I wanted an escape from reality, so I started using drugs and became addicted to cocaine.

I wanted an escape from reality, ...so I became addicted to cocaine

What effects did the drugs have on your life?

Eventually the biophysical aspect of the drugs took over and I went from using cocaine for recreational purposes and at work to using the drug five, six times a week. The relationship with my wife deteriorated to the point where we could no longer function together. She kicked me out of the house, we separated and I got an apartment. It all just went downhill from there.

I went on the wrong side of the “tracks.” The next thing you know I met some people who were smoking cocaine, and I started smoking it, and then that was pretty much it. I think I spent about $65,000 on drugs in about four months. I went from making well over $100,000 a year, working four hours a day, to where I’d lost pretty much everything in a matter of four and a half months. One day I was affluent (I didn’t really have any debts) then all of a sudden creditors were calling off the hook. Luckily for my family, my wife had gotten whatever assets I had, including our home, out of my name so we wouldn’t lose everything.

Within an eight-month period I was picking up cigarette butts off the sidewalk. I went from being affluent to someone who was down and out, living on the streets. I was part of a street culture. That culture “took care of me” which is to say it used me to get what it needed, which was drugs. I lost about 55 pounds and things were getting worse, so I just reached out. My wife said that if I was really serious about it, she’d discovered Narconon and I could do the program right away.

What happened when you arrived at Narconon?

I went to Narconon in Trois-Rivieres (Three Rivers), Quebec but I left in the middle of the night. While I was in the middle of withdrawal I just took off. It was winter and 30 degrees below zero and I was wearing sneakers and a spring jacket and I was just going to try and head for the highway, which I

John standing outside the sauna in the Detoxification facility he opened

had no idea where it was. Luckily Narconon had people roaming the streets for me and I was walking the streets trying to get out of Trois-Rivieres. Finally, after an hour of walking I realized that if I continued I’d probably die. I started walking back and they saw me and picked me up. So I went back and started doing the program.

What I was really afraid of was to confront the “demons” and “skeletons” I had in my closet, so to speak. Let’s face it, when someone has a substance abuse problem, the fact is that they are trying to escape reality by using the drugs, because they don’t want to confront their underlying core issues. So when you’re in a place where you have no other choice than to confront those, some people will do anything, say anything, use any creative strategy to “wiggle” out of that situation. That was me: I was calling my wife complaining about my situation, etc. Then one day I just left again, right in the middle of the program, took a bus out of the city and was home, in Hamilton, Ontario about 12 hours later doing crack.

My wife then said “That’s it!” but left the money at the program, hoping that in the end I would see the light of day and go back. So for about eight months starting in February 2003, I was back on the streets living a really low life. It was degrading because I was at the bottom of the barrel as far as society was concerned, that’s how powerful the drug itself was.

Losing everything that was positive in my life really had a bad effect on me, because I knew I couldn’t go back to my community and my family and the rest because everything I built over a 10-year period was destroyed. So I was continuing down that negative spiral or road which eventually was going to kill me or put me in jail.

Yet you returned and completed the program; what was the turning point?

By October 2003, I was a “Y” in the middle of the road that was my life. I was given an “opportunity” to go out west and set up two grow operations of marihuana, and I knew that if I went down that road that would be the end for me. I would lose the likelihood of seeing my kids and so forth. I had hit absolute bottom and I remember very distinctly being downtown on the streets, yelling and screaming at 2:00am in the morning, freaking out thinking “This is insane! I can’t believe I’ve come to this!”

That’s when I called my wife at about 3:00am or 4:00am but she never picked up the phone. I would not call her very often, maybe once every two months, just to check on the kids or whatever. My wife had previously researched and found my biological mother as I never really had a family. So I called her instead, as my wife wanted nothing to do with me (and understandably so). I asked my mother to call my wife and let her know that I couldn’t go on with that life any longer; I need to get help and wanted to know if that “ticket” was still available at Narconon.

She spoke with my wife and called me back and said yes, it was, and that my wife wanted me to call her at her office. I did that and my wife said “’I’m not taking any crap this time, either you’re in or you’re out.” She set up a meeting at a variety store and gave me a window of five minutes: If I wasn’t there she would drive away and I was to never call her again. I told her not to worry because I was very serious this time. I was there 10 minutes early with my bag, and she said I looked like an alley cat that had been beaten up bad. I pretty much had only the clothes on my back during all those months, and I had lost a lot of weight and was very unhealthy.

So I returned to Narconon but I didn’t fight the system this time because I knew I had to go through it. If I didn’t, I was done for. My only choices were to go out west to get involved with drugs and die, or go through the program. The path of least resistance was to go out west but instead I chose to do the right thing, because I did it for my kids and everything else, not even knowing or caring if the relationship with my wife would ever be back to where it had been. The point was just to save my life and be a father for my kids.

When did you realize that the Narconon program could really make a difference?

