“Phoenix Rising,” Winter 2007

Samuel Responds

Samuel Responds is a regular feature in Phoenix Rising, a free, quarterly newsletter created and distributed by Phoenix Institute, Inc., Samuel's home base in Lexington, Kentucky. It contains Samuel's answers to questions submitted by readers.

Please click here, or scroll down this page, to find links to previous Samuel Responds.

QUESTION 1:
Many of us have come to realize that sugar is an addictive substance, just like alcohol, nicotine, etc. What advice do you have that will help us?

QUESTION 2:
You mentioned in Brazil that Brazilians work more often as energy keepers than they do as Guardians. Would you please explain what an “energy keeper” is? Do you see Brazilians—post-Dragon working—awakening and/or activating? How should a Guardian best work with Brazilians?

QUESTION 3:
As above, so below. Therefore, how would physical attributes of energy differ after a change like Fusion? Is it simply a change in frequency?

QUESTION 4:
When we move to an area that makes our heart sing, do we form a group of twelve?

QUESTION 5:
Why are so many of us drawn to or around river systems throughout the U.S.?

QUESTION 1:
Phoenix Rising:  Many of us have come to realize that sugar is an addictive substance, just like alcohol, nicotine, etc. What advice do you have that will help us?

Samuel:  Addictive behavior is always about seeking to control a particular area of your life. However, it is not the substance that you’re trying to control—sugar, for example—you’re trying to control sugar because there is an addictive belief that is behind it. And you’re not going to find the answer by looking at when it became an addiction; you’re going to find it by looking at what made it attractive in the first place, because that’s where you’ll find a belief.

The mouth is just about the only area on the body that I’ll ever say is connected to sex, money, security. Now, wanting sugar, as opposed to needing it, is a way of satisfying the taste buds that correspond to that security system. Intense amounts of sugar are an indulgence in the mouth, whereas alcohol is an indulgence in the brain.

I know that for me it’s a comfort thing. It’s when I’m feeling something I don’t want to feel, like something painful, I can turn to sugar to distract me from pain. I do the same thing with alcohol, except with alcohol it tends to dull or anesthetize rather than comfort.

Forgive me for telling you about you, but you’re not anesthetizing yourself, you are indulging yourself. You are indulging yourself because, perhaps, something out there has made you feel uncomfortable. And so it’s the “blankie” that gets carried around. It’s a reward, not a detour. And that’s an important difference.

I’m not saying that’s true for everybody, but it can be the reward for working hard, or comfort for being sad or being stressed. That’s why it’s control: because you are trying to control your function. And in a whole lot of ways it’s no different than putting on lightweight hiking boots instead of heavyweight hiking boots. It can make something easier, but the addiction pops up when it becomes “but it must be like this in order to go hiking.” That’s when it’s gone over the line.

You can use something that helps you move from A to B as long as you are using it instead of it becoming the means by which you can move from A to B.

Physically speaking, for sugar and alcohol addictions—they’re very, very closely connected—it’s not best to cut them off cold turkey, suddenly going completely without them. When your body has adapted to a substance, you need to wean rather than just quit. Of course, that’s very hard to do isn’t it?

And no fun. I mean it’s hard and unpleasant.

And the “no fun” is one of the reasons why people are using this substance anyway, because they’re not having fun and they know that this is fun. So instead of dealing with their understanding of fun, they deal with just having more of this stuff that makes it fun.

But it makes it a sabotage too, because I would rather have no sugar at all, or no alcohol at all, than have to control my intake.

And that’s because . . . 

I’m addicted.

Being addicted to it isn’t the point.

Well, having a little bit of alcohol or a little bit of sugar doesn’t do what I want the sugar and the alcohol to do.

All right, that’s important.

I need to stop before it’s done what I’m using it for, and that’s harder than not having it at all, so I would go cold turkey, which sabotages getting it out of my life. But it’s harder for me to gradually remove it from my life, so I don’t do it that way either. I’ve given up alcohol and I don’t crave it, I don’t miss it at all, but the big reason I don’t ever want to go back to it that I realize—having been away from it—that moderating my alcohol intake for years was harder than not having it in my life.

Think for a moment about the mechanism. It’s much easier to just stop cold turkey, but it’s not going to be helpful in the long run. Why?

