Step 1: Improving one’s communication skills
The Narconon Therapeutic TRs Course
When a person first arrives at a rehab center, it’s typical for that person to be out of control of himself (or herself). Drugs rob a person of self-awareness and self-control. For a person to honestly participate in his own recovery, he is going to have to gradually get control of himself and the various parts of his life.
This kind of improvement can only take place in small steps forward. At the very beginning of the Narconon program, a person will still be recovering from the physical effects of drugs for a period of time. He can still begin to gain control in small steps forward by learning more about confronting another person and controlling his own and other people’s communications. This is the person’s first step in gaining the life skills needed to stay sober after graduation.
The Therapeutic Training Routines Course
This course is composed of thirteen exercises or training procedures that result in improved confront of other people and a greater ability to make oneself understood and understand others. The very first exercises are extremely simple and gentle, and they work up gradually to greater competence.
As a person gains ability in communicating, he usually also makes other improvements like these:
- Better control over own emotions
- Less likely to dodge unpleasant conversations
- More able to complete a task
- More aware of the present time environment.
At this stage of the game, there is much weighing on a recovering person. He is still burdened by guilt and cravings. He may still suffer from the depression so common to the addicted. These improvements may be rather small compared to the kinds of improvements needed but just a gentle building of basic skills is all that is needed at this point in the program.
Learning to Confront
Some people may have a negative impression of confronting, thinking that it means to aggressively deal with someone. In its most basic definition, to confront simply means to be able to face someone comfortably, without wanting to dodge or run away. Drugs can destroy this ability in an addicted person. He has probably not dealt with his relationships or his life problems for the most of the time he was addicted. He has not confronted them. Gradually regaining this ability is essential to a recovery.
The very first steps involve a person simply learning to sit comfortably across from another person. This may sound easy until it is tried. For an addicted person, achieving this simple skill is a major improvement.
Learning to Deliver and Receive a Communication
The next step in helping a person gain control over communication is teaching him to deliver a verbal communication that can be easily received, and learning to receive and acknowledge another person’s spoken communication. The next few steps have precise methods that a person uses to build up these abilities.
Greater Communication Control
In the next section of the course, each person becomes adept at controlling an ongoing conversation. A person can’t communicate well if he only talks and never listens or if he listens only without speaking. On this step, a person learns that good communication is really two-way, and how to engage in effective two-way communication with another.
Control of One’s Own Body and Another Person’s Body
A person abusing drugs or alcohol may have started operating “on automatic” much earlier in the addiction. He may not even have a sense of moving his own body moving around the room - it just seems to get from place to place on its own. Reclaiming control of his own person is necessary for a person to learn how to live sober.
In this later part of this course, each person goes through a series of routines that become more challenging and more complex. (He learns how to how to control his own and other’s actions). He learns how to get another person to comply with a simple request. As he learns these skills, the effect is also that he learns how to get himself to do what he intends. Every time he improves this skill, he gains the ability to make his own choices in life a little better.
For months or years, drugs have been driving his actions and decisions. On this first course, a person takes the first steps toward obtaining the ability to make his own decisions and to carry them out in his life. As simple as these skills are, they are a foundation for the steps of the Narconon program that follow.
Full Life-Skills Program Courses