Healing from a long-standing hashish addiction

S. M. (32), Kassel (Germany)

At the time of my confirmation when I was about 12 years old, addiction began in the form of alcohol misuse (beer, schnapps, wine). Just as with many other young people even today, I placed great importance on getting really drunk for the first time. At the same time I also tried smoking hashish for the first time. When I was about 14 I could already count myself as one of those in my group who could hold their liquor. At 15 I then began to smoke hashish now and then. It was simply a completely different feeling state. I had the feeling my consciousness was changing, time and space were receding and something like inner peace and a connection to everything was appearing. At 15 I was smoking every third day and from 18 on around 0.5 gram daily but usually only in the afternoons or the evening. At 17 I began carpenter’s training but broke it off after six months. After that I only took odd jobs which I didn’t take so seriously. At 20 I had already stopped my alcohol consumption because I was fixed exclusively on the drug hashish and had the motto, "Better high on pot than drunk". From that point on that drug was the master of my life. I needed it every day because otherwise I couldn’t sleep.

I couldn’t stop anymore

After I turned 22 I was already smoking cannabis in all its variations (water-pipe, bong, kawumm, bucket, dugout, joints, chillum). By then my daily consumption had increased to 2-10 grams. After smoking I wasn’t good for much the rest of the day. I would go walking with my dogs or visit friends, brood and just vegetate the time away. It usually didn’t go well for me after smoking because I didn’t do anything to give my life meaning. I became more and more sensitive and couldn’t stand most people with their negative vibrations any more so that I was often as if paralysed. I was sitting in a dark hole and no longer had the energy to turn toward the light. Then I would wander around town and wallow in self-pity. I had fear of physical contact when shopping or riding the bus or train and cut myself off more and more from my environment especially when I was high on pot--and that was always! With the smoking I wanted to drive out or prettify everything unpleasant even though I noticed that I got a good high from smoking perhaps only two out of ten times. But I couldn’t stop anymore. The smoking had simply become a habit for me.

I broke off my contact with the outer world

So it was simpler for me to hide anything inconvenient, ugly, unjust or beyond my comprehension under a smog-blanket of cannabis (that is, hashish) so that I didn’t have to see or feel what was happening on this earth and with my life. I always passed on my own responsibility; it was always the fault of others and I didn’t feel responsible for anything-that was my belief. As a result I was at the mercy of egoism, brutality, envy and all kinds of underhanded dealings. Carried away by my flight from life, I blamed everything on others. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in the divine-I just made it responsible for all that. I wanted to give up smoking pot, but I lacked the faith and the good energy. When I noticed that I could no longer stop I convinced myself that I didn’t want to stop anyway, basing it on the fact that cannabis can be used as a medicinal herb.

As time went on I broke off many friendships, broke off with my own talents, broke off trainings, broke off partnerships with women and finally my contact with the outer world. I had abandoned and broken off from everything because nothing seemed to have any meaning or reason. All that I had left was nature and very few friends.

What I then experienced was hell

One day when I was 22 I had hallucinations. In the night before my 22nd birthday when I was painting a picture I saw faces that scared me. The next day I felt as if paralysed and had crazy thoughts. I was no longer able to distinguish external and internal voices. I thought more and more of suicide because life didn’t seem to me to be worth living. I wanted help and went to an anthroposophist doctor with whom I merely wanted to talk. But since her practice was closed she gruffly sent me to an emergency centre. There I complained about my problems and finally consented to be admitted to a psychiatric ward. I believed I would receive help in some form or other with my dilemma. However when I got to the locked ward and the door closed behind me I experienced the sad reality of what probably takes place in all psychiatric wards. What I then experienced was hell. I didn’t have the feeling that I was being helped by the medical personnel but was merely being pumped full of psychiatric drugs (Neurocil). Back at home I couldn’t sleep right but didn’t want to smoke hash anymore because I blamed my psychosis on its consumption. A pal who regularly smoked hash was staying in my flat and at first that didn’t bother me. But after four weeks I yearned so much for the emotional solace which I hoped to get from hashish. So I started to regularly smoke hashish again and this kept increasing over the next seven years (up to about three grams daily). So I felt like a pot-smoker for all eternity because I no longer had any hope of ever giving it up again. At 29 I had already spent half of my life high so that this condition was more familiar to me than sobriety.

I was at rock bottom and a little below

Three months before my introduction I experienced a terrible blow. My girl friend at the time became pregnant but didn’t want to carry to term and had an abortion against my will. I love children and would have stood by my girl friend and the child. Through the abortion of my child I slid further into the cellar.

When I was at rock bottom and a little below that I came into contact with the teaching of Bruno Groening-I thank God with all my heart. A friend who had recently also been granted a healing from addiction told me about these teaching and the Heilstrom. In July 2000 I was introduced to the teaching of Bruno Gröning.

The healings that I was told about gave me firm ground to stand on again

I became more emotionally stable day by day and was given belief and a sense of meaning in all life, including my life. In the Community Hours I met people who were a big help to me with this. The healings of heroin addicts, AIDS patients and other addictive patients that I was told about gave me firm ground to stand on again. I absorbed the energy in the Community Hours to be able to stand up at all. I was able to learn that everything we experience and live out here only serves to instruct us. I learned through my friend, who had already been there for awhile, that no one is forced into anything in the Bruno Gröning Circle of Friends. I attended the Community Hours although I went on smoking around three grams of cannabis per day. For the time being I still didn’t see why I should stop smoking pot because I still regarded the cannabis plant as my personal medicinal herb and power plant. After just about exactly one year in the Community I still didn’t see why I should stop smoking hashish.

I strangely didn’t feel any emotional withdrawal symptoms

Finally there was a supply gap (pot gap), that is, I suddenly couldn’t get the desired stuff anymore-which actually had never before happened in my whole drug career. During this period I remembered that my friend had said that Bruno Gröning would find the right way to free each person from the addiction and that I didn’t need to worry anymore. So I was able to accept that there just wasn’t anything to smoke at the moment and that it was apparently also good that way. I strangely didn’t feel any emotional withdrawal symptoms. Previously I would turn the place upside down until I had found a "crumb" of hash and I would have become extremely uneasy. Now I was able to sleep and was doing well-even without hashish. The supply gap got longer and longer-up to two weeks. I was still doing great and actually didn’t miss the drug at all. I absorbed the divine Heilstrom in the morning and evening and also in-between.

I finally determined that the smoking of cannabis hurt me and robbed me of my powers. When I realized that I was able to finally give up the hashish emotionally. I first made the decision to no longer smoke pot and then actually did stop. Since early June 2001 I have been free from the desire and craving for hashish and cannabis and since then have also consumed no more of it. Even when I have had the opportunity to smoke pot I have remained steadfast. I really don’t have a craving to smoke pot anymore.

I feel liberated and thank God with all my heart. Since I haven’t been smoking pot my head has become more and more clear-also emotionally. I have access again to the energy that I had previously lost through the pot-smoking. I have meanwhile begun training to be a healing practitioner and have set up a "painting school for children" at home. Previously I was able to play music (guitar, drums, sing, play the bass) only when on hashish. Now I can also play without it. Through misuse of the drug hashish I had wanted to foster my spiritual development but this had driven me to the brink of disaster. Now I can live out my spiritual development entirely without this plant. Thank you!

Psychologist's commentary:

Over a period of 15 Years Mr. M. was at first a user of alcohol followed by using mainly hashish. His drug addiction was the cause of his narcissistic flight from reality during puberty and adolescence. Mr. M. used the drug to self-medicate. This initiated the vicious cycle that lasted for 15 years. Any expected hope for a cure was minimal in his case. It would be hard to find a therapist who was willing to take the risk and trouble involved in treating him.

Within one year of joining the Bruno Gröning Circle of Friends, regularly participating in the community hours and the taking in of the Heilstrom, Mr. M. was able to escape the vicious cycle of drug abuse. He is now able to show responsibility and social engagement. This proves that he is not only free of all addiction but is also free from the inner turmoil that had led to his addiction. To reach such a quick and all-encompassing healing would be impossible with psychotherapeutic methods known to us at this time.

R. S., Psychologist