I started smoking hashish when I was 17. It was fun.
As a teenager, I never gave a moment’s thought about it other than the fun I had with my friends. I began smoking more often. At first, I smoked with friends. Then it was the odd weekend. Then every weekend. Then during the week. Then every day. And then I started to smoke alone.
I also experimented with harder drugs – Speed, Coke, and even Heroin. But the hard drugs were luckily consumed infrequently. Hashish was my drug of choice because foolishly, I thought I could control it. In my 40s, I realized I had a real problem that was no different from being an alcoholic. I had therapy and was then clean for 18 months. Then I started again and within no time, I was smoking all day again, and smoking always alone. In my mid-50s I was smoking 25 grams a week – which means I was really smoking all day, from the time I woke up until I passed out.
I was often sick from a weak immune system. I was the first to catch a cold from someone else which often ended in bronchitis. I was sick 4-5 times a year.
Then, when I was 56, a friend of mine introduced me to Wim Hof Method, breathwork, and deliberate cold exposure.
This friend lately founded getsoberprogram.
I did not try any addiction treatment program, but I followed the 10-week video course every day without fail. I was still smoking at the same pace. Then suddenly, in the second week of the program, I was standing on my balcony enjoying the September weather and as I exhaled from a long drag, I realized how fantastic I was feeling from just 10 days into the program and the Wim Hof training. But I mean really, fantastic. The next thing that happened was the most important question that I have ever asked myself. While smoking I contemplated “If I feel so great from the Wim Hof Method already now, why would I sabotage such a good thing?”.
I was thinking that smoking Hashish is simply an old bad habit sabotaging the great new habit and feeling that had just entered my life. I put out the joint before it was finished and right then and there, I threw away the rest of my stash. I felt reborn from such a dramatic decision and the transformation that was occurring within me.
5 years later, I am now 61. In the past 5 years, I was sick just once, with the Corona Virus. Had I contracted this virus in my earlier life, I would have ended up in the hospital, or worse. I once held my breath on empty lungs for three and a half minutes and my push-ups record on empty lungs is 105, straight. I take cold showers every morning. I have taken ice baths, jumped into cold rivers, and made snow angels in the snow in my shorts. I no longer go to the gym and my meniscuses are torn from playing a lot of squash in my 40s, so I no longer run 10km a day, or play tennis or racket sports.
But that’s ok, from practicing the Wim Hof Method, I am healthy on a much deeper, cellular level.
In January 20020 I turned vegan and that has also, together with intermittent fasting, had a deep impact on my health. Sore feet and hemorrhoids, so common in one’s 50s, have completely disappeared from my body. I used to have very high cholesterol and doctors were considering that I begin taking medication. My father has had a double bypass for the same. I have not had my blood tested. I don´t need to because I know that a plant-based diet makes your cholesterol levels fall off a cliff. For me, veganism is not a religion. At home, I eat 100% vegan but when I go out to friends for dinner or to a restaurant, I cheat – and that’s OK with me. I am 10 kilos lighter than I was 10 years ago.
Having a clear head makes me happy about life, even when times are rough. I appreciate more the “here and now”. I am PRESENT with my wife and three children, instead of living in an alternate world.
How can I appreciate the moment's beauty if I am not there but somewhere else?
It is never too late to start good things. It begins now.
