At Villa Kali Ma, we offer a wide variety of methods for healing from addiction. Our program is integrative in nature, acknowledging the fact that many alternative healing therapies work well together.
The core of our program is built from powerhouse evidence-based therapies that are clinically validated, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and EMDR.
Woven around this clinical core are many braids of adjunct therapies taken from ancient healing systems that are powerfully effective in their own right, such as Ayurveda, yoga, and acupuncture. These sciences have been used effectively for thousands of years.
One method we embrace is the therapeutic use of crystals. The effect of crystals is sometimes scoffed at by people who haven’t tried it. Skepticism is good, we encourage it! Always. But empiricism is also good – as in, try it and see what happens.
Through experience and observation, we here at Villa Kali Ma find crystals to be a useful tool. We also don’t find it outlandish to imagine that the same properties that make crystals useful in emitting frequency for use in an ultrasound machine, for example, might make them helpful in balancing the body’s electromagnetic field, too.
That said, we do not recommend trying to get sober using crystals alone. Addiction is a serious medical condition requiring an urgent and intensive treatment response. Getting sober requires medically supervised detox and some months of follow-up treatment in a highly structured setting.
Holistic therapies are powerful healing modalities in their own right, but they are slower and gentler approaches and do not belong as the sole tool in an emergency protocol.
Whatever has brought you to this article today, we invite you to read on, for our exploration of how crystals can be used therapeutically in the journey to recovery from addiction.
What are crystals?
Stone crystals are a type of rock, formed from minerals and combinations of minerals, occurring naturally in the wild. They are also manufactured.
What makes crystals different from other stones is that they have a lattice structure, a repeated crystalline pattern that is consistent throughout the whole stone. These patterns are often beautiful, and under a microscope, strikingly perfect, geometrical, and regular.
Gemstones are usually crystals, such as rubies, emeralds, diamonds, and sapphires. Some crystals are made from a single mineral, as diamonds are created from carbon, but many are made from combinations of minerals. Emeralds, for example, are mostly made of the mineral beryl but include also trace amounts of chromium, vanadium, and iron.
Crystals have many physical properties that contribute to their unique profile and utility in technology as well as therapeutic purposes, such as degree of lightfastness, hardness, piezoelectric effect, and electrical conductivity.
How do crystals work?
Crystals work on the body and its electromagnetic field, through their electro-magnetic conductivity.
Different crystals placed on or near the body will have different effects, either drawing small amounts of current from the human bio-field or flowing small amounts of current into it.
In the context of crystals used in healing, the unique electromagnetic profile of a specific crystal is referred to as its vibration, which determines its therapeutic use.
What are examples of healing crystals?
There are many different therapeutic effects possible through the use of crystals in healing.
The most commonly used healing crystals include clear quartz, rose quartz, selenite, turquoise, agate, amethyst, citrine, obsidian, black tourmaline, and aquamarine, just to name a few. The list of popular healing stones is long.
These crystals are used for specific effects that benefit the physical body, and/or emotional states. For example, turquoise is believed to be de-acidifying, reducing infections, digestion problems, and inflammation. Selenite is commonly used for lessening emotional pain, such as depression and anxiety.
What are the healing effects of crystals for addiction?
We include crystal therapy in our programs at Villa Kali Ma, because like massage and acupuncture, crystal healing is useful for creating safety, ease, comfort, and peace in the body. It is much easier to respond to treatment when the body is feeling safe and relatively pain-free. Crystals balance the human bio-field, creating relief from the emotional distress and physiological discomfort of withdrawal and early sobriety.
Gently stimulating energetic nodes in the body has clarifying, calming, and regulating effects for the patient, as organs that are heavily involved in negative emotions and thoughts, like the heart, lungs, and adrenals, can be corrected to a more neutral, healthful electromagnetic signature.
Healing crystals for alcohol addiction
Alcohol is a common substance of choice for women, with tragic impacts on their minds, bodies, emotions, and relationships. When a woman is recovering from addiction to alcohol, two crystals are considered to be particularly helpful, celestite and amethyst.
Named for its heavenly blue color, celestite has a relaxant, and soothing effects on the body, stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic branch of the nervous system is responsible for healing, rest, digestion, and recovering. Whenever you want to encourage the body’s self-healing mechanism, activating the parasympathetic nervous system is key.
Amethyst, a beautiful violet quartz, has been used to help with alcohol’s negative effects for thousands of years. The name comes from the Greek word amethystos, meaning “not intoxicated”. The stone was believed by the ancient Greeks to protect against inebriation.
Healing crystals for cocaine addiction
Women recovering from addiction to cocaine typically have problems with their nervous systems for a time, until they rebalance and rebuild through positive actions over a consistent period.
Since during active addiction, these women used cocaine to overstimulate their sympathetic nervous system, creating artificial energy, excitement, and euphoria, post-acute cocaine withdrawal can be a brutal climb out of a valley of low mood, low energy, and ego deflation.
Crystals that work to raise energy and un-dampen the nervous system, without overstimulating, are helpful.
Rose quartz is a pink stone with gentle stimulating effects, linked to feelings of love and connection. Citrine, a stone associated with enthusiasm and enjoyment, is used for ameliorating low mood.
