Using EFT for the emotions behind a heroin addiction

By Gary Williams

Some time ago I was approached by a client called Andy who at the time was 32.  Andy had been addicted to heroin for 10 years and with great determination and strength had managed to get beyond it.  

When we first met he came across as a decent man, who for whatever reason had fallen from grace, but still seemed so determined to create a good life for himself, even though in his own words he said “he was still held back and haunted by his past.”

Andy is very aware of energies and having worked with auricular acupuncture, he has developed an interest in the energy meridians.  He was keen to try EFT as a self-help tool so that he could use it to control and release his reactions to emotional discomfort.  Something that he was having to deal with every day.

Session #1:

When we first started to work, Andy explained how It had been a real struggle for him and how he had undergone rehab for his heroin addiction about 12 months ago and has still managed to stay clean of drugs.  This was all good news, but Andy still had an everyday challenge around anxiety and his emotions.

During my first session with Andy he seemed a little nervous about talking with me so I made a concerted effort to try and build rapport with him.  Once the rapport had been established Andy started to discus some of his negative thoughts and feelings about past issues.  He felt his real challenge now was trying to manage the negative emotions he was experiencing.

One of the most important parts of a session is the gathering of information.  I am not one who goes strait in with the tapping as I have found people can abreact.  Especially if they have not told me about a previous trauma that could be easy to recall and to slip into.

So I find it important to ask the right questions and enter into my client's world.  One of the processes I use is the dominant personality test, this helps me to find those people in my client's past or present who may have dominated them in a negative way.  If this process is combined with asking carefully crafted questions, this can lead to all kinds of discoveries, but best of all no abreactions.

So where were these negative feelings coming from?  As we started to tap on the names and the answers that he gave me, Andy uncovered issues around his childhood, issues that included sexual abuse by a family member.  It became obvious that it was these memories and his difficulty in dealing with them that had been the original trigger to his using heroin to “cushion” him and help him to feel safe.  At some level Andy was already aware of this but the session was helping to confirm his feelings.

I suggested that it may be useful to go through the trauma of the abuse using the Movie Technique but at this point Andy felt resistant towards dragging all the painful memories up, so we did not take it any further. 

I then changed to a different tack and asked Andy, "When do you feel real anxiety … when are you at your most vulnerable?"

He took a little while to come back, and after I gave him space to think without interruption he said, "For me it is the weekend, and Sundays in particular, as I have a lot of time on my hands, time when I often feel overwhelmed with my thoughts and feelings.  These are the times when I most felt the need to use heroin again.  I am beginning to dread Sundays and becoming ever more anxious regarding managing to stay clean."

We then tapped on the "Sunday feeling" and the "dreaded Sunday feeling."

Even though I just dread Sundays…

Even though Sundays always seem to be dreadful, I'm open to the possibility that everything in life changes.

I then asked Andy if he thought it was fear or anxiety, and if there was a difference between them.  We  tapped for both separately, and as we did this Andy identified that the weekends used to be a time when he would spend time with his family, having Sunday lunches together and generally behaving like normal families do.

In the 10 years of his addiction, his family had all got on with their lives without him and even though they were extremely supportive, he still felt that he had been left behind.

It was at this point I felt a strong feeling in the pit of my stomach, a feeling I normally get when things are right on track.  I could also see in Andy’s eyes that this seemed to trigger him and when asked he said, “I’m right up there, it’s a ten” (level of intensity on a scale of 0 to 10).  So we spent some time tapping on the feelings of rejection by his family and we started with the loss of the “special weekends.”

Even though I have lost those special weekend feelings…

Even though I really want those special weekend feelings back - I choose to make my weekends special anyway.

We tapped the points with the reminder phrase “special weekend feelings”.

He then reported that he felt he was at a 2 out of 10 on the “weekend feelings” and shifted to a intensity level of 9 out of 10 on “not being wanted”.

So we turned our attention on rejection from the family and tapped on all the members of Andy’s family.

Even though my Mother abandoned me and I am not wanted …

Even though my Father abandoned me and I am not wanted …

Even though my family abandoned me and I am not wanted …

I then took things one stage further and exaggerated the situation, a technique that I have seen Gary Craig use to great effect especially on the Video, From EFT to the Palace of Possibilities, featuring Beth.  Even though the whole universe has abandoned me and I am not wanted - I deeply and completely love and accept myself as a human just being.

This made Andy laugh and he reported he was feeling calmer and more in control with an intensity level around 1 or 2 out of 10.  I felt there was more to do and I wanted to challenge the results, but as we were nearing the end of the session I felt it was a good time to close and talk about what we would do next time.

In the next session with Andy we took the subject of loss one stage further. 

Session #2: 

In part one of this three part series I introduced you to Andy who had been addicted to heroin for 10 years and with great determination and strength had managed to get beyond it.  In the first session we established that during his childhood Andy had been sexually abused and he could see how this could have encouraged him to become addicted to the drug habit.  But also in the 10 years of his addiction, his family had all got on with their lives without him and even though they were extremely supportive, he still felt that he had been left behind.

We started to tap on feelings of loss and abandonment  by his Mother, but Andy reported that he felt that it was more than just loss it was more like an anger at his mother and the rest of his family.

I asked Andy, "Where in the body do you feel the anger, and does that anger have a colour?"  He quickly replied, “Yes it's red!” (It's funny how many people say red.)

