Finally free from drugs!

Photo: Hans-Erik Dyvik Husby, lead vocalist from the band Turboneger has his first reading rehearsal in the role as Jesus Christ Superstar. This musical was set up at The Norwegian Theatre in Oslo autumn 2009. Photo: Cornelius Poppe / SCANPIX

Many were taken aback when media reported that Hank von Helvete (Hank von Hell), lead vocalist in Turboneger, was going to play the lead in the musical Jesus Christ Super Star. Not only that he was going to play Jesus, but that he stood forth and told that he had quit drugs and considered himself as a Christian.

 These days he is into another adventure in a film about the artist Cornelis Vreesvijk, in which he is playing the lead. I contacted Hans-Erik, which is his real names, and he was not at all unwilling to have a talk. We had agreed to meet in the bistro of the Norwegian Theatre. He arrives on time, sits down and asks if I would like a cup of coffee. He seems not to be vain at all, and despite his success he has no side about him.

Is it really true that you have quit all kind of dope, including methadone? I ask.

Hans-Erik confirms and underlines, saying: - I have not only quit with all the crap I used to take before – heroine, methadone, Subutex, cocaine, to mention some, but I am no longer a drug addict. I was a drug addict, but I am not any more! It is urgent for me to emphasize that, because our acts are closely related to our identities. To continue to look upon oneself as a drug addict or an alcoholic is to drag a case history along, on something that primarily is really more about ethics.

The Narconon-program

Hans-Erik goes on to tell about the program at the Narconon- clinic in Eslöv, where he got help to quit his substance abuse. First step is to get rid of all traces of drugs in the body.

 – I was on Subutex, so I had to de-escalate. At the same time that I gradually reduced the dose from 20 milligram of Subutex, I got quite big doses with vitamins, calcium and magnesium. In this first phase you go through some communication exercises called assists. Trained people follow you and communicate with you. Then begins a course in confrontations called training routines. You train on how to confront the life and this goes on for a month. You learn to look someone in the eye and just to remain present, to be where your body is, and not always be absent minded in other places and think about problems and difficulties. It is about sitting on a chair opposite another person for two hours, facing this person, seeing him in the eye, in addition to other communication exercises. To me to learn this and to see that I was able to master it was a wild experience.

Then, after the confrontation comes the sauna cure, when you sit in the sauna for   four-five hours a day. They give you a special B-vitamin called Niacin, which squeezes poison stored in your fatty cell tissue out. Not only narcotics, but also environmental poison and medicines are being sweated out. It is a spiritual cleansing just to be in a place where you feel that your body is being washed inwardly. The cure lasts until you obtain a state of clean feeling and awareness. I sat for 16 days, others do it for 30 days, but this is very individual. The theory behind it is, that if you have much poison in your fat cell tissue, and you burn all the time, the poison can be activated again. Even if you do not notice a flashback you could mentally become irrational again in a given situation. That is the reason why Narconon is very thorough on the cleaning of poisons.

After finishing the sauna cure you take another course called objectives. This is an exercise in objective thinking, to experience that you can be in control. You define what control is and what it means to give away control and take back control. This is some mental drill where you can walk out of your own point of view and life, or walk out of yourself and in a way see yourself and your opponent from the outside. This exercise is really about how to think objectively and not only subjectively.

Next course is about how to deal with ethics – handling ethics. Then you have increased your “confront”, you are clean in the body, and you are able to think objectively.

Are you being confronted with bad attitudes and behavior? If you have a very bad temper often hurting the people around you, how do you clear up the mess, in relationship to yourself and the ones you caused hurt?

You receive help by a person who is trained to deal with this. He helps you to look back on things that happened and to increase your confront and your ability to think objectively. You scrutinize the exact happening, the place, the time and what it was all about, including the consequences it caused. Then you put it down in writing.

So this is really about admission and acknowledgement?

 – Yes, a total acknowledgement, and it is very productive. You go through transgressions done against yourself, and by yourself, and manage to reconcile with them, so you do not ponder too deeply on it, it disappears and it is gone. You are being trained in life’s ups and downs.

Is there something in the Narconon-program equal to forgiveness of sins and repentance?

 – I seldom use the expression sin, but in the Narconon-program it is called overts and withholds.

A breach on an ethical moral code is called a transgression, or an overt (overtredelse in Norwegian). If you hold back and try to conceal a transgression, it is called withhold in English. The reason why we try to avoid the expression sin, is that several negative feelings are attached to sin, reinforcing the bad effect of sin: remorse, shame, guilt and similar emotions related to the persons bad behavior, which pursues the bad effect of the act. I therefore recommend admission and increased responsibility to be the way we should follow. I have done many bad things, but I am a good person, so I believe I both can and will want to do good things from now on. This is the thesis. Have no regrets about yesterday, life is to be taken now, and tomorrow you will have to create yourself. This will never work out if you hide your transgressions. 

To come out of a transgression another person must read what you wrote. The only feedback you receive is that the person actually confirms that he has read it, understood and acknowledged it. Evaluation is not needed. Nobody sits there and says: “I can see that you have been a bloody fool” or “wow, this is the worst I have ever read.” He just confirms, “Ok, I understood, this is what you experienced as a transgression”. Then we are through with it. Those who have taken part in this say that it does not hunt them anymore. You get well - acquainted with it. You are able to face the truth about yourself. So, Narconon is actually a program based on ethics. Internationally 80% of those who completed the program are still substance free and that is a quite high number.

