Drugs... Catharsis

Hello. I’d like to share my experience. At that time the choice was made unconsciously, but now, as I have keys in my hands (namely the books by Anastasia Novykh and the three marvellous programs of The Silver Thread series on AllatRa TV) and having analysed all my deeds, I can mark out many interesting animal nature patterns and a couple of ways to cope with them. I will write about drugs.

I’ve already written in the Catharsis section about how drugs heavily press on one’s brain, even when a person has already stopped taking them. And herein I would like to describe the process itself. Let me start with an extract from the AllatRa book:

One of the ways of the Animal Mind to completely place man under his command is to provoke in him the desire to consume alcohol or drugs. When a person begins to consume alcohol or drugs, the Animal Mind begins to completely dominate him, to enslave and block any possible manifestation of the power from the Spiritual Nature. At the level of neurophysiology, an imbalance occurs, and many of the brain neurons get blocked. Man perceives information already poorly. However, the Animal Nature actively dominates him, and it seems to him he is a “hero” and allowed everything in this world. Such a soap bubble (illusion) actually appears not because of the fact that he is such in reality, but simply because there is a failure in the system of brain functioning, and the Personality’s state of consciousness switches to a different mode, where there is a complete submission to the Animal Nature. For the Spiritual Nature in man this is a collapse; this is like, figuratively speaking, to put the Soul into a deadly poisonous environment. Its power is partially blocked by the “optical filters”-subpersonalities anyway, and such a total domination of the Animal Nature over a new Personality simply deprives it of the last chance and hope. Alcohol and drugs turn a person into an obedient slave of the Animal Mind and even in small doses kill a spout of the spiritual in him or her.

With time, an alcohol or drug addiction develops in a person, though he or she denies it. At the same time this person persists in consuming this poison, citing any reasons (traditions, holidays, birthdays, funerals, personal stress, and so on). As a result, he / she does not notice his / her spiritual foundations being lost, this addiction growing into bringing his / her human nature down to the level of animal instincts, and the Personality degrading. I have already mentioned that people in the state of alcoholic intoxication are inadequate in perceiving information. In most cases, all that dominates them at the moment of alcoholic intoxication (practically poisoning) are loud thoughts from the Animal Nature about the dear self, about the objects of their pride, about their unfulfilled selfish desires, and unrealized, excessive ambitions. This is indeed a real tragedy and, first and foremost, for the Personality himself or herself.

 
I won’t expound the entire story in colours, but just say that within a couple of years I “acquired” such things as panic attacks, lost trust of the family, bad reputation, sexual phobia, ruined psyche, and numerous consequential muddles. And the main thing, my soul got covered by an enormous dirty shroud.

So, I shall tell a little bit about how it was and give explanations based on my experience.

Well, I started with grass, then switched to amphetamines and psychotropic substances, then to intravenous screws, and when I ran out of screws I began to try flights (all the “terms are explained at the end of the story). Grass and phens were in high school years, and shots began at the second year of college. At that, I was afraid of all this, but still bragged about my experience and its toughness.

When I was still on screws I gained panic attacks which I could cope with only in a year after I gave up the needle. Here’s how it was.

Panic attacks. According to Wikipedia, a panic attack (PA) or vegetative crisis is an inexplicable bout of severe anxiety, painful for a patient and accompanied by fear combined with various vegetative (bodily) symptoms.

Generally speaking, it’s a real animal fear. And it is so strong that your attention is totally focused on it. Thoughts are as follows: “I’m dead, it’s the end. I have to undertake something.” And since the brain does not work in a normal direction, plenty of nasty things are “undertaken”. Here’s an example. 

After a marathon, not being totally released, I went to visit my grandmother. And the wildest fear seized me at night: my feet and hands are deadly cold, my right arm and the right part of my face grew numb. The first thought was about a blood clot in an arm vein, what else could it be? Panic was horrible, and my mind worked only in “salvation” search mode. I surfed the web and surely found plenty of information about blood clots, thus thoughts made me totally worked up. My brain found information that aspirin rarefied blood and regarded it as the only way out, and so I swallowed up a plate of acetylsalicylic acid on an empty stomach (I hadn’t eaten for about three days). I walked along the yard and felt myself dying. In reality. No panic. It turned out the acetylsalicylic acid started taking effect. Blood pressure dropped drastically. I made it to a bucket of water and started washing my stomach. I was washing it for about an hour. Then I asked my grandmother to measure my blood pressure. She silently put me to bed and only asked the next morning: “Natalia, how were you walking? Your pressure was 40/20.”

