Cannabis Koan

Welcome to Season Two of Cannabis Koan. I start this new season by looking at the fascinating parallel between two literary classics on addiction: Thomas De Quincey’s 1821 memoir Confessions of an Opium Eater and William S. Burroughs’ semi-autobiographical 1953 novel Junkie. Both books conclude with the authors asserting triumph over their drug dependencies. De Quincey claims to have “untwisted, almost to its final links, the accursed chain which fettered me,” while Burroughs states he “awoke from The Sickness at the age of forty-five, calm and sane.” However, their lived experiences reveal a stark divergence from these tidy narratives of recovery. Opium and heroin remained lifelong crutches for De Quincey and Burroughs, despite their written disavowals. This glaring gap between memoir and reality is something I’d also like to explore in my own relationship with cannabis which, since the conclusion of Season One, has slipped and slid its way into a resumption of my previous usage. As much as I’d hoped the once-a-week Cannabis Sabbath was going to work for me, it hasn’t, and for the last few months have been back to vaping every evening, without fail. Has the time finally come for myself and my "green girlfriend" to part ways for good? Certainly it's time for some change in direction, alongside further unraveling of this riddle of addiction which I call Cannabis Koan. Music used in this episode: -Intro: Paul Simon's demo version of the song -Carmel Ekman & Gal Nisman's cover version -The Persuasions cover version -Rita Wilson & Willie Nelson's cover version -Paul Simon's demo version of the song Books referred to in this episode: -Confessions of an Opium Eater by Thomas De Quincey (1821) -Junkie by William S. Burroughs (1953) -Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari (2015) -Acts of Meaning by Jerome Bruner (1990) -The Stories We Live By by Dan P. McAdams (1993) -The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life by Erving Goffman (1959) -The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa (1982) -Falling Upward: A Spirituality For The Two Halves Of Life (2011) -Swamplands of the Soul: New Life in Dismal Places (Studies in Jungian psychology by Jungian analysts)

If you had told me a few years ago when I was struggling with a cannabis dependency that the route out of my suffering at the time would involve an Israeli-American metaphysician and researcher called Erez Batat [https://criorg.institute/aboutus], I would’ve thought that perhaps you were talking about a psychologist, or a psychiatrist.  Indeed, Erez is an incredibly skilful psychologist and a psychiatrist (as far as I'm concerned), but it’s all the other dimensions of his being that make him and his Consciously High Self-Help  Programme [https://www.weedoutthehabit.com/pages/theartofmoderation] so special. Here are just a few core elements  to Erez Batat: kabbalah student and teacher, translator, writer, Consciousness Research Institute founder and Independent Researcher [https://criorg.institute/]. But also someone with a background in business, having worked as a Development and Strategy director at Hewlett Packard in Palo Alto, California - a former colleague describing him as “able to parachute into any situation, assess it and take action, as appropriate”. If you had told me that Erez would be the answer to my cannabis koan (how to continue using the substance in a non-dependent way) I would have thought you were tripping on something, but this has certainly been the case. In the interview you’re about to hear, we’ll be focusing mainly on his development and creation of the Consciously High Programme [https://www.weedoutthehabit.com/pages/theartofmoderation] which I and many others have benefited from since its inception.  We will also explore his own journey and relationship with cannabis and how it has fed into his spiritual and personal development. -- 4:50 Erez's initially skeptical and mistrustful attitude towards cannabis culture 8:00 How cannabis has expanded Erez’s consciousness 16:00 Breaking one’s word - the beginning of dependency 20:00 The Inner child and Inner adult with regard to cannabis: Desire vs. Will 26:00 How personality styles affect our cannabis use 29:00 Contracting between the Inner Child & Adult: strengthening our Word 33:00 The Four Phases of Dependency: 1) unconsciously dysfunctional, 2) consciously, dysfunctional, 3) consciously functional, 4) unconsciously functional 36:00 The importance of spirituality and connecting with our deep (value-driven) desires, expressed via Will, when establishing a good relationship with cannabis 40:00 The best tools and strategies for fighting craving 42:00 Erez’s love-hate relationship with meditation 44:00 The power of ping-pong & The Law of One 48:00 Getting the best out of meditation and other practices by paying heed to our personality's “Operating Systems” (the Enneagram) 50:00 Harnessing the active and passive elements of Fire and Water for personal growth 52:00 Some words of reassurance and hope for those currently struggling with cannabis

I love it when a plan comes together, don't you? This is the final episode of my personal Cannabis Koan, giving thanks to three people who were instrumental in helping me redefine and recalibrate my relationship with The Green One. -- Marijuana, Cognition, Psychosis, Addiction: Mind & Matter podcast episode [https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/marijuana-cognition-psychosis-addiction-cannabinoids/id1546557228?i=1000583727453] Decoding Cannabis: Aerez Batat's podcast [https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/decoding-cannabis/id1454778112] Consciously High: Aerez's online program designed to help people change  their relationship with cannabis [https://www.weedoutthehabit.com/pages/theartofmoderation]. Sabbath and the Art of Rest: Ezra Klein's discussion with Judith Shulevitz about what it means to rest and revitalize each week [https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/sabbath-and-the-art-of-rest/id1548604447?i=1000592037827].

Three dumb clichés about addiction. All personally verified by yours truly.

Do you want to hear the happiest bass-line ever recorded? Here you go! -- KINDNESS Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever. Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive. Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread, only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say It is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend. -Naomi Shihab Nye -- Enneagram Four & Nine in relationship: https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/relationship-type-4-with-type-9 [https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/relationship-type-4-with-type-9]