I'm not sure if it’s true that we have all had past lives, but if true, then I believe that one of my past lives was spent as a drug addict.

I don’t know how I got the junk into my veins, and have no recollection of the trauma that sent me into that past life of substance addiction. However, some of the things that I learned in that lifetime have been retained, and have become valuable lessons for me in this life.

I don’t remember the needles or spoons, or any of the tools that were used, but those aren’t the kinds of things that one remembers from a past life as a substance abuser.

The Gritty Parts

While the physical memories of my substance abuse are long gone, what stayed with me was the knowledge of how the human mind works while under the influence of a physical addiction. I remember that part very well.

In that past life, I must have learned how to feel what the people near me were feeling with expert accuracy, so that I could then manipulate them towards helping me get what I needed.

I apparently could sniff the air like a rat, and tune in to the fields of emotion, knowing only that I was repelled by joy, and that I was attracted to despair-- the shortest path to more drugs.

I could tell if a person was depressed, and I could use that depression to help myself in the most selfish ways imaginable.

Family First

The sadness of my family would have been one of my first and most frequent targets for manipulation, since I knew that they would always be willing to take me back, and that my family would lovingly try to help me again and again.

I would have been brutally adept at knowing when they had taken enough of my bullshit. I would have known it before they did, and surely would have already plotted my next visit accordingly.

The Low Down and Desperate

The fight with the addiction itself was daily. Each day of life was an act of desperation, and every day that despair was hidden like the fangs of a cobra.

One of my most horrible and dangerous tricks would have been my ability to lure unsuspecting victims into an addiction of their own, so that I could then leech away their understanding and sympathy, then their money, and eventually any other valuables that they might own.

So devious is the ego mind when guided by chemicals, I can remember what sort of creature that I was able to become. I had become the kind of creature that, if I found out that my new friend was having trouble with his wife because of his newfound addiction, then I would get excited with the idea; soon he will have an extra horse that he doesn’t need, and then subsequently perhaps ‘we’ can sell that horse, he and I.

I could sense what was troubling a person, so that I could then mould and shape that shadowy aura to my convenience.

I would weep next to you and with you, and your misery was like a tool for me to use as I worked my way into your head. I could mimic your joy, but could no longer feel it myself.

Misery Loves Company, Like A Bucket Full of Crabs

Since the idea of getting clean and sober was always so fleeting, it was much easier to dismiss the thought if I could surround myself with good, respectable people who had also fallen into the powders, and of course if they weren’t going to get cleaned up, then I could justify my own inability to get off of the cruel treadmill of addiction.

I loathed to see another junkie crawl out of the gutter on his own will, because it meant that I should do the same, or even more frightening, that I could do the same, but chose not to.

Ashamed, I would fall back out of the light, and I would ask the shadows to point me to my next companion, my next dance partner in my perpetual whirl of death. I needed the verification of anyone who could join me, so that I could continue to deny what I was doing to myself and others.

Visiting Family

Hard times meant running out of the substance for a day or two, and that usually called for a visit to the family. I’ve cleaned myself up, and am beginning a new life now, you’ll see! ...I would lie, and if I sensed any joy at all from my loved ones, I could mimic it, and my ‘recovery’ act was so good, that sometimes I almost believed it myself.

My family would forgive me, again. Their faces would show their grief, and it was hard to look upon until I could persuade them that things were going to be different from now on. I needed for my family to care about me, both for my own personal comfort but also because my body screamed for something that my family couldn’t give to me-- something they wouldn’t understand-- and if they cared, then they would have no choice but to forgive me, just one more time.

And, Back to the Gutter

So with a bit of food in my belly, and a family who believed in me again, I had done well. I had done very well.

I had done so well, in fact, that I had proven to my family, and to myself, that I could beat the addiction, I’d proven that I had that strength.

I had done so very well that it made sense that a reward was due, if not a test. I deserved it, after all, and to prove that I was as strong as that, and to show that I could actually quit any time, I would need to acquire just a tiny bit-- not much-- but just a bit, as a reward.

I would then reason it out again: I wouldn’t need much at all, since I no longer require it. It would be, perhaps not a reward, but a way to manage the certain physical discomforts that were already nagging, and while addled and distraught as this, the best course would be a last reminder of the battle, as an antidote, so that I might be strengthened enough to begin life anew.

Such must have been my days during most of that lifetime.

The Brighter Side of That Lifetime

There are several reasons now why I’m thankful that I experienced such a grim life, or have this unexplainable memory of such devious thoughts and mental struggles. One thing I can be thankful for is that I have consistently avoided becoming involved with narcotics or similarly dangerously addictive substances in this lifetime.

I KNOW not to do that again.

