Cannabis, Addiction Case 5

Case 5
Woman, born in 1980
Diagnosis: Cannabis abuse, bulimia and obesity.

Appearance: very open and pleasing.
Her answer to my question what her problem was: “My relation, I love too much.” “My mother has the same problem, she is afraid to loose somebody.” Her mother has anorexia. Her parents divorced when she was nine years old and she went to live with her mother and her new lover. She felt very lonely, forsaken and sad. Then the bulimia started. She screamed a lot. What she really missed was love. Her mother gave much materially, but could not give her love. When she was fifteen years old she discovered that her father was not her biological father.
Now she lives with a man with an alcohol problem. “I try to correct him so that he stops drinking and he starts giving me love...” “I dislike my appearance.”
Inside she felt much anger, but she did not express it. She was afraid not te be loved anymore.

Prescription:
Magnesium sulphuricum 30K, one granule weekly

Follow up
After six weeks:
“I accept my appearance and also my boyfriend more. I have less problems with eating and the craving for cannabis is gone. Only the relation with my mother gives much tension.”
Two months later she tells me that the relationship with her mother is much better. She can be very open to her and her mother accepts it, but the bulimia is still present. Looking for the cause she tells me that she needs love, but that she finds it difficult to receive it. She has the tendency to reject the other instead.

Second prescription:
Chocolate 30K, every two weeks one granule

Follow up 2
After twelve weeks:
When she entered my room she was shining from happiness.
“I feel much better about my appearance and can receive love more easy. This morning I hugged my mother for the first time in my life!” She lost six kilo in one month without much effort.

Discussion:
Arguments for the first prescription were:
The theme of love, appearance and relation: Sulphur
The fear to loose the other: Magnesium
In Holland the Magnesiums proved to be very helpful remedies to overcome the wounds of a divorce. Many children of divorced parents have problems with relations. They are afraid to loose the other and are afraid to express their anger.
Magnesium sulphuricum fit the emotional state she was in when I saw her first. In many aspects she improved, except the bulimia and the capability to receive love, although she craved love.

The theme of loving and rejecting is characteristic for chocolate. Rajan Sankaran mentions the symptoms:
Panic when detached.
Delusion separated from the world.
Escape, from children.
Affectionate.
The alternating between attracting and rejecting are found in these symptoms. Dr.Tom Oosthuizen (Holland) pointed out the problem between mother and child. The mother that can not give unconditional love to her child and the child that cannot love itself without conditions.
Chocolate is one of the main remedies for bulimia.
After Chololate she could love herself more and did not feel the need to fill herself with a surrogate (food and especially chocolate).

The third level: constitutional treatment.
There is no clear distinction between treating the cause or the trauma and treating the constitution, both are linked. The susceptibility to certain traumas is already inherent to certain constitutions. A "Staphysagria personality" is more susceptible to insults than most other personalities. Especially the way of reacting to a trauma is inherent to the constitution. A "Staphisagria personality" for example tends to swallow his anger, while the "Nux vomica personality" tends to express his anger.
In the first case Cannabis not only fit the picture of the moment, caused by abuse of cannabis, but also to the constitutional way of reacting to stress: avoiding problems by vanishing in a world of dreams.
In the last case we saw that Magnesium sulphuricum did something to heal the trauma, the divorce of her parents and the lack of love. After that remedy the fear to loose somebody and 'loving too much' was gone. The Chocolate fit the deeper layer, the way she reacted to the attraction and rejection of her mother.
In the next case the underlying problem appears to be more a constitutional issue. The trauma is less clear and the addiction has much more to do with the personality of the client.