Well, similar stories recurred quite often. Sometimes I felt terrible heat in my chest up to a “hole” in my lungs, sometimes I swallowed a seed and it got to my heart, and sometimes iodine got to my thyroid along the veins))))) There were plenty of nonsense invented by my panicking brain)))))))

Eventually, I had to do something about that, for panic could seize me in a grocery store or in the street, and I got really tired of that. I started looking for information about Pas, surfing the web thoroughly and searching for ways to get rid of the problem (it was already a year after I gave up the needle). And I understood that PAs were untreatable, for they were caused by adrenals (drastic adrenalin discharges into blood) and, first and foremost, by the brain. Now I know the reason is much deeper, but at that time the available information was enough for me. I also came to believe it’s impossible to die of PAs (I found an article on the internet, saying only a healthy body and a healthy heart could stand such a load) and learned to observe. 

Thus, I had a problem to be resolved, I had information, and I had the power of faith. As for observation, it didn’t go smoothly right away, sometimes my attention did go to frightening thoughts, and so fear emerged, but I already knew it was safe. And everything passed. And sometimes, as soon as anxiety started I immediately stopped it by the following thinking: “It’s a panic attack, I’m not going to worry. Why would I worry at all?” and I turned my attention to something positive, began to laugh, etc. And everything passed, not even having time to start actively)).

In actual fact, it’s same as working with an animal nature stereotype or pattern. When you have information, Knowledge and awareness of the reasons, when you have the power of faith, aspiration and real self-improvement work, that’s the whole point.

Well, now let’s move to the main topic. When I started taking flights, I had no idea why I was doing that at all. I did like screws because of cheerfulness and energy surges, but here... A vegetable who’s inertly sitting… What’s the pleasure? 

1.  When I tried it for the first time, I understood nothing. “Hey, I need to try again! I need to feel what it really is!”

2.  “Well, I’ll do it for the third time, and that’s it! I still don’t understand, I need to feel how it is really.”

3. “Hey, pal, do you have it? You do? Great, I’ll take it. How do you take this stuff for so many years? I don’t get what’s so cool about it?... Well, give me an accordion already...”

4. “Do you have it? Super! I have money for a couple of fixes. And you’ll have of bit. I still don’t understand the point...”

5.  … 6... 7...

Frankly speaking, I was already getting tired of it a great deal, but I couldn’t invent how to cope with it. I was sick of the situation itself, and I was sick of such life. There was such a tension: permanent scandals, mother seeing it when I was in high; I had to spend nights outside home and bum around, so that my parents would see me. And I was totally sick of all that. Totally sick.

My mother paid enormous debts for me, again and again. I stole plenty of gold from home and even borrowed money from a neighbour for another fix. Usually I somehow managed all that, but once I did borrow money from a neighbour with whom I didn’t communicate a lot and promised to pay it back on the next day. And suddenly it turned out we were going to my grandparents. The neighbour called, and on that very day mother received a call from the bank regarding the loan. There was a long payment delay. And she asked me to stay in the village on condition that I would do everything they tell me (meaning help about the house) and not go anywhere.

I agreed, since I had nothing else to do. And then wonders started. Indeed, one who wants can do more than one who is able to. I wanted. I read the first three Sensei books by Anastasia Novykh, accidentally found on my grandmother’s shelf, though I had read them first time earlier, long before I started taking drugs. I started praying. I didn’t know how to do this correctly, so I simply read “Our Father” and asked for help. I prayed for a long time, for several weeks. Then for the first time I truly grasped the meaning of the prayer words. I grasped it through deep inner feelings. “And forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” I was crying.

In a while I went back to the city. I took my documents from the university before in summer, and now I had to find a job. I stopped shooting up. Totally. I had some powder remaining, sniffed it from time to time, but then I had such a period when I couldn’t get anything. Then I fell ill. I didn’t sniff anymore, being scared. In this case fear played a useful role, I’d say. I stopped sniffing, because I feared for myself the beloved))). Every movement in such direction was accompanied by the fear to die, and I had no taste for that anymore. Others would be happy and go partying, while I feared and thought about getting out of that as soon as possible))).

As winter was over, I went to work abroad. I got into not heavenly, but rather tough conditions. I worked in a religious city of ultra-orthodox Jews. It’s a closed city with very difficult living conditions. I cleaned apartments 10 to 12 hours a day and had no communication or anything. Well, external conditions indeed seemed very tough then, but they very useful for me as well. In addition, I went there with a mother’s friend who’s a very passionate believer. So, I managed to cope with panic attacks there, though my brain worked very hard at that, and consequences are still in place)) I still drank alcohol and smoked grass. And I wanted to sniff, but wasn’t lucky to get the stuff)))).

There was an interesting point when I met an old friend whom I hadn’t seen for a long while. He knew me long before my drug period and was very surprised. We spent a day together, and I saw myself from an outsider's viewpoint on that day. I clearly saw what I had turned into. And I became terrified and disgusted of that. A non-adequate person, a paranoiac with a twisted brain. I started making attempts to improve myself.

