Hello once again community friends,

I have a particular query that i was hoping some of you may have some experience and advice that could be passed my way.  One of my best friends is currently going through a very rough period in his life.  I believe that he is suffering from severe depression and has been this way for quite a while.  He is showing all the tell tail signs of depression, very intreverted, very highly strung and suffers from extreme mood swings.  I believe that he recognises that all is not well but is refusing to share his thoughts and feelings with anyone.  To make matters worse he has counteracted his depressed feelings by becoming addicted to smoking pot.  He holes himself in his room for hours on end and this has become his entire life outside of going to work.  Several people have attempted to interveine and point him in the direction of seeking professional help but he refuses to listen.  Personally i have only been using EFT for the past few months and have already seen huge improvements in my personal life.  Having regularly visited this site i have read some articles on surrogate EFT.  Would this work on my friends situation?.  I would be grateful if someone would help me to help him.  He is an extremly bright, funny person who is being destroyed by inner turmoil.  If this downturn continues, i really do fear for his future.  Knowning him as I do, there is no possible way he would be receptive of learning EFT himself, so I'm afraid the surrogate method is the only one suitable for his circumstances

Hope someone can help

Michael

you could tap on yourself for whatever's blocking you emotionally or practically from being able to approach him. You could tap on helping yourself to try to find information from people who've been in a similar situation to you - what did they do to help the people they love?

you could tap on your frustrations at not being able to reach him and your sadness with how he is ruining his life, and how upsetting you find this and other aspects of his/your problem. perhaps this will help you understand him better and you will be able to approach him. or find someone else to approach him or help him find some other form of self-help or preferably professional help - it really does not need to be EFT. as you can see, being alone can make a bad situation worse, although some would believe it helps you get to rock bottom - and upwards - faster. you might find a way to help him express himself because expressed thoughts that don't make sense tend to help a person to move closer to the real truth. He is lucky to have a friend like you. I don't have so much experience with surrogate tapping, but you might want to ask him if he agrees that you tap for him.

 Surrogate tapping for addictions seems to take some time to kick in. My own experience is that I and another EFt friend have been tapping surrogately for smokers in our lives to quit , for just the reasons you state in your own smoker's life, and neither have yet quit.

However, a friend's husband who had had surrogate work done on him, once he decided to quit, found it very easy. He even carried around a pack of cigarettes in his pocket and when offered a smoke would reply, pointing to his pack, I can smoke one whenever I want.

I think what happens with smokers is that they have tried to quit so many times and found it so difficult that they just give up.  I think its  the Canadian Cancer Society that says,"Quit early and quit often" (It might be the Lung Association or the Heart and Stroke foundation)

Somebody famous once said,"Quitting Smoking is easy, I've done it a thousand times. "

Anyway, my feeling is that your surrogate EFT work will not be wasted, but it may take awhile to actually 'work' .

Mildred