Ive never told anyone this

Im not sure if this is the right forum for this topic. About 5 years ago I was weaning off a Methadone program. After 2 months I was almost starting to feel ok sometimes. One night I was having a rough time. I got out my laptop and googled the St. Francis Prayer. I read it over and over for about a half an hour. All of the sunned I felt a kind of a shock in the base of my spine and it moved up towards my head. It was extremely pleasent. When it reached my brain I felt a kind of extacy. I Jumped up, the laptop hit the floor , my arms shot up in the air and I thanked God.........Im agnostic by the way. The feeling passed in a few minutes but I noticed the next day my withdrawls were almost gone and I could eat and sleep much better.........Ive read about Kundalini experiene and it sure sonds like I may have had a similar experience other than I have not practiced meditation for years..........Wht do you fellas think. It was REAL and I got better the next day. Mabye some chemical change of some sort? or a spiritual experience, which may be the same thing anyhow
Thanks
Tom

My brother had a similar experience. After rehab, he still wasn't through, even though he wanted to be. His buddy and fellow user played guitar in church. A charismatic church. He played a strat plugged into a Marshall stack.

Halfway through the sermon, the preacher stopped yelling and pacing and pounding his lectern suddenly. He asked, "who over here is thinking about killing himself?" One of the kids my brother went to church with stood up. My brother was floored.

The preacher stopped the sermon, took the kid to the alter, and while the congregation murmured, prayed with the kid. My brother swears he had the same experience as you while watching from his pew. And his urge to use vanished.

I believe you had a divine intervention. What most people do not understand is that it requires almost a supernatural event to take away the effects of an addiction. For a small minority, it may come easy but for most they either have a tough time shaking it or they don't at all.

A 12 step program discusses this as giving over your addiction to a higher power. Now I am skeptical, as to me it only makes sense that you're not going to rid yourself of an addiction unless your "higher power" decides it is time for you to let it go, so even though you give it up, it's not up to you to decide when to quit - if that makes sense.

I drank and smoked for most of my adult life and had tried to quit drinking numerous occasions but always fell off the wagon. Out of the total blue they were both taken away from me and I know it wasn't me doing it.

I never had that spine tingling sensation that you had - sometimes things work in different ways for different people and maybe that is what you needed for confirmation. Still, without doubt in my mind you were cleansed by someone who cares.

the way that it climbed your spine does sound like a kundalini experience.

if you type kundalini into googlevideos,there's a really good 28 minutes kundalini meditation if you want to give it another go

You may well already be aware of this, but in the second section of the "Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonymous, there are many similar accounts of divine intervention, both of the sudden and of the progressive variety.

I think that the fact that the experience is so remarkably consistent across cultures is evidence that the power tapped into is universal, whether you choose to reconnect through kundalini meditation or through prayer.

On a personal note, I would suggest you share your story at a meeting of either AA or Narcotics Anonymous. I have found the experience of sharing to be profoundly moving. You have been given a gift that you can share with others who suffer now as you suffer then.

And the St. Francis Prayer is a personal favorite of mine, too. I struggle especially with trying "to understand, rather than to be understood."

I dont know how to classify what you experienced, but it is for sure a hint of your potential. I just wanted to congratulate you on being clean. Thats so awesome, hopefully you can be an inspiration to those around you who may have taken the same path. I too went down that road, and it was profound and deeply liberating to overcome. You learn a lot about reality, the mind, and the body when you have to overpower it all through a detox like opiates, you realize you are not your body, nor your mind, but something else that can control both beyond any human level if you realize your will and potential. I had some weird stuff happen too during detox, Ive got a good amount of experience with meditation, entheogens, and research chemicals and some of the things that happened during detox, mute the lesser trips like that of a few hits of paper. Meditation probably has a lot to do with those things happening, but, when you are sick and sitting there, just trying not to move so you dont feel your body, you slip into meditative states anyways, as well as with repeatedly reading anything really, but the fact it was spiritually oriented, solicited the spiritual connection you have within you, whether you define it or not, its there. Anyways, Im really happy for you! Make sure you go back into that clinic and show everyone you are clean, give them some hope, those clinics are worse that the dope pushers, at least my dope dealer didnt tell me I had an incurable disease that would have to be treated with methadone for the rest of our lives.

Amen brother, I'd just like to say its great to hear your over your problem with that addiction! Great testimony! Thanks for letting us in on it!

Maybe you should stick to it then,certainly if its having a positive affect on you

[edit on 16-10-2008 by BedroomHero]

Thank you so much for sharing that. I still drink and smoke and would like to do away with those habbits. I am going to go google that prayer now too.

thank you!

I'd look up the prayer but I guess using drugs etc isn't an issue for me. I mean what is wrong with doing drugs etc? Nothing in my opinion. When life ends it ends. Nothing special happens after that. (I'm not trying to be rude.) I'm a huge pessimist and misanthrope...so yeah not being rude purposely.

CONGRATS !!! I also believe it was divine intervention.

I will say this to the poster who said that they see nothing wrong with using drugs. I have been clean for 20 years and Eric Clapton said it best "It's in the way that you use it" that is the problem. It's the not having the drugs that are the problem and the things you would never normally do that you will do to get the drugs.

I have heard people say in meetings that their worst day sober/straight is better than their best day high and while I (thank God) don't obsess over using now, I always think you had the wrong drug dealer. LOL

So take it as the gift it is and maybe you need to make your mantra the St. Francis prayer.

Once again, good for you.: