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Introduction: Crystals? Really?
For those of us who have experienced the powerfully repetitive negative energy that surrounds and permeates addiction (whether it is alcohol addiction, food addiction, drug addiction, other substance abuse addiction, or sex addiction), it is easy to lose faith in regular medical care, holistic therapies, support groups, addiction recovery, treatment programs, professional help, and other new opportunities that seem to come out every week advertising new recovery methods.
Many people have tried to sell us the best ways to remain free of our addiction, and many have failed to help us find the right combination of tools to activate a healing process at the level of our subconscious mind, which can often house the roots of the stored trauma that fuel the negative energies that generate the bad habits we call addictive behavior.
Though it may seem woo-woo and outlandish, using healing crystals and natural minerals is a simple way to enhance your other recovery practices and may surprise you with its effectiveness–which Western medicine might term the “placebo effect.” The journey toward living with a positive attitude geared toward personal growth is long-term and varied.
“Crystal” comes from a Greek word that means “ice” and “frost.” Like ice can form into unique patterns based on the once-moving form of its liquid state, the formation of crystals happens in a similar way. Natural minerals under high pressure “crystallize” into unique configurations that both look beautiful and contain within them a particular story about the energy that created them.
This is why crystals were assigned properties for treating energy patterns in the human body in ancient times.
The use of crystals can help with the conduction of energy–meaning, the transfer of energy from one molecule to another. The excess energy that gathers around drug abuse and addiction can fester in the human body and subconscious mind. Without discharging this energy, all the forms of mental illness that emerge on the emotional level–manic depression, mood swings, mental dependency on substances–become channels for the energy instead. Since ancient times, stones have been recognized as having great absorbent powers for emotional healing. Simply placing a healing stone in your hand is a powerful tool for positive changes in your energetic body.
Before we discuss which stones are best for which symptoms of addiction, it is important to note that, like any spiritual tool, a stone is not one’s higher power. However, many have found it beneficial to ask their higher power what stone they should choose. Let that, not this list, be the ultimate authority on any crystal you choose if you try crystal therapy. A good stone is a stone that feels right. When you go to a crystal shop, pick up different crystals.
Place the stone in your right hand, then your left hand. Allow yourself to examine whether your energy shifts. Take your time and let the intuitive voice within you guide you gently.
Using crystals for recovery is another powerful tool for creating positive habits to replace unhealthy habits. Picking up a stone and letting it roll around in your hand is a way to transcend the present moment subtly, and in the subconscious mind, this can replace unhealthy habits of picking up….other things. Crystal elixirs– unofficial “potions” created by placing a crystal in water and meditating on its healing effects while drinking the water, can be its holistic ritual toward combating unhealthy drinking habits.
These elixirs can be even more enhanced by lunar energy. When there is a full moon, place your water glass with crystal in a window so that the moonlight will hit you. The next morning you can drink the elixir. Lunar energy targets shadow work–so secrets you want to bring to the surface and know. Solar energy, on the other hand, inflames and sets fire to what you already know about yourself and want to put into practice or take action on.
Crystals can also be worn as jewelry–not just for aesthetics but for energetic movement.
Different stones correspond to different chakras that correspond to different body parts.
Below you will find out more about why amethyst earrings help to envision, a long-chained rose quartz necklace will help one have more loving and open-hearted relationships, and a short-chained lapis lazuli necklace will help one speak clearly in the face of opposition.
We spoke a lot about grounding energies with crystals, but let it also be noted that crystals can generate electricity and energy. Suppose you are stuck on an emotional level. In that case, a detectable amount of electricity can be released by securing clear quartz or rose quartz–or amethyst, any quartz—and subjecting it to magnetic force from a magnet. This process is referred to in basic physics as the mechanical energy discharge method, and the electricity released is called Piezoelectricity. Piezoelectricity–derives from the Greek word “to squeeze or press”–refers to the electrical charge that accumulates in solid materials, in this case, crystals. There is also Piezoelectricity in DNA, bones, and other proteins. Again, there is a reason beneath the surface of things that explains why crystal energy can interact and communicate with the human energetic body energy.
