Jost Sauer is a rare, gifted and intense individual in our modern world. His story spans over many decades, starting with the tail end of the hippy dream, to drug addiction, fighting cops as an anarchist in Germany, and eventually escaping to Australia. The agony of severe drug and alcohol addiction gave him little choice. Die, or change his life drastically in order to live with some sense of health and happiness. He chose life, and pushed himself through everything from intense physical training & bodybuilding, to tai chi, meditation, and self development programs. Jost found his calling through studying Traditional Chinese Medicine and became a lecturer in the field. He has developed a model to help us understand the effect of drugs, and the path to recovering towards health and harmony upon quitting.
His two books "Higher & Higher" and "Drug repair that works" take you through the unmissable story of his life; the breakdowns and breakthroughs, and the great impact he has made in helping people to quit the drugs, and recapture the vision and the love for life that the drugs had revealed to them. Jost's methods transcend conventional models of drug repair, and don't condemn drugs or drug users as "bad" in any way. Drugs are simply seen as substances that shift our perceptions and experiences and give us a fresh outlook and experience of even the most mundane and miserable of life's circumstances. Jost has cultivated that same level of bliss without taking drugs, and has the tools to share this with anyone who wants to take their life to a new level, or to simply re-capture the highs they experienced in the past. Life certainly isn't meant to be dull and boring. As he said in his own words "We are all born to be superstars."

I'd like to start off with an important question. Why are drugs one of the hugest industries in the world? Why are people turning to drugs?

Simply because drugs work. I believe they tap into our human birthright, which is spiritual fulfillment, and provide a sample of that instantly and effortlessly. On a good drug everything feels perfect and you experience yourself, the world and everything else 'as it is'. The Chinese refer to this as 'perfect emptiness' – a non-resisting mediator between Heaven and Earth, a pure vessel of sensations without the interference of the mind. Expansion, growth and development is the nature of the universe and drugs allow us to instantly feel what it is like to live in accord with our true nature.

What are the repercussions of drug use? How are we affected mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually by the common drugs?

On drugs you see what you could be, how incredible the universe is and what an integral part of it you are. This becomes stored as a memory in the bodymind. If we have visions and ideas from any source, we need to follow through and act upon them, this allows the chi to flow and then we feel happy and content in life. But on drugs you have these extraordinary visions and feelings but afterwards no tools to make it reality and no concept that you can make it reality. Most of us have no idea how to work with what we have seen or experienced on drugs and do not understand that we need to process these experiences otherwise the positives can fast become negatives. This is why many ex-drug users finish off frustrated, cynical and bitter about life. In TCM organs create emotional, spiritual and physiological reality, the organs are considered the basis for life. Drugs flush the organs with so much chi it allows you see life as it would be if your organs were all functioning perfectly. This is why you have exhilaration, bliss, euphoria, energy, and vigor. But ongoing drug use overstresses and overtaxes the organs, so after a while their function is impaired and your life is shaped accordingly. You develop fatigue, anger, depression, anxieties and psychosis. Each drug needs a specific organ to work from. The equivalent to this in Western sciences are the receptor sides of the brain, but in TCM we don't talk about the brain as all action depends on organ function. Generally speaking you could say that with overuse each drug delivers the opposite of what you wanted.
 
Marijuana: Marijuana primarily targets the Liver which is responsible for moving chi in all directions and the following emotions: happiness, frustration and anger. Initially with dope you feel great because you are sensitized to the movement of chi and you feel creative, happy and in flow with life. As these functions are exploited you begin to see Liver pathologies such as frustration, bitterness and inability to act on your visions which I refer to as being stuck in the planning phase.

Speed / cocaine / ecstasy: Speed, Cocaine and Ecstasy target the Spleen and create Spleen Chi Deficiency manifesting as chronic fatigue, depression, feeling scattered, off-grounded and unable to focus. Also digestion problems leading to weight loss or weight gain due to fluid retention, pale skin and vagueness.

Mushrooms, LSD & other "natural" highs: The hallucinogens are highly complex drugs and you don't tend to see typical symptoms of overuse as people tend to use these drugs much more infrequently and for different reasons. Spleen and Heart are often target organs of hallucinogens but as the Heart also houses the Mind this is where mental disorders arise. The Spleen is responsible for digestion on both a physical level but also a mental level. It is the Spleen that governs boundaries within the physical domain but also between the concrete and abstract or the visible and invisible worlds. So this is where doorways are opened and other dimensions possibly accessed. As well as operating via the Spleen (the organ also associated with madness, psychosis or schizophrenia) hallucinogens also operate via the Heart which is associated with either joy and bliss or shock and panic (explaining good trips and bad trips).

So what are the solutions? If we are here to grow & evolve in mind, body and spirit, what role do drugs play in that journey, and how can we get back into the flow of health & happiness?