And eventually it happened so that I left the “prison” as I called it and moved to an ordinary city to earn my living. There I met a person on my way who was on heroin. And I got caught again. There were two weeks of self-reproaches and torn out hair. I decided: “I don’t want this, I won’t do this.” I decided resolutely. And in a couple of months I stopped smoking grass. At that time I had no job and earned money only of little underworks. So, once I decided not to spend a half of my earnings on hashish, but rather buy more food (I’m not living alone), based on what was said in Sensei’s parable about the Khun soul and the Gui spirit. When Gui proposed something, the soul responded: “Why would I do so?” That’s what I said to myself: why? I would rather buy food and please another person with something tasty. Such reasoning was sufficient for three or four times) then it changed back) and alcohol). And in a week or so A Frank Dialogue about the Most Important was released)) But this is a new story, as they say))).

Conclusions and observations

PERSONAL AND SUBJECTIVE. THESE ARE NOT ADVICES ON “HOW TO GET RID OF DEPENDENCE”. THIS IS MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND PERSONAL REASONING. In fact, getting rid of drugs is similar to getting rid of an animal nature stereotype. It’s just that drugs are a very powerful program. And when a person is trying to escape, the system immediately puts spokes in his or her wheels. What has worked in my case:

1. Desire. My sincere desire and plea for help. Plea to God. Whichever way you look at it, I couldn’t do without Him, and not just in that situation, but in the entire life. Only God gives a chance to move further without being obsessed with such thoughts as “I’ve managed” and attempts to “hold on and not to fall through”. It may certainly be said this is a self-delusion and there is no God, but I invented Him for myself because it was comfortable for me like that and supposedly easier. As if a replacement. Yet, no, not a replacement. You can hold on a whole life through and thank God for giving you a chance not to fall again, but you can as well leave everything behind and move further. Drug addict life does not end with just “holding on and not falling again”. You are not a drug addict anymore. The main point is neither to look for a replacement, nor to try to suppress your past with anything: with God, a religious movement, arts or helping people. This would all be wrong. And don’t endeavour to obliterate your past, saying “that wasn’t me”. That was me and that happened to me, but now that no more exists. And what does exist now? .....

Once I had a dream in which the Holy Spirit said: “Those who stuck needles into their veins should forget about that. God accepts everyone.” And there is such a feeling when consciousness does not believe. It never believes, while He really accepts everyone. You should only go to Him.

2. Awareness. The much talked-about awareness, the sense of which cannot be grasped by the mind, nonetheless I had it then, though somewhat unconscious awareness, if I may say so.)

For instance, I had awareness to take heroin. But later on I had enough awareness to understand I didn’t want it anymore. That was as if a reference point: either there or back. Thank God, not back, but forward. Same was with grass. I started unconsciously, but then I consciously did deeds when the choice was made in favour of no drugs. The choice was made with total awareness and understanding that I’d better buy food than nasty stuff. And when a desire appeared to buy something to smoke, I responded to such desire with a question: what for? I’ll betted buy food now, and that stuff is what I can do without. And, indeed, I did can do without it.

3. Generally speaking, the main thing in the entire affair is to understand what exactly I want or don’t want myself. As for me, I did not quite understand what I wanted (although I had a fuzzy, yet dominating desire to save myself from all that). BUT… I knew for sure what exactly I did not want. I did not want drugs, though they wedged themselves in sometimes with “I want”. Well, the system is offering just in case a Personality would get tempted, but the Personality decides herself whether to get tempted or not. There is just one little nuance. You shouldn’t tighten screws on yourself and turn yourself into a spring. Since a person who is getting rid of drug addiction is controlled by consciousness and being on the animal wave, any self-twisting may eventually give a powerful shot. It may happen in a month or in several years, and nobody knows how exactly the shot will take place. The main thing is not to suppress the “forbidden” desire, because in fact it’s not forbidden; if we forbid something to ourselves we start wanting it the most (this is how the system works). One should know himself or herself, know from where desires emerge, why and who needs it. If I am a Spirit, it’s definitely not my desire. Awareness. Everything should be approached with awareness. I will say one thing now which might be unacceptable for some people, but these are my personal observations. Sometimes, if a desire is very strong, you may and even should fall down and satisfy it (forgive me for saying this). Let’s take, for example, smoking grass. If you do, you will then understand: “Damn, why did I do that? I don’t need it in actual fact!” And you will never do it again. And why you did this? Just in order to make sure the cork doesn’t shoot. However, this usually works when a person is unconscious. If he or she launches the process of a situation formation, this means he or she still needs such situation, not being aware. And this is no advice, no way! This is only my personal experience I repeat. In addition, this may work as a starting device: one moment – and a situation is unfolding. And a person is back on drugs, thinking: “Well, they said I could.” This is about what YOU choose. Nobody tells you what you may or may not do. Everyone decides for themselves. Multiplying the Knowledge, you multiply grief. This is a very subtle thing, and when you know about it it’s more difficult for you to fall down again, because you KNOW. And you endeavour to hold on. 