The Crafty Language of the Ego

Perhaps the greatest lesson that I learned from an apparent lifetime of gruesome psychological torment was learning the language of the ego-- that awful little device in the mind that slithers into the awareness-- that ego mind with it’s silvery tongue spilling it’s incessant chatter.

I learned the voice, and it’s motives, and even now I can practically read the script by heart:

EGO: ”You quit smoking for a whole week? Well you deserve a nice refreshing cigarette... you can quit anytime you like now... you’ve proven it!”

Since learning the storyline of the ego’s little theater, I’ve become helpful to some of my friends in this lifetime with my recognition of the language. All of the justifications, the tall tales and big plans, all of the promises and forced joys, I can recognize nearly every one now.

I’m Not a Nice Teacher

I have had some friends-- and have been abandoned by some friends-- who were struggling in and between problems with meth, and while I’ve never tried the stuff, I know the dialogue that goes with that chemical, and the language is the same. It’s a language that I recognize all too well, and I can even teach it, especially to anyone who speaks it to me.

I truly can be a harsh teacher, but it’s only because it hurts me to think of someone spending so much time in agony, battling with the seemingly never-ending swirl of grief that extends from an addiction or habit.

My greatest wish is that no friend of mine should have to go through what I apparently did, for as long as I must have endured it. By describing my own wisdom about mental battles, I might tell my friends something that they already acutely know, but hearing it from me tends to give it new perspective, and maybe some shortcuts to a different outlook on the present.

We really don’t have time for unnecessary suffering anymore, and I can often bring comfort with a laugh, as I can mockingly recite the language of ego mind, and together we can heal with humor.

Mocking the Devil- A Therapeutic Play

”The devil cannot bear to be mocked.” I’m not sure where I heard that, but when we replace the word ‘devil’ with ‘ego’, then the concept can be used in a bit of creative play, and to ‘mock the devil’ could be as simple as a dramatic and extremely sarcastic plea for mercy from the drugs, acting and overacting the helplessness of the addiction.

I normally don’t encourage sarcasm because it isn’t the truth, but when mocking the devil, a sarcastic display of subservience to the ego part of the mind can be quite the act of liberation, if only brief:

”Oh, the mighty narcotic is too powerful for me to overcome!” One might cry out with a laugh, and the laugh becomes real, and then perhaps leads to real tears, and real cleansing.

The ego mind doesn’t like being made fun of.

The ego part of mind finds no humor in this theater, as it easily recognizes the sarcastic script as the gateway to introspection-- often the final act in these dramatic plays.

The addiction itself also sees no benefit in such sarcasm or tactical theatrics. That addiction has no desire to be in the spotlight, but was hoping to direct the endless bouts of hopeless resignation more discreetly, from behind the curtains of denial.

Empathy

In my past life, I learned how to adopt the misery of my companions, so that I could then offer us both a chemical solution to that misery.

Now, I adopt the misery of my companions so that they are not alone, and so that I can make a better world by listening carefully to the woes of the world so that others can vent, and unload their grief through my ear.

In a former incarnation, I would gladly cheer you up if I thought that we would then celebrate your good cheer, or at least that we would find a way to reward ourselves for being so cheerful in such gloomy circumstances.

Now, in this lifetime, I still do that, but the reward is that I have simply helped to make a better world to live in by persuading someone to smile.

Just like in that past life, the tears of the world today are all mine-- I feel each one-- and because I feel it, I can now take advantage of my own empathy so that I can help others.

When I’m given the permission from another being, I can help feel the pain, and now instead of spending that energy on drugs, I’m learning how to direct that energy, and to help the sufferer to dissipate and transform their grief. In this life, I’m still a good listener.

Sometimes we humans like to brag about our pain, and when someone tells me those stories that lifted them up or made them stronger, I may be entertained as they intended, but I will feel none of that kind of theatric pain.

Other times we really do cry for help even without asking for it, and when someone is crying in such a way, I feel enough of their agony to breath it in, spread it out, and I imagine that as I allow others to use me as a conduit to vent their pain away, I am helping to make the world a better place.

Sharing the Knowledge, But Not the Pain

Where I learned to feel emotional fields, or how to taste the air like a snake I don’t know for sure. It may have been a past life as a snake, but such serpent wisdom I have brought with me into this life, and I can use that knowledge to teach others, and to not only remind them of just how venomous they can be, but how we can use that empathic knowledge for good, by bringing true comfort to others.

If you are like me, and once died from such a poisonous life as I must have, then those depraved tricks that were mastered back then can be used now to heal ourselves and, if they ask for our help, we can use it to heal others as well.

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Image above thanks to Wikimedia Commons

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