Because you’re constantly deprived.

Yes.

And eliminating it doesn’t mean you’ve mastered it.

Exactly, and in this world you’re going to be constantly faced with situations in which you’re going to have to continue that deprivation instead of having the control and the strength which would be a success and make you feel good about yourself. You are able to say, “This much works, and I will stop there.”

But what about people in AA who, truly, if they touch a drop of alcohol, are going to start again down a very destructive path?

A whole lot of times to stop cold turkey, in any of those versions of AA, will simply make someone switch to a different addiction. And sometimes the addiction is to the organization.

Yes, there are those who have a physical addiction, and when a physical addiction is to something that is destructive, it should be stopped and that substance never touched again. However, I would still say that the stop should be a weaning, because it’s going to have a lot of adverse effects on your physical being to just stop. Your body has not had to produce a substance or has overproduced it, so it no longer does it correctly, and to just stop is going to leave you without a physical safety net.

There are also those who are emotionally addicted. And emotional addiction can be controlled: you can have a glass of wine when you want to or a chocolate bar when you wish, but it’s because you have learned what your limit is.

An emotional addiction is always to make you feel something. A physical addiction is to make you do something.

Here are a couple of things you can do about sugar and alcohol: the first one is to take megadoses of a spectrum of B vitamins, meaning 150 units, and start right away with full amount. Lycopene and Cysteine: find the largest dose and halve it, then gradually work up to the full amount. What that’s going to do for you is help your regulatory system. They both work with the pituitary, and it’s the pituitary that sugar and alcohol cause to dysfunction. And when the pituitary is not functioning properly, your organs are going to have a hard time.

How long should you stay on the supplements? Would it be as long as you are weaning yourself away from the addictive substance?

Well, as long as you’re alive, so that the craving will stop. That’s what those are for. Try this experiment. Use them for a month, then go off them for a month, and then you’ll probably choose to go back to them for the rest of your life.

So, ultimately, a few things to think about with addiction. You want to remember that the addiction is not because of the substance you are using. You’re going to be better able to figure out what the addiction is about when you look at what that substance gives you and how you feel. By looking at how you feel, you’re going to get closer to ending the addiction. You want to be careful, because if you’re looking at alcohol instead of what alcohol gives you, then when you stop alcohol you’re just going to replace it with some other substance that’s going to give you that same thing.

In a sense, that’s also a viable way to get rid of behaviors or beliefs that you don’t want in your life. Replace them. But when you’re dealing with addictive behavior you have to be careful because you are using the behavior to give you something that your body thinks you need. You’re not going to be able to replace it with something healthy if it’s an addiction, so you have to be really careful about that. You don’t want to give up alcohol and then find yourself scarfing down Snickers bars.

But that may be better if the damage that the alcohol has been doing has made you dysfunctional—wrecking your car; being violent.

’d rather you eat Snickers bars than be violent, yes.

For some people it’s not so much that they’re wanting to give up the addiction as they’re wanting to take the destructive actions out of their lives, and the only way they can do that is to first take alcohol out of their lives.

As long as it’s recognized that it’s a part of a process, and not the end.

If a person is addicted to alcohol because they have no sense of purpose in their life and it deadens their awareness of that, getting addicted to AA could help in two ways. It cures the feeling by giving them a purpose, while treating the addiction as well.

A beautiful example. That’s good.

I think that the self-loathing that can come after you’ve given in to the addiction can also be addictive, because if it’s confirming that you’re an unworthy person, then you’re going to keep on, in a sense, craving the loathing that comes after the actual intake of the substance.

However, you’ve got to be careful with that one; you are right in recognizing in that example that it’s not the alcohol, it’s not the Snickers bars, it’s something else that you’re seeking. If what you’re seeking is proof that you’re no good, it’s going to be harder to move beyond that, because you don’t have the hope of the strength to do it. And, you know, in that case an AA meeting is probably about the only way to bring about that change.

Addictions are really obvious when it is Snicker bars and mint juleps, but it’s the addictions that are socially acceptable that cause a lot of problems.

Like work?

Like work, yes, or like being addicted to somebody else making decisions for you, be it Samuel or your wife. There’s the addiction to doing things for others because you don’t believe that on your own you are worthy of having their friendship. There’s addiction to perfectionism and micromanaging.

