My grandfather did it, back in the 60s.
It was 2003, and I was a substitute teacher. I lived on a throughfare. My liver was like...well, I hate liver similes. It was not well. A friend shared an idea with me--a fellow Golden Gopher, a good Minnesota girl with a sturdy last name. Laurie Anderson saved my body. When I told my Pops about it, he said, "What the heck, that's what your grandpa used to do. He called it cleaning the pipes. Once a year, for a week, he did that. But he used honey, not syrup." (Turns out honey is toxic to some, and it's essentially processed, as it's bee puke.)
Laurie shared with me the Master Cleanse, aka the Lemonade Cleanse. Equal parts lemon juice, Grade B maple syrup, pinch of cayenne pepper, warm water to taste.
For up to 40 days without ill effects, it's known to heal all manner of illnesses. Do a little research--the results are weighty, so much so that the guy who came up with the idea, Stanley Burroughs, was harrassed by the FBI for decades. Gout? Gone. Arthritis? Aloha. Alcoholism and drug addiction are curtailed at rates higher than those claimed by prevailing methods. Why the FBI? Seems (not-yet-so-Big) Pharma was worried that he'd come up with a cure-all.
You drink the stuff whenever you get hungry. Only the stuff, plus water, and herbal tea, if you're a fey daddy. haha. Depending on how much you drink, you can either lose weight or stay the same. So it ain't exactly a diet. What it is, is a way to get clean. A total enema.
You've certainly heard about undigested meat, black pepper and all manner of plaques in your miles of intestines. Forget high colonics. This is the Total Colonic. And no one sticks a tube up your ass while you listen to Chuck Mangione on tinny speakers.
The first two days are hell. The lemon juice acid breaks down the plaques. The syrup (Grade B is the earlier, darker stuff from the first tap) is full of vites and dirty goodness. Calories. The cayenne is not necessary in warm weather--it provides body heat as you aren't taking in protein. So------you're swimming in a stirred-up soup of toxins. Add to that the fact that you aren't taking in any caffiene, alcohol, nicotine, fat--the things that keep a fella strong on a good day, and it's HARD.
So you flush. Once a day. Celtic sea salt, 2 tsp to one liter of water, is the same specific weight as blood. So when you slam a liter of salt water, it goes clean through you, taking out the trash. Your intestines don't absorb the water, nor do they take up the salt. Stay close to the potty. Ka-whoosh. The result is something to be experienced.
So after 3 days, you have most of the bad out. A weird euphoria takes over. You feel better. You're funnier. Your true light shines through. The LAST thing you want is a ciggie, a scotch, a steak.
My question, Spacers, is what do you do? To stay sane. To keep it, if not Edenesque, real?
ps, I have done it 5 times since '03. The shortest was 4 days, the longest was 10. The 10-day stretch, by the end of it, was like French-kissing a wraith or fucking a siren. You know you're in danger, that the tales on like subjects end badly, but it feels like the first time you had sex while high, like your genitals have all five senses. Eyes in the chacha, ears in the wet folds, nostrils in wiry hair.
ReplyDeleteWomen seem to struggle more with the cleanse, and that's not me being cute. From my sisters to my mother to a girlfriend who threw a bottle of water at my head, screaming, "Why did you bring this poison into our home?!" (in her defense, it Was day 2), the concoction doesn't appear to agree quite as well with female chemistry. Having said that, I know several women who have endured, and they are all hot and smart.
Sleep. I am the world champion of sleep. Long, hard, deep and dreamless.
ReplyDeleteI have no good prescription for it. Except, maybe, have a kid. Or better yet, have two. Give one of them colic. Or nightmares. Have a kid who won't sleep in its own bed. Experience real deprivation. You will forever after dive into sleep as if your life depended on it.
Oh, but also: never put a television in your bedroom. Never take your laptop to bed. I don't even read in bed -- I can't, and I read everywhere. And don't fight it: sleep when you're tired, even if it's 8:30 and the world is all revelry. You're missing nothing of any lasting value.
