I'm done with drugs and alcohol

[Namaste]

I'm really ashamed that I've lied to myself for 13 years saying it was a spiritual tool, but its anything but. I've had so many morbid thoughts pop in my head and felt presences around me when I was on that s***, besides being paranoid and being around the dumbest people.

Very well done for getting yourself free of an addiction!

Paranoia is the clear sign of negative, habitual use. As with anything, there are users, and there are abusers. A close friend of mine (from university) is an abuser, it's a habitual process that keeps him from confronting and dealing with 'reality'. Dulling spiritual growth.

Marijuana is a very effective spiritual tool if used in the correct manner. I use it sacramentally, biannually, and the insights, love and downloads received from the connection one can make are absolutely unbelievable.

The key is intention. Why are you consuming this gift of nature? Is it to dull, to avoid, or is it to expand? I have experienced wonderful moments of clarity and oneness, simply by setting specific intentions (the expansion of consciousness / discovering more of the self / opening up to love).

These brief moments are signposts, they give one a glimpse of the abilities one always has. A permission slip, as Bashar quite wonderfully puts it, to be used to steer one in the direction of achieving these states of mind without 'external' catalyst.