There is no middle way after heavy recreational drug use. As drugs show your highest potential afterwards you have a responsibility to realize that potential otherwise life will feel boring, depressing and almost not worth living. If you do decide to give up the solution is simple: recapture that what the drugs have shown you. Without your body drugs can't work and as drugs utilize your body to create the altered states it is via the body that you will recapture those states. For me the drugs were the first step, they showed me the direction I had to walk in life. In this context I believe drugs reveal your purpose. However, its only the beginning. Drugs aren't a permanent option so to make the state permanent we have to do what drugs do and that is bring up the organs to the level that will naturally recreate drug highs. The drugs are like a demo-software for constructing complex beats, but this software requires a specific hardware (cultivated body-mind). So the solution after the drugs is to develop the hardware in order to download the latest software to create an awesome beat (life.)

How does the wisdom and practice of Chinese medicine apply to drug recovery and spiritual development?

TCM does not directly discuss recreational drug use, as the classic texts were written thousands of years ago, but in Traditional Chinese Medicine it is understood that there is much more to life than the material visible world. There is also the invisible and spiritual world. Accordingly it is the perfect language to describe drug highs, lows and side-effects as well as show the path to true recovery. The Chinese say that the organs store the secrets to creation; all you need to do is to get into your organs and unleash the secrets – and to create life in accord with your wildest dreams. Its that simple, we just have to get up and do it.

So you are not here to join the war against drugs. You are here to work with drugs, using creative solutions, working with the rhythms of our natural potential to help people recover, heal, and spiral upwards with no limits…. Is this about right? What exactly do you offer in your therapy?

Wars on anything don't work and the war on drugs (really a war on drug-users) was lost a long time ago. Business continues to boom and markets expand. Drugs are delivering what people want and this is what we have to work with, finding other ways of delivering what people want. Also, once we have the situation where possibly half the population has used an illicit drug its too late to focus on prevention, judgement and punishment. So I look at what to do next, how to make past drug experiences a positive in your future life. Most recreational drugs started out as psychotherapeutic drugs and I think you can come in after the event and take that approach to them. Did drugs put you in touch with your subconscious or show you your true nature, were they an evolutionary tool? I always thank my past as the drugs showed me what I needed to develop in order to experience on a permanent basis that what I met briefly on drugs.

When we first met, you mentioned that you live in harmony with the practice and philosophy of Taoism. The way of the Tao is magnetic to me, and after years of research still remains a little mysterious. I feel that Taoism is one of great spiritual paths we can walk in life. Could you give the readers an overview of the principles and practice of Taoism, or at least your own personal "Tao"?

I really resonate with the Tao but, all roads lead to Rome as they say, and there is no such thing as the best road as we are always at the beginning. For me Taoism was instrumental as it is a 'contextual' or 'relative' science. There are no absolutes in this philosophy and a value can only be established after having it put in relation to something else. This way of thinking doesn't allow you to answer a question like 'is marijuana bad?' This philosophy was influential on my thinking in that it allowed me to think about recreational drugs without them being either good or bad. This is what Taoism and TCM has enabled me to do – to develop the path for after you have been through the magic and madness of drugs and then be able to reclaim the magic of the drug experience.

Could you give us an overview of your life, your experiences, your journeys, and how you ended up creating this unique destiny for yourself?

I had no idea that my first joint at age 16 was going to launch me on a such a journey. I used LSD and Hash to catch the tail-end of the idealism of the hippie era but this turned into speed addiction and the anarchism of the punk movement. Then, after I got to Australia, and couldn't get hard drugs for a while I discovered alcohol and drank all day and abused prescription medications mainly to try and control my post-speed psychosis and savage depression. I worked in the drug and alcohol counselling field which really reinforced for me that I was an addict and would be so for the rest of my life. It was a very bad time. Without drugs or alcohol I felt I had nothing to live for. When I got off drugs and got out of that field of work I hid my drug past and wanted nothing to do with the drug world again, either as a dealer, user or therapist but fate had other plans in store for me! Studying TCM allowed me to understand my drug experiences and then my patients made me realize that the more open I was the more open they could be.

Are you comfortable with sharing some of your mystical experiences with us? How far down the rabbit hole have you gone?

My spiritual practices these days are as overwhelming and as psychedelic as my LSD experiences were. I can say I have now gone further into the invisible worlds than drugs could ever take me but because its not a drug-induced journey it feels incredible. You know when you are on a drug that on one level its not real but when you have those experiences without a drug it is truly mind-blowing. I do believe that continuing the journey after drugs is important because on drugs you have such intense amazing experiences that if you don't recapture that level of intensity you will always miss it. The path of self-realisation is the only way to hit that same level and then surpass it. And it is so simple to get there. Working with TCM and your organs and the five elements – the gateway to the invisible world- will deliver results. As they say in yoga, just do your practice and all is coming. I do my practice of 3 hours a day and more and more opens up for me daily.

Which authors would you highly recommend? A: Stanislav Grof, Terence McKenna, Paramahansa Yogananda, Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Abraham-Hicks, Richard Branson. To learn more about Jost, read and comment on his articles & blogs, arrange a phone or face-to-face appointment, purchase his books or DVD's, please visit http://www.jostsauer.com/