Cannabis indica, Addiction Case One

Case:.
Man, born in 1975
Diagnosis: Cannabis addiction and ADHD

His first words during the consultation were: “I should step into the real world, I should take responsibility for myself. I live too much in a world of dreams since I was ten years old.”
He is an intelligent man and the oldest son of 'less intelligent' parents. When he was 4 years old his sister was born and he was no longer the prince in the house. He became jealous and felt alone, but he was also wise for a kid and was well-behaved.
His father was a dreamy and absent-minded man. The client felt that his mother was on the edge of a nervous breakdown and he began to take care for her. When he grew older he started to oppose his father, but he was afraid of a conflict with his mother. Since he was ten years old he built a world of dreams where he got the love and understanding that he missed in real life. In this world he was superman and a good researcher. In the real world he could not concentrate well and he was teased at school. Although he could learn very well, he failed his final examinations. To earn his living he had all kind of jobs.
In experimenting with drugs he noticed that cannabis gave him a feeling of a 'warm blanket' that helped him to be 'somewhere else'. Without cannabis he had fear to loose control, felt sad and was afraid to be rejected.
“I am not grounded. The coordination of my feet is not good. I should dare to fail, dare to feel uncomfortable.”

Prescription:
Cannabis indica 30K, one granule weekly

Follow up:
After four weeks: “Much better. I feel more of a grip and I tend more to finish the things I am doing. I am closer to my feelings. I have more control over the world of dreams and I take more responsibility.” He cleaned his house, brought order in his administration and felt more grounded. He could better handle his addiction. “The desire is less and when it comes up it vanishes in a short time.”

Discussion:
The picture of Cannabis is very clear: on the one hand the experience of a beautiful world (of dreams), but a moment later the feeling of being awfully alone and isolated.
In this case Cannabis can be a very deep working remedy because his tendency to fly away in dreams had existed already when he was young and the same tendency is seen in his father.
My experience is that many clients that use cannabis to escape from their pain show symptoms of cannabis long after they stopped using it. Concentration problems, loss of memory and a tendency to psychosis when the pressure of life becomes too heavy. This last symptom makes them often unfit for psychotherapy. Homeopathic Cannabis indica can restore some balance so that their capacity to bear some stress increases and also the capacity to feel emotions and to go through old pains.

Detoxification:
In my experience almost every client that was addicted to cannabis needs at least a dose of Cannabis indica as a homeopathic remedy. George Vithoulkas told us during a seminar that most of his 'Cannabis-patients' used cannabis before.
I did not see clear pictures of cocaine, heroine, alcohol or other drugs after detoxification, but I am sure that remedies made from these products can be of great help in the detoxification period.

Case 2 gives another example: homeopathic Methylfenidate took away the negative side effects of Ritalin (methylfenidate).
Interesting to mention is that many clients with the diagnosis 'ADHD' have the tendency to use cocaine, which makes them feel more relaxed, while most people that use cocaine become more active and excited. The law of similiars does not only act in potentized remedies.

The second level: treatment of the underlying cause
As stated before, most of the addicts are victims of abuse in their youth and in my consultations I always could find specific traumas that formed an important factor to use alcohol, drugs or to gamble.
The addiction can be seen of a kind of self-medication. As long as they use alcohol or drugs they don't feel the pain or the negative emotions, but this is not the vision of mainstream medicine. They consider addiction as an inherited disease, genetically coded. The methods they use are mainly cognitive behavior therapy and medication to suppress the craving.
Many cases indeed addiction is found in family history. In our vision, this does not mean that addiction is just an inherited disease, but that killing pain by taking alcohol or drugs belongs to the pattern in the family. In other families people are inclined to become workaholics or to suppress their own needs or to eat them away, etc.

A well chosen remedy can help to help the individual become more aware of the underlying problem and can give the strength to look at the problem and to feel the emotions that belong to it. In my vision, healing can only occur when we really permit whatever we feel.