Healing of drug addiction (chemical drugs, hashish, alcohol) as well as depression

J. K. (32), Murnau (Germany)

At the age of 14 we usually drank several cola-mixes (half beer, half cola) after football games. At home with my parents, too, it was normal to drink alcohol on the weekend or at parties. Even as a small child I was permitted to have a sip or to lick out the rest from the empty Underberg bottles. Once I was able to drink a whole bottle, which I vomited up afterward.

When I was 16 my consumption increased. On the weekend and at parties I would often drink a mix of everything -beer, wine, whiskey, etc. When I got older it was always my goal to drink as much as I could without vomiting. My body had become used to the continual use of alcohol and I didn’t get hangovers anymore.

Hashish

When I was about 18 my first "great love" left me and three months later my parents separated. This had a great inner effect on me. Instead of talking to someone about it, however, I repressed the feelings and ran away. I was virtually unable to stay at home during this period. I would start climbing the walls. I simply couldn’t stand it and had to always be on the move; thus I had more contact with my old friends. In this group hashish was the latest trend. Since I was so down I was very pleased to see how happy they were after smoking something. So I smoked with them and at first everything was a lot of fun and rosy. In the beginning I smoked a joint now and then on the weekend and in this way it gradually became a habit. After six months I was also smoking during the week and after two or three years, up to three grams a day every day from morning to night.

No one noticed my continual hashish consumption because I took drops to counteract the redness of my eyes. My mother didn’t even notice it when I sat at the table at lunch. Even when drunk and after heavy hashish consumption I was still 90% clear-headed and got through police highway inspections well. With hashish I had no physical side-effects. My ability to think logically, however, decreased. I did considerably worse in mathematics and physics, which had previously been my best subjects. I became lazy and lethargic.

Speed, LSD, Ecstasy

Approximately six months later hard drugs started circulating in our group and first I tested Speed, a white, purely chemical powder. Afterward, however, I felt very bad for one or two days. All my bones hurt. I would feel woozy and get herpes blisters on my nose every time. Nevertheless I would take two or three lines of Speed now and then on the weekends when I danced the night through at techno parties. With Speed, you see, I was able to consume more drugs of all kinds together and keep dancing endlessly. I took Speed in this way for four or five years in all.

I also took LSD four or five times. But after the first horror trip with fear of dying my hair turned grey at the temples overnight. After the second horror trip I was able to stay away from it. In January 1994 I took Ecstasy for the first time at a techno party. This drug raises the body temperature. You feel surges of heat streaming through your whole body. I felt completely dopey - everything was rosy and I loved everyone. As a result of this positive experience I took Ecstasy more and more often. The day after was not so nice - I would be exhausted, tired and lacking in motivation. Nevertheless in the end I would take up to three tablets a night at the techno parties.

In August 1994 I met a boy who wanted to organize techno parties with me. At first I was enthusiastic and visited him often. He told me a lot about esoteric matters. That was new territory for me. At first he was very nice to me in order to impress me. After awhile he began to frighten me by saying, for example, that he had had a tarot reading and that one of us was going to die soon. This frightened me and he took advantage of that to steal energy from me. I simply couldn’t defend myself against it and still felt drawn to him. He once said to me that several of his friends had gone to a mental hospital because they hadn’t been able to stand it. I thought that evening that I was going to go crazy out of fear.

The next day I had a very strong feeling that I should go to visit my grandmother. It was twelve kilometres on foot. My grandmother wanted to give me a real dressing down because I was neglecting my mother and the work that had to be done at home. When I rang at the door, however, she said the thought suddenly came to her, "You should definitely not be strict with Jörn today!" If my grandmother had waved a moralistic finger at me I would have immediately left. We talked briefly and she asked me to visit my mother. On the same evening I went to my mother and confessed to her what was really wrong with me. When she heard about my drug dependence she was very shocked and called my father. My parents hadn’t really spoken to one another for two years. But they both offered their help if I only wanted to get away from it and would stop taking drugs. And that I also did. In October 1994 I gave up all drugs from one day to the next and separated myself from all my one-time friends. I went with my parents for drug counselling and went to several doctors. But I had practically no trust in strangers.