Healing crystals for heroin and opioid addiction
Heroin, fentanyl, and prescription opioids are powerfully addictive because they temporarily obliterate pain, and at the same time, generate euphoria.
Withdrawal from opioids is a tough experience because it means finding healthy ways to tolerate some pain and dysphoria, during the window of time it takes your body to regenerate its natural state.
Two crystals that can be helpful during post-acute opioid withdrawal and early recovery are aquamarine and howlite.
Aquamarine is a very beautiful blue-green gemstone that helps the lungs and breath. The breath is involved with our ability to self-soothe, trigger the parasympathetic nervous system, and modulate pain both emotional and physical. The lungs are strongly affected by opioids.
Howlite has anti-inflammatory effects, which can ease physical pain and relieve places of chronic tension that are generating headaches. It is also sedative, bringing calm and relaxation.
How do women use crystals for sobriety?
A life in sobriety has ups and downs, and crystals can help us through without using, in a few different ways.
Crystals for Boosting Mood and Energy
Crystals like jasper and blue apatite can be used to stimulate your energy to bring courage and cheer when you’re feeling discouraged or otherwise low.
Crystals For Calm and Relaxation
Crystals like rhodonite and blue lace agate soothe states of agitation and encourage strong emotions to pass out of the body, for example when triggered.
Crystals for Spirituality
Crystals can be incorporated into a centering spiritual practice like meditation or prayer, used for grounding and self-soothing.
How are crystals for sobriety used?
There are many ways to use crystals to support your sobriety. Here are some ways to begin your journey of exploration.
Placing Crystals on Meridians and Chakras
If you have an understanding of the Chinese system of meridians or the Indian system of chakras, you can use these body maps to experiment with placing crystals on key energy nodes and highways of the body.
Placing Crystals on Parts of the Body that Need Help
You can also place crystals directly on parts of the body that are in pain, such as on your lower back, or key emotional centers in the body, like the heart, solar plexus, or forehead. Holding crystals in your palms is also effective and calming.
Charging Crystals and Setting Intentions
Some people charge crystals by placing them in the sun, or through creating a vibrational field of intentions and focused thought. Essentially, you are programming your crystal to help you in accordance to the way you wish it to.
Using Crystals to Crystallize Water
It is also possible to charge your drinking water and your bathwater with crystals. Some crystals are toxic if consumed internally, though, so research before you try this method.
What are FAQs of crystals for addiction?
Do crystals work for addiction?
Crystals can be part of your mental, emotional, and physical healing process once drugs and alcohol are detoxed out of your system. No therapy, mainstream or alternative, works while you’re still actively using drugs and alcohol, as substances create an overload of toxicity for the body and also interfere with any healing mechanism a modality has.
The only known cure for addiction is to stop using drugs and alcohol completely and to commit to a full transformation of lifestyle, radically changing behavior, thoughts, and feelings.
Crystals can support the hard work a person does to achieve sobriety and recovery, and can be used very effectively to help relieve psychological and physical pain, making treatment easier and more powerfully transformative.
What can using crystals for addiction do, and what can’t it do?
Crystals can balance, regulate, and harmonize your body’s electromagnetic field. Physical illness and unhappy states of mind and mood have certain electromagnetic vibrational signatures, and these can be changed through the application of a crystal that carries the correct vibrational “medicine”.
Through the correction of imbalances, a state of health and harmony can be created. When you are ready to be relieved of an imbalance, crystals can take the imbalance out of your field, and help entrain your field to a more balanced, crystalline, symmetrical state.
Broadly speaking, what crystals don’t do is eliminate a powerful recurring root cause, if you aren’t yet conscious and ready to change it. For example, if you are very anxious because, at a deep unconscious level, you believe that you are not safe, you will also need to repair the core belief consciously before lasting improvements will be noticeable. As with other modalities, including mainstream ones, unconscious trauma can get in the way of the healing powers of crystals.
Where can I start with using crystals for healing?
Intuition is a good guide when it comes to choosing and working with crystals. Just as you might be guided to choose a color to paint your house, or are drawn to certain flowers and scents, the vibrational signature of a crystal may be felt before it is understood mentally.
Start with finding your first healing stone. It is probably best to go to a store rather than purchasing online, because of the physical properties which can be better felt in person. By holding a crystal in your hand you may be able to feel within seconds whether the vibrational signature of electromagnetic effects is a good medicine for your particular needs at this time, or not.
You can also research online or in guidebooks, to get a more comprehensive overview.
Villa Kali Ma uses crystals for addiction treatment
Villa Kali Ma’s core program is built on evidence-based practices which are shown in clinical studies to have the best outcomes for women recovering from addiction, mental health disorders, and trauma.
Into this core, we integrate many ancient healing practices from around the globe. Crystals are used in some of our alternative therapeutic options, such as in our Reiki with Plant Oils and Crystals sessions, and are occasionally incorporated into our earthing, shamanic healing, art therapy, and meditation groups.
If you’re struggling with addiction, we encourage you to reach out and get help right away. If you like the sound of getting world-class treatment and also having the option of learning more about crystals and other holistic methods, consider one of our many programs for women!