It was funny because on Day 15, while I was in the sauna going through the Narconon Detoxification Program, high as a kite (because the drugs were coming out of my system), I was suddenly struck by the power and effectiveness of the whole program.

From that point forward I knew what my new mission was in life. I couldn’t go back to what I had been doing because my credibility was shot within the investment industry as well as in the community. I realized that I had a new purpose, which was to tell people about this program, because if it did that for me, it could do it for others.

Can you share some of your experiences with Narconon?

The sauna (Detoxification Program) gave me the presence of mind of being in present time, instead of being stuck in the past. In this way I was able to deal with those underlying core issues that led me to drug use.

My intelligence went up significantly, my eyesight and thinking improved and I just felt better overall.

At the end I experienced an epiphany, almost like a spiritual enlightenment, when I actually finished the Detox Program and obtained what they call the “end phenomenon.” It was an epiphany in the sense that I knew then that I had really broken free from the chain of drugs. I knew that my body was clean and that I could really focus and be rid of the temptation of doing drugs and the cravings of doing drugs any further. At that point in time I was ready to deal with the underlying core issues.

That is where they taught me the tools necessary to deal with those underlying issues, confront those “demons” in the so-called “closet” and deal with them one at a time. By doing that, ultimately instead of the images of being abused as a kid being directly “over my head” as very strong images, the tools “threw them across the room” and they were just pictures. These images no longer had the effect on me that they did previously. I’ll never forget the situations that I had to go through but now I have dealt with them.

From what you saw, how is Narconon different than other alternatives?

The secret is not only just talking about it – I went to see psychiatrists for about four or five years and, if could use an analogy, as soon as I would just

Images on John's Natural Detoxification Sauna Center

talk about it, it would be like popping a pimple and it would just “ooze” out for days thereafter. My emotions were up and down dramatically and I was just a total wreck for days. My family would walk around on egg shells not knowing who they would be dealing with at any given moment.

So what they did at the Narconon program was, instead of just talking about – you do talk about it – but you also write it down and it’s there in black and white. You can take an idea and turn it and twist it in your mind a thousand different ways, but if you write it down it’s right there in black and white. It’s simple, very manageable and very understandable. It is easy to contain and say “this is what the situation is.” From there you can read it and understand it because it has mass. You can see it more for what it really is. Then from there you can “give it away” to the person you are working with (and it is treated quite confidentially). This is an enormous relief.

By doing this process it gives one the ability to confront those underlying core issues. It gave me the opportunity to understand more who I am and what I had to go through. The bottom line is that it eliminated the shame and the guilt and the blaming of me and of why I had to go through what I did. In essence the guilt was no longer mine and I didn’t beat myself up about it any longer. Ultimately I realized that the predator that had victimized me was the issue here and not me. I wasn’t to blame so I stopped blaming myself.

Would it be fair to say that at Narconon you learned valuable life skills?

Definitely! Even though I was a well educated, bright individual before that through my working years, I still did not have the necessary life skills, because of all the old baggage.

So once I dealt with the underlying core issues, Narconon gave me the tools necessary to build a life in which I can use a systematic method to analyze all aspects of my life. That way I can stay on track. Ultimately if you spend too much time going to the gym or playing hockey, all the other areas of your life are going to suffer. You have to know how to analyze any aspect of your life like your family, your community, your society, yourself, your friends – all areas – and be able to balance everything. With these tools I am able to keep all areas of my life under control so that I don’t start to deteriorate in any one area.

When you start to decline in any aspect of your life, other areas start to get worse, all the good things. If you’re focusing too much on yourself, you will suffer in other areas and eventually even you will suffer – even though you’ve been focusing strictly on you. For me this is one reason why I opened up a Detox center. By helping people it would help keep me on the straight and narrow and from doing what I had been doing.

What else did you learn through Narconon?

Another thing I learned is that you have to have goals, a plan and objectives and you need to follow through on them. I told my wife that although I couldn’t go too fast, as I was re-integrating myself into society, I also needed to stay busy. So I started with small little goals towards my overall objective, which was to open this Detox center. I did this on a daily basis, while being able to spend time with my kids. This was really huge for me.

Fortunately my wife also took me back and we’ve fallen back in love and we’ve been together now for 14 years all in all. My wife came from a conservative good family, which I did not. And while I was doing drugs I put her through hell. Yet I could not be where I am today without her. I’m very fortunate that she could look at me and see through everything, and see the person that she fell in love with and now she’s reaping the rewards, like I am. More importantly, my kids now have a sound foundation and can grow up in a setting similar to what my wife had when she was growing up (as opposed to how I was brought up).

I also learned that I had to change my environment, and this included the people I had been hanging around with, some of which might be described as “antisocial.” This caused great improvement in the quality of my life.

Tell us about the Detox centre you opened…

The Detox center really came fast and furious. I built the center from the ground up, including the sauna. I went to New York City with my wife and visited a Detox program there. I became a member of the Academy of International Detoxification Specialists, etc. I’ve also met a lot of heavy players within the industry including a huge amount of doctors and scientists from all over the world. These things gave my wife and me the motivation to move forward. I had already done a lot of research and knew that there were many people addicted that needed help. So we started.