4. There is another big thing about how consciousness works: I mean “the good” and “the bad” in our consciousness as mentioned in The Meaning of Life: Immortality program, when the good and the bad provoke a storm in a teacup, supposedly fighting for a person)) For instance, the good one sets a guideline that “I won’t take drugs anymore”, with the accent on “I”. And immediately a trickster appears who offers to take drugs. Hence, the person suppresses himself or herself. This is what they call autosuggestion. In my opinion, autosuggestion is not self-improvement work, but rather a self-delusion. It’s when consciousness suggests something to itself, neither sorting it out nor eliminating the reasons. I can’t say for sure whether autosuggestion grows of self-assurance (self-confidence associated with the Ego), but I guess this is where the problem lies. 

So, a person assures himself or herself with self-confidence that he / she no longer take drugs, but thoughts about drugs never let him or her go. This results in failure, self-reproaches and circling of the problem. This is well described in the AllatRa book, where coarse attacks of the Animal Nature are referred to. This is when the Right, Left and Rear Aspects are active. It turns out the problem has not been resolved. So, it’s very important to understand the reasons, to ask yourself questions: “Why do I need this? Do I need this indeed?” And listen to the Soul, to the Spirit. Does the Spirit – Personality need this?

5. Attacks may take place when you don’t expect them anymore. About a month or two ago, it happened so that hashish and grass appeared in our house. Consciousness immediately became animated: “Oh, how nice! I should take a picture and send to somebody with an inscription: “I have it at my house, but I don’t smoke!”. And so it started. An attack. Thoughts were bombing and no tools helped: neither the programs, nor the Lotus Flower practice, nor any distractions. And the thoughts were about smoking. At that, the system not simply offered to smoke, but to smoke and observe myself in such state, saying “nothing will happen as before”. To tell the truth, the attack was really strong, and the only thing which helped was to stick to a notion that 8 months of tough self-improvement work were worth holding on and not yielding. Why would I need drugs again? However, those thoughts were so persistent that I had to stop myself when my hand was already reaching for grass. Thoughts: “Take something! Smoke or drink wine or at least drink beer. Nothing will happen. You are already engaged in spiritual practices, so you will simply observe yourself”, and so on, and so forth. As a result, I smoked ordinary cigarettes, having chosen the lesser of two evils. I felt relieved. Immediately. And the image-mask of a “righteous” non-smoking and non-drinking girl which I had already got used to was destroyed. In fact, it was for my benefit. And I still could observe whether there’s addiction to cigarettes or not. There were a couple of times when I wanted a cigarette so bad that my hands were shaking, but I stopped myself, not wanting cigarettes to control me. If there are cigarettes it’s OK, if not – thank God. 

That’s all. The text has turned to be long, and it might be clumsy, so please ask in comments about what is unclear. Most interestingly, while I was writing, a thought came that I was doing a useless thing. However, looking deeper into this, I realized it’s not about the article itself. The point is that I had enough of dealing with the past and having struggled out of that pitfall. I got into the pitfall, and I got out of it, thank God!) Thanks, I have sorted out many things for myself while writing all this stuff:)

Vocabulary:

Screw: a drug taken intravenously, methamphetamine, giving plenty of energy and insomnia, a person wants to dance, talk or do something else actively.

Flight: opiates, drugs made of poppy seeds. A person becomes sluggish, a sort of a half-vegetable or half-dead.

Pull: screw kef when a drug is taking effect.

Accordion: a syringe.

Marathon: when screw-type drugs are taken several days on end.

And I’d like to end the story with a verse))))) 

(NOTE: This is an unrhymed translation of the original poem from Russian.)

Don’t live in the past,
Don’t accumulate offences.
Bring a little happiness
With you into the world.

Don’t make empty promises,
Better do some deed.
From shadows of desires
Hurry to escape.

Don’t succumb to laziness
Or dreams with despondency.
Fill yourself with happiness
Every single moment.

When you’re filled with happiness
Totally and completely, 
You’ll be able to fill the world
With plenty of good deeds.

Create as much as you can
For as long as your heart’s beating.
You will lay your own way
To the door that you should open.

Mystery is behind that door
And answers to all questions.
There is nothing accidental
In this world at all.

Everyone who lives here
Has arrived here for a reason.
One who is following the way
Is free to make choice.

Thoughts are flying
Like free birds,
Forming destinies,
Dates, signs, and numbers.

Dear friend, don’t live in the past,
Live in the present!
And you will be able to make
The world a little Shining.

Thank God.

Received from Natalia