What is the connection between Narconon and the founder of the church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard?

 – Church of Scientology allows Narconon to use the courses in order to get people free from drugs. You do not become a scientologist by attending Narconon you become drug free. In Sweden it is people from probation, social services, NGO’s and people from all kind of religions and philosophies of life. It is across party lines and interreligious just aiming to help people to get free from drugs. If somebody wants to become Scientologist they should go to a church of Scientology and not to a Narconon center. Ron L. Hubbard did research and worked a lot to see the effect of drugs on man, and he found a method to get people drug free, and it works.

How long did you use drugs?

 –  I started 24 years ago. The last 12 years I was on morphine for four years, then methadone for four years until this became too heavy. Then I got Subutex for four years, something that was less heavy.

So this went on for 12 years while you were one of the most famous artists of Europe and had a huge career, which you in that respect still have today. Isn’t that quite impressive?

 – Yes, it sure is. I have to admit that I threw into a little extra gear to make it through. I had to become more aware as I was extremely inhibited by these drugs, so I also took cocaine and amphetamines together with the other drugs, no matter. It was mostly cocaine. Sometimes I was on happy pill cures and then everything got worse, I was really “troubled”. It was antidepressant drugs like cipralex, remeron and sometimes antipsychotics like trilafon.

As far as I remember you had at least some positive comments on methadone during this period? Do you remember what you used to say?

 – It helped me to stay away from buying heroine in the street, but when I look back I have to realize that I was a little bit too enthusiastic and made a lot of mistakes in what I was saying.

Did LAR (medical assisted treatment/ rehabilitation) encourage and support you in any way to quit with Methadone?

- No, they told that they had bad experiences with people who stopped medical assisted treatment so they did not recommend me to. They asked me to reconsider and postpone it. When I yet took the decision my consultant supported me and co-operated. However, all the time they underlined that I was heartily welcome back. Nobody told me “you will make it and do fine, you can do this if this is really what you want to do”. Nobody supported me like this.

Turboneger

Photo: Hank von Helvete in Turboneger on stage during a VG LISTA TOP20 show year 2007, in City Council Hall square in Oslo. Photo: Kyrre Lien / SCANPIX.

Turboneger (Turbonegro) and Hank von Helvete (Hell), how on earth did you come up with such a name? You are not allowed to even say “negro” in Norway. How did people react?

– This was an artist name and we used it to quite simply be provocative. We got no negative responses from black people. In fact our fans come from all colors and people groups, but the name gives an idea on what we tried to be, a little bit incorrect quite simply, try to show that moralism and morals is not the same.

”The Hank von Hell thing” was an image, and even I used whatever that came in my way, but I was never an advocate for drugs. Our songs were about people who did bad things and what bad things could lead to. If you are sniffing glue in school your next stop will be hell. This is what our songs were all about, really, but we were singing it in a very provocative and antagonistic way. We never tried to be a message for drugs and addiction, but we had problems in the band. After all I was the only believer in the band.

Values, ethics and morals

You speak about values and about recognizing your ”transgressions”. How has this changed in your life when it comes to values?

- Ethics and morals deal first and foremost about how to become a happier human being. For every unethical and immoral act, for every sin or transgression, you cause pain. It is just as simple as that. It is not really about guilt and shame, but if we want to have the biggest possible measure of happiness and the least possible measure of pain in our lives. Survival was an ideal for me, and something I longed for, but did not have. Finally I realized that survival is an act you do. I hade an unrealistic hope that something outside myself was going to save me. That was the biggest misunderstanding. God should intervene and pull me out of the problems. My understanding of God now is that it is expected that I have to do it myself, and this will cause me to grow. Survival is a series of acts, and if you do not make a series of survival acts, then you will only make a series of acts of death.

So now you have chosen the life?

– Yes! I realized that power and possibilities have been given to me, so that I can move life in the direction I want to. I can create the life, and if I do not create my life, then I will be crated by the life outside myself. People who say that there is no God, that everything is by accident, and that we are not spiritual creatures but animals, they make mistakes. Jesus says if what he says is not true and that there is no life after death, then let us sit down to eat and drink, because tomorrow we will die.

What can you say about Jesus?

 – Jesus is to me the most outstanding example on how to live life. You can be so completely willing to stand for what is right that you give up your own body. Then you will have power and possibility to even take back your own body. The intention about living for what is right and ethically, that is from God; it is so uncompromised and so filled with integrity that you are even willing to be crucified. .

You carry a cross around your neck. What does this symbolize to you?

- The death of Jesus on the cross is a reminder to me about God’s greatness. God shows greatness and forgives us, and this is demonstrated in the crucifixion. I believe that Jesus died for our sins, and I believe in the invalidity of death in the resurrection, says Hans-Erik. He emphasizes that this does not mean that those who have heard about Jesus are the only ones who can be forgiven by God. He believes that everyone who has a realization of their need for mercy, whether they have learnt the biblical terminology or not, will receive God’s forgiveness.

Photo: Hans-Erik as artist in a music video recorded for the city mission Kirkens Bymisjon. The song ”Rom for alle” (Room for everyone) that he recorded together with Maria Solheim is a strong song about daring to meet the eye of our fellow human beings struggling with their life. Solheim and Husby (as Mary and ”Jesus”) recorded the song in October-09 in the shopping center Paleet in Oslo. Maria and Hans-Erik were street singers – to challenge prejudices and underline that society should have room for everyone.