Since then life has been getting better and better. For example, I sent a letter to everyone I could find with my last name and found my biological father and he’d always been dying to meet me. So now I have a huge family with three brothers and my grandfather who’s still alive at 82 years old. Now we see each other at least every other week with my father and overall it’s just unbelievable.

It is amazing: If you create and do things that are positive, then everything that’s positive comes to you. I feel very fortunate that everything has fallen in line. And I have had a lot of accolades from a many different people that have seen me come through the Narconon program. I feel like I have just scratched the surface, there’s so much more yet to do. The best part is that the journey has just begun.

I also work with someone out of Montreal as part of a referral network, and I help people from across North America to get placed in Narconon programs. This is fantastic because of my background in sales, marketing and finance. I have a drug past as well and have been through the Narconon program so I have a many advantages in being able to really help people.

What success have you had with your center?

It has been significant: On average, I am saving two to three lives per week by getting them to different rehab programs. That is really gratifying. I’ve probably saved between 50 and 60 people since I’ve started. So it’s a two-pronged approach: With the milder cases, I can handle them here at the Detox, and with the heavier ones I just refer to different Narconon programs throughout North America. It is a win-win situation for everybody. It’s really allowed me to leverage what tools I’ve built being in Detox, and those that the people I work with already have in place.

It’s become a real passion for me. I did it initially for “selfish” reasons just to keep myself straight, but now I have a real passion to help people. And I don’t look at the monetary gains of it; my perspective is to save lives. This is what really helps me to keep going. When I think with it in terms of the number of lives I save per week, it’s like “that’s not enough.” It keeps me “hungry” and moving forward and talking with as many people as I can.

At the same time, the tools I have from Narconon have allowed me to focus and make sure I have a well balanced life. This whole industry can just eat you up because there are just that many people out there that need help. It can totally consume you. Because of Narconon I can deal with it.

Do you receive many requests for help?

We certainly do: I personally handle anywhere from 200 to 300 calls per week. Even if some callers don’t have the financial resources to do a rehab program, we have a number of resources to help them as well. Of course a major reason why I refer people to the Narconon program is the success rate which is more than 70 per cent.

Typically what happens is:

1. Someone has some underlying core issues that are negatively affecting them
2. They can’t handle these or they can’t deal with them
3. So they need an escape which is typically alcohol or drugs
4. As time goes by they have still not confronted those key issues so they continue to escalate the drugs, moving to more potent ones
5. They also get into drug binges, which may last several days, and don’t eat properly so this affects their health
6. The drugs also lodge into the fatty tissues of the body (such as cocaine which is very water soluble) and with the metabolic changes in the body, drug residues are released back into the body and this is what causes the cravings
7. Now the drugs have taken over from a biophysical standpoint.

What the Narconon program does is it reverses the process: First it deals with the biophysical aspects by getting all the drugs out of you. Then from there it deals with the underlying core issues so that the former drug user doesn’t ever have to escape reality again. After this you fully respect and love who you are, what you can do and what you can accomplish in your life. So there is no more need for drugs.

Where do you see yourself going from here?

I was recently qualified to open a full Narconon centre and was approved to open up a new facility here in Ontario. It has been a fun ride, but I want to put in place a rehab that can help people on a larger scale. I see myself having one large centre or two smaller ones. By putting some key people in place I will be able to oversee everything – which is different than just working in the trenches. In this area there are a lot of people that need help as there are many drug users (crack cocaine, heroin and so on). With a team, I can help more people.

oOOo

Narconon Drug Rehab:

Why treat a drug addiction, with more drugs? Narconon has developed a unique biophysical, 100% drug-free drug rehab and treatment program. Narconon works. The majority of our graduates have gone on to live balanced, stable lives, but most importantly, a drug-free life. The Narconon Detoxification program is designed for many different types of drug addictions, and is a proven effective drug rehab program, with a proven 70% success rate.

Narconon Trois Rivieres Drug Rehab Center

Narconon Trois-Rivieres is located in the beautiful distraction free environment of Trois-Rivieres, Quebec in Canada and is part of the Narconon network which consists of over 100 drug rehab, drug prevention and education centers the world over. Our rehab centers and programs produce graduates, the majority of whom have demonstrated that they can live stable, ethical and productive drug-free lives. Not only does Narconon provide an unmatched drug detoxification and rehabilitation program, but our endeavors extend beyond our own facilities and into the root of society’s drug awareness problems: We address them by educating hundreds of thousands of people each year with live presentations, educational publications and written materials, as well as many organized events to bring the truth to many more. In this manner we work to reduce and eliminate drug addiction and abuse.

Narconon’s unfaltering objective: Drug-free people who are valuable, contributing members of society, resulting in a drug-free and crime-free area. For more information fill in the drug rehab help form or call 1-877-782-7409