Today, three years ago, I finished my last round of intensive sedation. For eight days and seven nights I numbed myself with everything I could get my hands on. Cocaine, speed, ketamine, 3mmc, cigarettes, alcohol, Netflix, porn and endless scrolling on my phone. I was in pain…
The period before this painful, but certainly also necessary relapse, I was doing well. For the first time in ten years, I was sober for two whole months. I didn’t drink. I didn’t use. I didn’t smoke. Such an internal shift had taken place after I had attended a transformation retreat in February 2020 in the South of France. During that week in the South of France, I became aware of my own shit. More importantly… I got hope for change.
I have never been able to stop before with my intensive numbing behavior. Years of psychologists, psychiatrists, pills and self-help books did not get to the core, but that week in the South of France did get to the core. It was also there in the South of France that I first really came into contact with the holistic healing methods. It was a wonderful experience for me and it felt like coming home.
That experience made me immediately start working with a transformational coach in the Netherlands. Someone who saw right through my bullshit and could help me let go of old pains and beliefs, so that I could become increasingly free.
However, something happened in the transformation retreat week that blinded me. I fell in love with a lady. A pattern that I had been dealing with my whole life came up that same week and I didn't want to see it myself. I fell in love overnight and all my pain seemed to disappear.
That made sure that I went home after that week with so much strength and full of love. And this made sure, together with the holistic views, that I dared to look at my pain for the first time in my life. From minute 1 I went deep into my own process of changeExploring the depths of transformation became my second home.
Only I didn't see that that crush was another way of numbing my pain. And in retrospect I'm glad it happened, because I also needed that crush to give up alcohol and drugs in the Netherlands.
I was confronted with my greatest fear
Only after a little less than two months it happened… I got a message via Whatsapp. I don't remember the exact words, but it basically said that she didn't want to see me anymore. And there was no explanation. Something I couldn't accept. And immediately I was faced with my greatest fear, namely, being left alone with my pain.
At that point I wasn't strong enough and wasn't far enough in my healing process to give up drinking and drugs. All of a sudden all my old behaviors came flooding back. The voices in my head, the blocking emotions and the negative thoughts. It didn't take long and the well-known house dealer was back in our living room (I lived with a friend at the time). And as soon as he was out the door I put those two white dots of cocaine under my nose again.
Not that it helped, because the fear and anxiety remained. It wasn't enough. It only got worse. So I started using ketamine and all sorts of other drugs. I kept going for eight days and seven nights. I hardly slept and everything was about not having to feel. I just really didn't want to be here anymore.
The transformative experience I had in the South of France had already caused me to make a big leap in my consciousness. That in turn had the effect that I went much deeper with the drugs. I ended up in different dimensions, on other timelines and in various spiritual worlds. I thought it was fantastic, because then I didn't have to be here.
On the other hand, my physical well-being deteriorated rapidly. I knew I couldn't continue with this because i had to go through this. Finally… On the last night… Today three years ago from King’s Night to King’s Day it happened…
This last night of my use it became so dark. This series of numbing had done me in. My body was in so much pain. I couldn't do it anymore. And when I lay in my bed at night, I fell into a deep dark fear. I shot up out of my bed and I thought I was going to have a heart attack.
I jumped out of bed and curled up on the floor in a fetal position. All I could think at that moment was: I am light. I am light. I am light. I kept repeating it endlessly. And I promised in that dark moment that I would put myself first. I made the promise to focus on my own love. No longer searching in the outside world, but finding my love from within.
This lady gave me a very painful lesson, but also such a beautiful gift. Namely, for the first time in my life, I really chose self-love.
And that's where it all started to shift at a very fast pace. Now, three years later, I write this hopeful message full of self-love, strength and confidence. Everything is possible. Even in the deepest of the darkest night. You can change. I can change. We can change.
And bringing that change to the world. That's what I stand for and what my entire mission is about right now.
Love,
Brian
Curious about my whole story and what I do now? Then read my first book “It could have ended differently”