I went through hell

During this period of drug withdrawal I can really say that I went through hell. I had developed a very strong aversion to drugs so that I didn’t yearn for them anymore but after giving up the drugs I became very depressed. Nothing was able to make me happy. Everything looked dismal and negative. I neither wanted, nor did I have the energy to do anything. I preferred to stay in bed all day. But there I would be tormented by dissatisfaction with myself again. I also had a persecution complex. I thought that all strangers wanted to do something bad to me, that is, to kill me. At the university when the English professor spoke, I understood coded threat messages intended to specifically announce my demise. I also was afraid of dying and thought my heart wasn’t going to beat properly anymore. Then I was afraid it would immediately stop. At this time I no longer saw any meaning in life and frequently contemplated suicide. I had considered departing from life with the help of car exhaust fumes. This seemed to me to be an appropriate method because you just went to sleep from lack of oxygen. I wanted to extend a hose from the exhaust pipe to the inside of the car. I also already knew the place in the woods where I wanted to park the car. But somehow I was also afraid of dying, but didn’t know why I should go on living anymore.

In addition I also felt sheer terror that I had permanently damaged my body through the drug consumption. I brooded a lot and often wound myself up in a coil again so that I had the feeling my head was going to burst. I would have been happy if I had had an outlet for getting rid of the pressure but because of the brooding I was distracted and unable to really concentrate. When I wanted to clean up, for example, so many thoughts came to me that in the end I would want to do five different things at once. In the final analysis I would give up out of lack of energy and achieve very little. The psychiatrist treating me suggested I undergo therapy and take part in a group whose members also wanted to get out of the drug milieu. But I was afraid of that and didn’t want to have anything more to do with people from the drug scene. In addition I didn’t really trust the doctor. Therefore I only went for treatment three times and then didn’t go anymore.

In October 1994 my family doctor found that my liver had increased six centimetres in size. He said that it was reparable, but I would have to stay away from all drugs. I took this very seriously. I ate very healthily and did a lot of sports. It was noticeable that I no longer perspired, even after a half-hour run through the woods. The previous year I would have perspired very heavily from sport activity of that kind.

The drug withdrawal lasted from early October 1994 to the middle of December 1994. Throughout this period I had anxiety attacks, sometimes severe, sometimes slight. These attacks were especially severe during the last month of the withdrawal. I had begun a course of study in economic engineering at a technical university simultaneously with the withdrawal (early October 1994 to early December 1994), but broke it off in early December because of the severe withdrawal symptoms and lack of concentration.

In early December 1994 I began to work in a firm. But I was depressed, withdrawn and had little self-confidence. I had practically no contact with my co-workers. It was also impossible for me to hold a friendly or serious conversation because of the many thoughts that were continually buzzing around in my head and the difficulty in concentration andbecause of this, I felt lonely and abandoned.

I wanted to get rid of the depression

In November 1994 my mother told a friend that I had been reading the Bible out of desperation. Her friend then lent me the introductory book to the teaching of Bruno Gröning. In addition, I read an experience-report about how one can get away from drugs with the help of the Heilstrom. The book fascinated me. In spite of the difficulty in concentration I read it all the way through in one day. I was sceptical, however, because I didn’t know what the Bruno Gröning Circle of Friends was. A battle was going on within me. On the one hand I wanted to get rid of the severe withdrawal symptoms and the depression; on the other hand I was afraid of acquiring another dependency. But since the above-described conditions were getting worse and worse I gathered all my courage in mid-December 1994 and attended a lecture of introduction to the teaching of Bruno Gröning in Pirmasens.

I felt completely free

During my introduction I felt a feeling of love right away. Then I knew-this is the right place! During the introduction I perspired a lot and sweat was flowing out of all my pores. I felt a wonderful inner peace and satisfaction.

My life then changed from one minute to the next. After the introduction the depression and anxiety states spontaneously disappeared. I was so moved by my healing that I told almost everybody about it. I experienced a lot of help during this time. For example I wanted a computer. I hadn’t told anyone about it. Three weeks later my aunt gave me a new computer.

I felt completely free, as if armour that had surrounded me had sprung open. I was so full of joy and love that I could freely approach everyone and look them in the eyes. I got my self-confidence back and was able to stand up for my co-workers at the firm where I worked. Thanks to the teaching of Bruno Gröning I found meaning in my life.

Around March 1995 I went to the doctor again and he confirmed for me that my life was completely in order again. From December 1994 to June 1994 I regularly attended the Community Hours in Pirmasens and in February or March 1995 I also started helping out in the Community for drug addicts.

