9. Addiction

Welcome to Season Two of Cannabis Koan. I start this new season by looking at the fascinating parallel between two literary classics on addiction: Thomas De Quincey’s 1821 memoir Confessions of an Opium Eater and William S. Burroughs’ semi-autobiographical 1953 novel Junkie. Both books conclude with the authors asserting triumph over their drug dependencies. De Quincey claims to have “untwisted, almost to its final links, the accursed chain which fettered me,” while Burroughs states he “awoke from The Sickness at the age of forty-five, calm and sane.” However, their lived experiences reveal a stark divergence from these tidy narratives of recovery. Opium and heroin remained lifelong crutches for De Quincey and Burroughs, despite their written disavowals. This glaring gap between memoir and reality is something I’d also like to explore in my own relationship with cannabis which, since the conclusion of Season One, has slipped and slid its way into a resumption of my previous usage. As much as I’d hoped the once-a-week Cannabis Sabbath was going to work for me, it hasn’t, and for the last few months have been back to vaping every evening, without fail. Has the time finally come for myself and my "green girlfriend" to part ways for good? Certainly it's time for some change in direction, alongside further unraveling of this riddle of addiction which I call Cannabis Koan. Music used in this episode: -Intro: Paul Simon's demo version of the song -Carmel Ekman & Gal Nisman's cover version -The Persuasions cover version -Rita Wilson & Willie Nelson's cover version -Paul Simon's demo version of the song Books referred to in this episode: -Confessions of an Opium Eater by Thomas De Quincey (1821) -Junkie by William S. Burroughs (1953) -Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari (2015) -Acts of Meaning by Jerome Bruner (1990) -The Stories We Live By by Dan P. McAdams (1993) -The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life by Erving Goffman (1959) -The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa (1982) -Falling Upward: A Spirituality For The Two Halves Of Life (2011) -Swamplands of the Soul: New Life in Dismal Places (Studies in Jungian psychology by Jungian analysts)

If you had told me a few years ago when I was struggling with a cannabis dependency that the route out of my suffering at the time would involve an Israeli-American metaphysician and researcher called Erez Batat, I would’ve thought that perhaps you were talking about a psychologist, or a psychiatrist.  Indeed, Erez is an incredibly skilful psychologist and a psychiatrist (as far as I'm concerned), but it’s all the other dimensions of his being that make him and his Consciously High Self-Help  Programme so special. Here are just a few core elements  to Erez Batat: kabbalah student and teacher, translator, writer, Consciousness Research Institute founder and Independent Researcher. But also someone with a background in business, having worked as a Development and Strategy director at Hewlett Packard in Palo Alto, California - a former colleague describing him as “able to parachute into any situation, assess it and take action, as appropriate”. If you had told me that Erez would be the answer to my cannabis koan (how to continue using the substance in a non-dependent way) I would have thought you were tripping on something, but this has certainly been the case. In the interview you’re about to hear, we’ll be focusing mainly on his development and creation of the Consciously High Programme which I and many others have benefited from since its inception.  We will also explore his own journey and relationship with cannabis and how it has fed into his spiritual and personal development. -- 4:50 Erez's initially skeptical and mistrustful attitude towards cannabis culture 8:00 How cannabis has expanded Erez’s consciousness 16:00 Breaking one’s word - the beginning of dependency 20:00 The Inner child and Inner adult with regard to cannabis: Desire vs. Will 26:00 How personality styles affect our cannabis use 29:00 Contracting between the Inner Child & Adult: strengthening our Word 33:00 The Four Phases of Dependency: 1) unconsciously dysfunctional, 2) consciously, dysfunctional, 3) consciously functional, 4) unconsciously functional 36:00 The importance of spirituality and connecting with our deep (value-driven) desires, expressed via Will, when establishing a good relationship with cannabis 40:00 The best tools and strategies for fighting craving 42:00 Erez’s love-hate relationship with meditation 44:00 The power of ping-pong & The Law of One 48:00 Getting the best out of meditation and other practices by paying heed to our personality's “Operating Systems” (the Enneagram) 50:00 Harnessing the active and passive elements of Fire and Water for personal growth 52:00 Some words of reassurance and hope for those currently struggling with cannabis

Three dumb clichés about addiction. All personally verified by yours truly. 

So let’s say you’re a middle-aged man seeking to “get into” cannabis, but not living in a country where it’s available to buy legally, and no friends or acquaintance who use the substance anymore, what strategies for acquiring the drug might you wish to follow? THE STAIRWAY The architect wanted to build a stairway and suspend it with silver, almost invisible guy wires in a high-ceilinged room, a stairway you couldn't ascend or descend except in your dreams. But first-- because wild things are not easily seen if what's around them is wild-- he'd make sure the house that housed it was practical, built two-by-four by two-by-four, slat by slat, without ornament. The stairway would be an invitation to anyone who felt invited by it, and depending on your reaction he'd know if friendship were possible. The house he'd claim as his, but the stairway would be designed to be ownerless, tilted against any suggestion of a theology, disappointing to those looking for politics. Of course the architect knew that over the years he'd have to build other things the way others desired, knew that to live in this world was to trade a few industrious hours for one beautiful one. Yet every night when he got home he could imagine, as he walked in the door, his stairway going nowhere, not for sale, and maybe some you to whom nothing about it need be explained, waiting, the wine decanted, the night about to unfold. -Stephen Dunn

Why do we habitually use mind-altering substances and strategies in ways that are not always healthy? Here's a very simple explanation which holds in some way (I believe) for all of us.    -- THE DOOR Go and open the door. Maybe outside there’s a tree, or a wood, a garden, or a magic city. Go and open the door. Maybe a dog’s rummaging. Maybe you’ll see a face, or an eye, or the picture of a picture. Go and open the door. If there’s a fog it will clear. Go and open the door. Even if there’s only the darkness ticking, even if there’s only the hollow wind, even if nothing is there, go and open the door. At least there’ll be a draught. -Miroslav Holub

The highs and lows of teenage dirtbag Arthur Rimbaud. -- SENSATIONS Through blue summer nights I will pass along paths, Pricked by wheat, trampling short grass: Dreaming, I will feel coolness underfoot, Will let breezes bathe my bare head. Not a word, not a thought: Boundless love surging through my soul, And I will wander far away, a vagabond In Nature—as happily as with a woman. -Arthur Rimbaud (1870)