I asked Andy to think of that red spinning in his stomach whilst we tapped on the points, repeating “this Angry red feeling.”

The intensity level then began to rise up to 10 out of 10, and as Andy was tapping I asked what number it was now.  This is something I have found to be very useful; I often check in as they tap, and in some cases  the level decreases as they tap.

I asked Andy to think of his favourite colour.  As he continued to tap, he said “blue” so we tapped on alternate points for:

“This red spinning inside” and then on the next point I choose “blue,” alternating until we reached the last point with, “I choose blue.”

After tapping this round Andy settled at about a 2 out of 10 intensity with the anger but said that another issue concerning anger had come up for him.

Andy said, “I also have anger because I was not believed at the time of disclosure because I was a child.”  As an older teenager, other children disclosed that they also had been abused by the same man.  No prosecution as ensued as there was no forensic evidence.

I was aware that this was a new big tree in Andy’s emotional anger forest and that we would need more time to work with this effectively.  So, I tapped globally around the indomitable feelings until Andy was at a level that he felt commutable to leave.  I suggested that we may need to look deeper into the abuse and that next time we may need to book more time for the session.

In the final part of this three part series we explore more of Andy’s feelings around the abuse and the angry feelings.

Session #3:

In part one and two of this three part series I introduced you to Andy who had been addicted to heroin for 10 years and with great determination and strength had managed to get beyond it.  

In the second session Andy became aware of a new big tree in his emotional anger forest.  Andy said it was an intensity level of 10 out of 10 for the anger, and there was also some fear around talking about it.  We did a couple of rounds on this fear and anger.

Andy then realised that he had believed he was "to blame for what had happened," and as a result he felt that he "didn’t deserve good things or happiness."  Deserving to have a “rubbish” life.

So we then tapped for:

Even though I am to blame and it is all my fault…

Even though I don't deserve good things or happiness

Even though I was a bad person…

After the third round Andy made the connection that his addiction, and the lifestyle which went with it - crime, prison, loss of family and true friends - were all ways in which he continued to punish himself, and he believed he deserved to be punished.  I got Andy to tap continuously on the karate chop point whilst repeating after me:

I’m not good enough.

Deserved to be punished.

Everyone is better than me.

I’m a bad person.

I asked Andy, "Is it like a voice in your head saying that you are a bad person and you need punishment?" Andy said, "Yes, it's like the voice of my Father when he used to shout at me and call me stupid as a small boy, and, my Father would never really listen or take notice of me."

We tapped a couple of rounds on the father's voice and as we did so, Andy’s face became less strained and brighter.  Andy started to talk about how he had always had this feeling of not being good enough, even at school and that he could see now how this belief or lack of belief in himself had kept him down.  Also, that he was afraid to try to build a life that was positive and happy because he always failed.

So we tapped around the fear of:

Not being good enough.

It’s just not worth it.

This fear of failing.

As we tapped I asked Andy how high the intensity level of the fear would have been when we started to tap.  He said at least 10 out of 10, so I asked how high now as we continued to tap.  He then dropped from a 5 to a 3, and then to a 1 out of 10.  This had been an extended session so it would not have been very productive to tap on any further as we were both all tapped out at this point.

So, I discussed the need for Andy to tap some more around any incidents he could recall about "not being good enough" or "failure" and to also use EFT at least 25 times per day to release any feelings around the addiction, giving him written cards with some tapping phrases including:

Even though I may never get beyond this, I deeply and completely love and accept myself as I am.

Even though I may never get beyond this and I have fear of the desire coming back…

Even though I may get sad or bored and start to crave…

I also asked Andy to just start tapping right away on immediate cravings, as they come up, as well as any sadness or boredom, etc.  In effect, I was asking him to tap to dissolve all facets of his addictive behaviour.

Follow-up:

Andy has been very focused and committed to leaving his old life and habits behind.  He has consistently and persistently used EFT, continuing to use it many times a day.

As a result, in the past year, I have seen him join the library (the first time in his life) and is feeding his enthusiasm and interest for complementary therapies with books he is borrowing.  He is now filling his time reading and he is seeing this as a way to build a new future for himself. 

Therefore he doesn't dread weekends anymore and is optimistic about the future.  He is aware that he needs to begin to make new friends, he has had to turn his back on all his “using” friends.  He now wants to be around “normal” people.

In response to this need, and in order to build on his interest in complementary therapies, he has enrolled at a local college to do two 7-week taster courses in reflexology and Indian head massage. 

Andy continues to use EFT any time he feels emotions surface which are charged and he sees this as a means of him taking control for the first time.

On my last telephone conversation with Andy I gave him some tips to help him tune into what he's feeling when these emotions surface and how he could look at is emotions in the context of an emotional forest.  This is something that I picked up from Gary Craig and is a very useful metaphor. I also asked Andy to consider if he was just thinking something, feeling something, seeing something, hearing something?  This is useful as it can help a client to tune in more effectively to their own pattern of processing their emotions.

Towards the end of the telephone conversation Andy commented that he has always been running away and trying to hide from his thoughts and feelings, but now he finds he can accept them without the fear that they are going to destroy him.  He says that when emotions begin to emerge, he can face them and take them on using EFT.  “I’m not running away any more."

I thank Andy for sharing this with us.

Warm Regards

Gary Williams

More articles on Addictions and Substance Abuse