My dedication to sleep means I haven't closed a bar down in ages. And the last time I did -- it was a bad scene, man. I wound up wandering around my house at 3:00 in the morning, wondering where my pants were. And how I'd gotten out of them.
[Bar Pink, I will never again darken your door. No restraining order necessary.]
I am only truly bitchy when I'm tired [as opposed to the pseudo-bitchiness I employ here -- and, about that, sorry, folks. I'm really quite a nice person. In person.]. It fucks with the way I think. I say things I can't take back.
So yes, sleep.
[Re: the cleanse. Depriving myself of food just makes me hungry. And bitchy -- so, yeah, allow me to sleep, and feed me, and we'll be just fine. But. If it helps me kick the nicotine habit, I might be willing to give it a whirl.]
"Alcoholism and drug addiction are curtailed at rates higher than those claimed by prevailing methods."
ReplyDeleteBullshit.
Oi. Someone had her Wheaties this morning.
ReplyDeleteI doubt there's a documented Pepsi vs Coke study out there, but based on anecdotal evidence, I'd say that's the case. 12-step programs have crazy recidivism, as far as I know.
And I am certain that drug-based treatment (take a pill to stop taking pills??) makes no sense to the mind or soul. Cleansing the body from within gets you in touch with your own behavior, around food or whatever your issue might be.
Not saying it's for you, Meggo.
I have nothing against cleanses -- in terms of anecdotal evidence, they seem to work wonders for people who believe they will work wonders, at least in the short-term. My guess is it's primarily psychological. But there's certainly nothing wrong with that. I embrace happily the placebo effect and love that my brain works the way it does in that regard. Brains are fucking awesome.
ReplyDeleteBut your information on 12-step programs is highly debatable (which is why there's still a lot of ongoing research being done about the efficacy of those programs -- I'd say the evidence at the moment is slightly more in favor of them being fairly effective, though), and your information on pharmacological therapy for addiction is flat-out false. You can find anecdotal evidence supporting just about any theory you want. When I look at the horizon, the world sure looks flat to me. This is why we do science.
From my perspective, actually, I don't see much of a difference between cleanses and 12-step programs. Which is why I NEARLY suggested that Lisa give it a try for her smoking. The goal is to refocus your cravings to a distraction, a goal, a plan. The primary difference I see there is duration. A cleanse can only be kept up for just so long before your body starts to die -- you can't live on that shit. A 12-step program is something you can theoretically ride out forever.
And pharmacological therapy for serious addiction? Saves lives. It may not make sense to your "soul," but it sure makes sense to your body. It gets people out. I not only read about it on a daily basis, I see it happen all the time. I've got science AND anecdote on that one, sir. I'm a huge HUGE advocate of harm reduction, and to me, that is harm reduction in the most literal sense.
p.s. Please. Cheerios. Don't you pay attention?
Perhaps I'm talking about abuse vs. flat-out addiction.
ReplyDeleteThere's a severed artery and there's a bad habit. I'm talking about the latter. In that case, healing comes from within. One isn't truly cured by pills for something we can cure ourselves, with a little guidance. One is cured when one finds a path to conquer what is wrong within and makes the decision to change it for good. The effect of healing the self is much more profound than relying on science (of course, only when science isn't necessary).
Problem is, that line has become blurred. People are told they can't do it, and they swallow it.
I firmly believe that we have become soft. That we have talked ourselves out of our own ability to heal ourselves. The old rant that it's easier to pop a pill than it is to face down your demons. What you dismiss as a psychological placebo effect is exactly my point--that's what we have talked into a corner for the sake of profit.
Whatever the case, humans have been fasting for thousands of years. Only recently have we begun engineering yet more chemicals, with side effects that sound worse than the diseases they attempt to cure.
When it comes to a truly serious injury, yes, to the doctor go! Although in too many cases, we're just dulling the edge of natural selection.