From September 2023 to September 2024, the CDC recently reported a 24 percent decline in the number of deaths due to drug overdoses — the lowest number of such fatalities since 2020. While this new statistic is an encouraging sign, millions of Americans still continue to struggle with substance abuse and addiction.
According to renowned holistic healer Birgitta Visser, founder of Power Soul Healing, energy work can be a powerful support for people on their recovery journeys.
“You have to take accountability for your life and your experiences and put in the work,” she says. “No one can do it for you but you. Energy healing modalities empower us with the tools to navigate these triggers, cravings, and painful experiences that may have contributed to the addiction in the first place. It allows us to return to a more centered, grounded state, feeling more at ease within ourselves, and staying committed to sobriety, making more healthy living choices. Energy healing is about taking back our power, learning to trust ourselves again, and ultimately breaking free from the chains of addiction for good.”
The problem of substance abuse and drug addiction
The National Institute on Drug Abuse states that over 10 million Americans abuse opioids, which play a role in at least seven out of every 10 overdose fatalities. Over half of overdose deaths feature fentanyl, which kills even at the extremely low level of 0.007 percent of an ounce.
Visser understands the seriousness of these issues, having lost three of her best friends to alcohol and drug abuse. “I’ve seen people spiral,” she says. “My ex buried his trauma, and his poison was crack. One of my best friends had been vehemently against drugs, yet that is how she died, having fallen down the stairs while under the influence of LSD. She was only 32 years old. Another of my friends had been getting clean but suffered a relapse and was killed in a motorcycle accident while under the influence. He was just 41. The third was like a brother to me, and he literally drank himself to death, drowning in his troubles, when a doctor told him his liver was shot. He was only 51.”
For Visser, understanding why people start using is key to helping them stop. “Many people turn to drugs, alcohol, or other forms of addiction like binge eating or compulsive behaviors as a way to numb painful emotions and traumas from their past,” she explains. “Addiction is a disease of the soul within the body it houses. Addicts of any sort carry a boatload of unhealed traumatic experiences. Not only does their central nervous system take a hit, but the trauma is also stored in their cellular memory body. This holds the user hostage until they are ready to release the fear and repair the connection with and to themselves.”
Visser notes that social conditioning makes many people experience stress and dis-ease as well. “In this world, we are told to be a certain way and act a certain way,” she says. “Many of us don’t feel peachy in our own skin, and we suffer.”
Discovering the right healing modality that truly resonates with a person can be incredibly beneficial.
Energy work can be the solution
Energy work comes in many varieties, including meditation, yoga, sound healing, ecstatic dance, crystal therapies, the use of essential oils, Reiki, acupuncture, chakra balancing, and light language, which is Visser’s own specialty.
“Energy healing is about healing the mind, body, and spirit,” Visser explains. “It helps people practice self-forgiveness and a willingness to dive deep within to uncover and transmute the root causes, in turn cultivating inner peace and balance. What happens is that people gradually develop more harmonious lives.”
For her, the exact method that someone chooses is not important. Rather, the important part is that the person takes responsibility for their own life and commits to doing the work involved in healing.
“You can’t save people,” she says. “They need to find their inner superhero and save themselves. Blaming other people isn’t part of the solution, either. Instead, those suffering from addiction need to take responsibility and focus on what they need to do to heal and recover.”
How energy work heals
As Visser explains, energy work is effective because it goes beyond treating mere symptoms and targets core wounds. “Energy work looks at the whole being of that person and tackles things by the root,” she says. “It goes deep and addresses the underlying causes that drive these destructive behaviors.”
While substance abuse and addiction serve to mask and numb the person’s pain, energy work shines a light on it. “It brings up buried wounds that we walk around with,” Visser says. “It surfaces these wounds.”
Addiction is a maladaptive attempt to cope with pain, while healing requires people to face it head-on. “Revisiting our deepest pain and fears takes tremendous strength, but this is the only way to reclaim the lost fragments of our being,” Visser explains. “As we acknowledge and embrace all that we are, even the messy, imperfect pieces, profound shifts start to occur. Self-forgiveness and acceptance melt away layers of shame and self-judgment. Gradually, gently, we disentangle ourselves from the old narratives that have kept us stuck, often for decades.”
According to Visser, energy work also allows people to rewire their brains, leveraging neuroplasticity — our brain’s natural ability to change over time — to establish new, healthier mental patterns. “As the heavy emotional burdens are lifted, the individual can begin to love themselves more deeply and no longer feel the need to self-medicate or escape through addictive substances,” she says. “It’s not easy, but seeing someone process these wounds and release them with compassion and self-forgiveness is beautiful.”
Reconnect with your luminous spirit
As millions of Americans continue to struggle with substance abuse and addiction, energy work presents a possible solution.
“Tapping into the power of universal life force energy reminds the soul of its intrinsic wholeness and perfection, even when the human self has forgotten,” Visser says. “Energy work lovingly helps us to realign with the unshakeable truth of who we are beneath the layers of our wounds and conditioning. It’s okay if it takes us a while to get there. It’s okay to be the tortoise; there is no need to be the hare. You do you at your own pace. But eventually, having done all the work, the chains of addiction gently fall away as we reconnect with our luminous, loving essence.”
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