hi. there is no one "right" answer to your questions. i've had experiences of a spiritual nature or of heightened sensory awareness both with and without chemicals. but the difference seems to be in the relatively temporal and decreasingly effective results of chemical use, as opposed to a more consistent and deeper understanding of this life and why i'm here. the kind that comes from a bottle has promised me dreams that became nightmares, and no matter how much i gave it took away more. what i try to attain today seems to take the worst of circumstances and turn them into opportunities, and the more i give, the more i get. i call it god, but have major problems with organized religion and the way humans use its institutions to coerce and condemn others. i don't understand it, but that's ok. the desire to understand and the willingness to consider possibilities are all i've found necessary to honestly begin to make progress. i've seen and felt things that were more powerful than the best dope on earth, but i no longer consider myself entitled to have such experiences every day like i did "out there." they just happen. i believe that god doesn't want me to pour that **** into my body, but also will allow me to drink myself to death if i so choose. the greatest miracles for me are often things most people take for granted, at the top of the list is the fact that i don't spend every waking moment wanting to die anymore, as well as being able to consider that i might actually be worth something to someone without the involvement of self-centered motives. and for this once hopeless drunk and junkie, it takes practice. hope this is helpful.............gm
What happened to me was I was on the streets at the bottom of bottoms and he comes this African American guy wondering up to me and says my name and I am like oh **** and he says hey it is me Simon and I am like I haven't seen this guy in 18 yrs I used to buy dope of of him.Well he says to me I have changed my life and at the time I was so messed up on dope that I did;nt even really care and he says come and let me pray with you and here I am on the hustle,hoping he will give me money for dope,I was a totally atheist and so I go with him to his car and he starts praying about Jesus letting him into my heart and all of a sudden I get this urge to cry.So anyways something happened I seen him again and he said come to bible study with me and I don't know why I said yes but I did and I went and they were talking about the wine skin part of the bible how you can patch old wineskin with new ones. They asked God to show me that he was real and was there to love me, guide me and love me unconditionally.so the next day I woke up and I had sat in a chair that was my aunty's and boom the chair breaks and I land on the floor with the spindle slammed into my back where I had been in a serious car accident and had chronic back pain for a yr and had almost been parallelized so i am laying there and i am thinking I will never walk again and I got up and my back was healed!!!!!!!!!!Now how is that for a miracle .Then I started to pray for my God to remove my obsession from crack and I went to a recovery house and I remember it just like it was yesterday and it was noon and I hadn't thought about dope for half of the day I was so amazed and the I just started to say thanks to him and over and over and the obsession has been removed from me today. I am so blessed and grateful that I ma clean and sober today. I wish you all the best..j