Could it be an addiction to criticizing, making fun of or vilifying those that are different than you?

Yes, and as always you have to ask yourself what is behind it. What are you getting from it?

Why have you said that addictions are rampant among Guardians? Is it specifically because they’re Guardians?

Spiritually speaking, active Guardians’ physical bodies are in constant change. As you deal with higher and higher frequencies, your body has to adapt and become capable of holding them. This more or less puts your physical body in security mode twenty-four/seven. That security mode activates the need for comfort or distraction. So active Guardians, particularly now when the energy coming into the world is so much higher, are prone to physical needs ruling their lives—which is a pity, but there you go.

The other part of that, though, is that Guardians tend to be perfectionists, and perfectionism is an obsessive behavior. Obsessive behaviors are usually there because of a blueprint—a physical propensity—toward addiction. You may have overcome a food addiction, and you are so proud of never having an issue at all with diet. At the same time you don’t let go of an editing project until it’s taken away from you because there’s always something more that can be done to improve it. Well, there is always something more that can be done, and I think it’s just lovely that Guardians want to put out the best they can, but when that best means not having any other life, it’s not the best any more. It’s that obsessive behavior ruling your life.

QUESTION 2:
Phoenix Rising:  You mentioned in Brazil that Brazilians work more often as energy keepers than they do as Guardians. Would you please explain what an “energy keeper” is? Do you see Brazilians—post-Dragon working—awakening and/or activating? How should a Guardian best work with Brazilians?

Samuel:   Guardians are here to guard and guide life force, as opposed to guarding a function of energy, a piece of life force. Just as an example, those who are keepers of the water energy as a whole, which is what Brazilians are, would have an innate connection with sea life, as opposed to the Guardians whom I work with, who have a connection with all life force.

A highly functioning person within mass consciousness can be a keeper of energy, meaning they balance the area they are in. Those are people who walk into a room and even though they’re not Guardians people are drawn to them. They are charismatic, they are kind, they have little animals come up to them—you see that. They have no particular sense that they’re connected with Source. They very often tend to be religious people, because religion is a conduit in their mind to higher power. And in their heart somewhere they know that they’re working outside the limits of just the human.

Keepers of energy balance the area they’re in. At a time in which the Law of Extremes is in effect, what would that mean that they also do? Bring chaos to where they are. So that is in there as well.

Every kingdom has those guardians, and they are guardians in a way that sequoia trees are guardians, but they are human, a part of mass consciousness.

How should a Guardian deal with them? Like you deal with all humans. There are, of course, Guardians (capital G) within all populations. An area such as Brazil that has been repeatedly seeded and holds a massive function of elemental energy would draw to it more activated and aware Guardians, and it would have a larger population of energy keepers. But other than that, you do what you do every day of your life—live love the best you can.

QUESTION 3:
Phoenix Rising: As above, so below. Therefore, how would physical attributes of energy differ after a change like Fusion? Is it simply a change in frequency?

Samuel:  Function changes, not form. Form follows function. The big answer is, the physical doesn’t change. You change because of it. The small answer is, those who are working at high frequencies have the opportunity to see in their lives anything that is keeping them from functioning at that high frequency. So to them the energy change looks like all of their buttons are getting pushed and all of their difficulties are showing up.

QUESTION 4:
Phoenix Rising: When we move to an area that makes our heart sing, do we form a group of twelve?

Samuel: Group of Twelve has nothing to do with your heart singing. If you can form a Group of Twelve, do so, because you’re going to find it an easy way to manifest gentle but stronger spiritual change in your life. Group of Twelve has nothing to do with heart singing.

QUESTION 5:
Phoenix Rising: Why are so many of us drawn to or around river systems throughout the U.S.?

Samuel: Well, one reason of course is that rivers are pretty. And there are a lot of people in your history and your present day that like to be around the rivers because they are areas of commerce. Rivers tend to be a means of finding a lot of life force, and so a lot of people are drawn to them. And none of this has anything to do with Dragon seeding work at all. It’s simply that rivers are a place of great life, and so you’re drawn to that.

Dragon force is seeded in the major river systems of the world, not of a country. You have an effect in a country once a river system has been activated, because all of the little tributaries get that energy also.

The North American Dragon is not awake, and it isn’t likely to be easy to awaken either.