Rose Quartz
Rose Quartz is a good crystal for healing relationships. This is because rose quartz is the crystal of unconditional love and opens the heart chakra–which is sort of “located” at your sternum. Placing a rose quartz here while meditating on family members or friends with whom you may have strained relationships can help open the heart, which has its own alternative medicine for treating what makes it ache–an emotional healing that is natural and restorative. Lying on your back and placing a rose quartz crystal on your heart can feel like a sort of soul embrace of the self. Since the heart space, when closed off, tends to tighten the chest muscles around it, rose quartz can also be used to shoulder and upper back muscular tension. As mentioned above, rose quartz necklaces are good–especially when the chain allows the crystal to rest at your sternum–for welcoming loving relationships into your life and nurturing the loving relationships you already have.
Amethyst
Amethyst is a purple quartz-like crystal that opens the third eye–which is a chakra in between
your eyes just at the bridge of your nose, and represents the portal into spiritual knowledge. To see something with your third eye opened is to see beyond dualities, which addictions feed off. So placing an amethyst crystal on your third eye can help you see things with compassionate clarity, and this can bring tremendous inner peace and exciting new perspectives about what may seem unchangeable in your life. As mentioned above, wearing amethyst earrings can help you tune into your own foresight and intuition about whatever topic is at hand or in your mind’s Eye.
Clear Quartz
If the third eye is what helps you see clearly, the crown chakra, which is activated by clear
quartz helps your entire being experience clarity. Clear quartz is a good stone to place on top of your head to open a direct channel to the divine or otherworldly spirits around and within us, which is what is known to some cultures as a “fairy stone.” Through this channel, all of the other chakras can be activated. There are beautiful guided meditations that invite the meditater to imagine a beam of bright white light hitting the crown chakra and disseminating down through the purple third eye, blue throat chakra, green heart chakra, yellow solar plexus, orange sacral chakra, and finally pool out into the red root chakra. As quartz contains a prism for all the colors of the rainbow, it is fitting that it’s ascribed to the omnipotent crown chakra energy.
Black Onyx
Black onyx–a deep inky, and metallic black crystal–is a protector stone and has been used to
guard against negative energies. It is grounding, meaning it can help erratic electrifying energies diffuse themselves in its base of support. For this reason, Black Onyx is a good “stone of sobriety.” It helps those with high-powered substance abuse like cocaine addiction and addictions to crystal meth quell the restlessness that tends to be attributes of these drugs and drug behaviors. If one has problems with insomnia, it has been recommended to place a black onyx stone on the mattress right where the tailbone will meet it and imagine it pulling all frenetic energy out of the body like a magnet.
Amber
Amber–a golden orange color–is another stone of sobriety, but particularly good for transitions. Amber activates the sacral chakra and solar plexus, the energetic areas that define identity and harness sexual energy into creative energy. Amber contains within it the brightness of the sun and darkness of the moon and helps one find harmony and balance when experiencing surges of desire–which is a powerful feeling in its own right that often arises in conjunction with withdrawal symptoms. Simply gazing into the suspended rivulets inside an amber crystal can call to mind nostalgic or painful feelings of the past while yearning for but resisting a transformed future. Amber showcases the Piezoelectricity of crystals in a particularly clear way.
Lapis Lazuli
Deep blue, and therefore connected to the throat chakra, Lapis Lazuli is an excellent crystal for communication and story-telling, which are powerful tools in the recovery process, both to tell our own stories to ourselves in understanding the kinds of behavior we participated in during the most difficult times in our addiction. Because heroin especially dulls the brain’s ability to formulate verbal communication, aquamarine is good for heroin addiction recovery, especially while processing the experience in narrative therapy or journaling. As mentioned above, a lapis lazuli crystal necklace–especially if the crystal rests near the Adam’s apple–can vibrate productive communicating energy into your vocal cords and help you trust your words with newfound and otherworldly confidence.
Conclusion
There is no panacea for recovery from drug addiction. But all forms of positive energy are antidotes. Using crystals, and even just thinking about crystals, their formation, and strange connections between the spiritual and physical realm, can help inspire “awe,” which can itself be a powerful force for getting out of sticky thought loops of fear and shame. When we are curious or awe-struck, self-seeking has a lighter holder. We can consider new possibilities for circumstances that seemed fixed.
The experience of living through addiction, surviving, and then healing the wounds caused by it is a process that is not easy but compensates for that difficulty in the spiritual rewards received. Our mental health is contingent on the maintenance of a spiritual condition, and how to conduct this maintenance and with what tools is up to us. Crystals, like icons, homemade altars, or incense, are just a physical manifestation of a hidden spiritual reality.
They are a tool for transcendence. Because addicts are so often imprisoned by their own minds–their own ways of viewing the world–a transcendence that breaks beyond what the limited mind holds onto is helpful.