"My life was a living hell--from being homeless, to being broke, to losing friends, to losing girlfriends, and even losing my band. It wasn't fun. Well, to be honest, I thought it was fun at the time but that all soon changed when I realized that I wasn't able to pay any bills, go out anywhere or even afford to call somebody from a pay phone.

"Crystal meth was my drug of choice, but there were others too--cheap, easy to get, easy to become addicted to and, of course, easy to use. I tried it once and BOOM! I was addicted.

"One of the main things that this affected was my music career. I had a great band and played great music and had great members who weren't only band members but best friends. That all changed when I started using meth.

"Well, needless to say, that band isn't around anymore. But let me bring you up to speed a little bit closer to present time. I finally realized that I needed to get help because all of my family knew, my friends and some co-workers knew as well.

"Narconon was brought to my attention and I watched the video. I KNEW that that was the answer for me. It just made sense! So basic and simple and so easy to follow the steps to become drug free, and that's what I wanted. That's what I needed.

"So with the help of my family, I made it go right to get down to Narconon Brazil and spent the next 4 months getting my life together and getting off drugs for good! I made some great friends down there and had some major epiphanies [realizations] about my life, friends, family, work, drug usage and, of course, my main thing, music.

"Now, after over a year of being done with the program and almost a year and a half of being drug free, I am in a successful band that's getting bigger by the day and going on international tours. Now I know for a fact that with the music industry comes a lot of barriers, one mainly being drugs.

"Being on some of the tours already, I have encountered some of this nonsense and have not been tempted once!! In fact, when we get done with our European tour, I plan on working with Narconon by giving drug education lectures at schools to help fight this drug problem our nation is having.

"Also, I have never been so close to my family as I am right now, and I've never had as many friends as I do now!"

Charlie Curtis - Narconon Graduate