Relapse into old habits

However I made a big mistake. I thought that I didn’t have to change myself much so I got lazier and lazier and didn’t really feel like working anymore. Then in June 1995 I had a relapse. I met a Buddhist I liked a lot. He smoked hashish and had his life well under control. I thought, "Hashish can’t be so bad; the physical and emotional problems after stopping the drugs just came from the hard chemical drugs!" So I began to smoke hashish again, dumb and gullible as I was. At first it was very occasionally but then I was soon smoking one or two joints a day. After that it became more and more often. I also drank alcohol again. Little by little I started to get together with my old friends again. I had quit my job-I absolutely had to go to Nepal. I had distanced myself from the Bruno Gröning Circle of Friends. In September 1995 I flew to Nepal. As soon as I got there I went off looking for hashish, which was easy to find there, even in large amounts. Since it cost only half as much as at home I smoked more than before-approximately five to ten joints a day-along with hash oil, which is about ten times stronger than hashish. I went on drinking beer every day and smoked approximately a pack of cigarettes daily.

In December 1995 I wanted to fly home because I wanted to celebrate Christmas with my family. I actually wanted to return to Nepal at the end of January. But thank God, things turned out very differently.

The order returns

About mid-January 1996 I began to tune in to the Heilstrom again twice a day because I urgently needed energy. I then gradually got up earlier and earlier and felt a lot of energy when tuning in. Two days before I smoked hashish for the last time, I had a strange and unpleasant experience. This experience moved me to mentally separate myself from the smoking of hashish. A few days later I stopped smoking and drinking alcohol. All desire for drugs was instantaneously taken from me. I sensed that I had to immediately discontinue contact with my old drug friends. A good friend invited me to move in with him, which I thankfully did. Since that point in time, I have been completely free from all drugs.

With the relapse, however, the negative thoughts came back in February or March 1996. I had strong feelings of inferiority again and couldn’t imagine things going uphill for me in the future. I said to myself, "You won’t succeed with the withdrawal anyway, and you also won’t be able to find the right job-you are much too dumb!" Such thoughts wanted to make life difficult for me. But thank God I had quickly learned to concern myself with positive things and simply do good in my free time. So, for example, I would go into the woods with trash bags and pick up the trash I found there. This work did me good inwardly and I had the feeling every time that I was creating some order within myself too. The more Heilstrom I absorbed, the more successful I was in creating order within myself. I was getting better day by day.

In March 1996 I also got back on my career path. The Employment Office gave me a training opportunity. In addition, I received an offer to attend an evening school. I had always admired people who had the energy for such training. I had never thought that I would ever be able to do it. In September 1996 I also started at the evening school three evenings a week. Before school I would tune in and get energy for the evening. In late February 1997 I was able to successfully complete the training thanks to the help of Bruno Gröning. It had not been possible for me before to bring anything to completion so well. I learned to concentrate better and better and because of the increased ability to concentrate I am now in a position to accomplish much more in a short time. I have become self-supporting as a sales representative for machine tools. I now enjoy working. It is a good feeling to wake up early in the morning knowing what one is getting up for. Through the many activities I am getting an inner satisfaction and can really say that I have become a happy young man.

Between the ages of 14 and 24 I had continuously changed relationships. I had looked for love my whole life long, including during the time of my drug consumption and in regard to my girlfriends. Due to the many relationships I had had, I wasn’t able to really love anymore or open myself up to people because I had also been hurt. This changed in the years after my introduction to the teaching of Bruno Gröning. For me God now comes first and God can’t hurt you.

In 1997 or 1998 I met my wife. We married in May 2001 and I know today who belongs at my side. Today, in the year 2005, I have already been free from all drugs for nine years. The cigarettes, too, belong in the past. I regularly attend the Community Hours of the Bruno Gröning Circle of Friends and absorb the Heilstrom daily. Now I know that life is worth living.

Psychologist's commentary:

During his youth, Mr. K gradually became an alcoholic. At 16 he also began smoking hashish. He could not stop. After failed relationships he joined a gang. In this way he could deny unresolved feelings. His habit led to harder drugs. He moved in a techno-background and experienced drug-related hallucinations, coupled with mortal fear. Finally these paranoid conditions resembled a psychosis. It was the pressure of this suffering that made Mr. K realize that he needed help. He stopped all drugs immediately. As a result of the many unresolved issues he suffered from strong feelings of fear and depression, which he could not shake off on his own.

During the introduction to the teaching of Bruno Gröning, Mr. K experienced spontaneous healing. He was free of all symptoms for three months but these returned after he started using drugs again.

He realized that to obtain a stable healing he had to change his inner attitude. He began to work actively on this. He found that the Heilstrom gave him power and helped him. Through this he became stable, symptom-free and mentally healthy, i.e. able to deal with work, relationships and make sense out of life. Such an all-inclusive spiritual healing without psychotherapeutic treatment is inexplicable in terms of current psychological knowledge.

R. S., Psychologist