Shambhala: Greater Good or Greater God
I have been festivalling for a long time now and when I first heard that there was this festival on the west coast of Canada which was testing people’s drugs for them, it made all the hairs on my body stand up.
I completely understand the risks that music festivals face in terms of having drugs on site. In my early years, we would see festivals as the drug dealing olympics. The property owners must feel uneasy knowing that there is such a large amount of drugs on their property. In this retrospect, I strongly felt that Shambhala was pushing the envelope in terms of risk to the organizers. Not only are there drugs on site, but there is a central location where people are expected to bring their drugs and hand them over to another person to be “tested”. I was convinced it was a trick. I honestly believed that if someone brought their drugs to an advertised location, they would for sure be arrested.
But maybe I’m just sketchy.
To my surprise, it was not the police. It was not an undercover sting to bust all pacifier sucking ravers that were naive enough to hand their drugs over to someone with authority. Hell, it wasnt even security guards or festival organizers set out to discredit other drugs in an effort to promote their own. It was simply a group of genuine people who care about the well being of others.
Bewildered by this concept at the time, when I went around asking about why a music festival would publicly allow such a thing to happen at their festival. I found out that not only does Shambhala allow it, they actually donate to the group which administers the testing (ANKORS) and actively promote it. On my long time journey to find out why they are willing to accept these risk, all answers I recieved pointed to the same conclusion: Shambhala genuinely cares about the greater good.
This is one of the first time I seen such a large organization appear to be motivated by more than the almighty dollar. I have literally spent my entire life studying the behaviour of organizations so I found it very difficult to realize that maybe some of them are not financially motivated.
Shambhala appears to just do whatever it wants in the face of an outside world motivated by money, power and politics. Since then, other festivals and organizations have noticed and begun to copy such initiatives.
It is difficult these days to find a festival which DOESN’T promote harm reduction in some way. Even the smallest festivals we have been to this year now have sanctuary areas, trained medical personnel on standby and drug testing areas. So long are the days where your festival is run by some sketchbag pushing dirty ecstasy pills. RIP Orange Guns
Now that Shambhala has helped pave the way for festivals worldwide to be more responsible and caring for their attendees, they have decided to push it a little further.
Out comes the Shambhala Greater Good Contest.
This contest gives festival-goers something new to think about.
The purpose of this contest is to have festival-goers showcase the good that they are doing not only for their community at the festival, but also for their local community and worldwide community.
In festival culture, nearly everything is perfect. Everybody loves each other and are full of happy, positive attitudes. You are happy to spend your entire day to help a complete stranger set up their tent or find their friends and everywhere you go, you are greeted with smiles and hugs.
Shambhala created this contest and then all of a sudden we as festival goers start thinking.. “How can I spread this positivity to the outside world?”
Through my 16 years of being engrossed into festival culture nearly full time, combined with my life changing experience of overdosing and finding a new purpose in life, this contest struck me extremely deep. It really got me thinking about how I am helping the world and how can I do it on a much bigger scale.
If you win one of the top 3 spots in the contest, you win money that will go towards a registered charity of your choice. Even as a social warrior striving to do all things good, I knew nothing about the registered charity landscape.
Upon my research I was quite surprised. Many of them were set up like shady mlm websites where it is literally a 1 page click funnel convincing you to put in your credit card number. Nothing about where they operate from, what they do, how to contact them. Just give us your money and leave.
Since I went through my near death experience, nearly 3 years ago, I have 100% completely dedicated my life to helping others. Everything I do (and I mean EVERYTHING) is predicated on the mission to help others and specifically those suffering with addiction and fellow festival people like myself. I do this by showing others, who are hooked on the seratonin rush of happiness and excitement, that you can achieve the same happiness and excitement without drugs. I do it every day.
I would like to help non-raver, non-addicts as well but I decided to choose to help the people which I can relate to best. I want to be the example of someone who can still have all of the fun and do it without drugs.
When I was using, I always wanted to have all of the fun and I was convinced that in order to do that, I needed to do all of the drugs.
If I even knew someone that could do it without drugs, maybe I wouldnt have fallen such a victim of the drugs. Maybe if we found someone like this earlier, I wouldnt have lost so many of my friends to addiction, depression and suicide.
…
Back to the contest, so it really made me try and think about how to explain to someone what I do. Basically, I provide the example of someone who quit drugs but still wins the rave every single time (in terms of most fun had.)
I finished my first book on this journey called “How To Quit Drugs: How I Survived 1000 Days Without Drugs and Learned to Enjoy Life.” The book basically outlines the tips which I found most useful in staying clean over my first 1000 days. I give these books away to free as much as I can. Literally if you want one for yourself or someone you know, send me a message and I will buy you one, send it to you and I will even pay for the shipping.
Again, it goes back to my main purpose in life. If I can help someone somehow, especially someone with addiction issues and especially especially they are a raver like me, I will do whatever I can to help them.
I know that they need to see the example and need to know the tips more than anyone, even if they don’t know it yet.
When I say I give them away, that is an understatement. I have people ask me if I am making money off the books. I want to confirm, I definitely am not. The way it works is that off of every book I sell on Amazon, in theory I get 3–4$. I get a cheque mailed to me once I reach 100$ in earnings. (I still never got a cheque) hahaha
Also, I spent nearly $35,000.00 of my own money on facebook ads, books to give away, & other promotions and did it all with my own money. I have bought very expensive festival tickets with my own money and have given them away for free to people for helping me spread my message.
I work a full time job and dedicate every dime I make and every hour I have to this mission of helping people through my Festival Addict brand, you can find our facebook here. We do try and sell our books and clothing, but do so with the full intent on having our message spread to the people who need it most.
I continue to spend money on ads every single day to promote my cause. I am sure a lot of you think I am crazy (I know my parents do) but I promise you, even though I am not making any money off of this stuff, I am fulfilling my life’s purpose. Every week I have numerous people messaging me and letting me know about how I am helping them, their families, children, boyfriend, girlfriend and that is honestly the only thing that matters.
Even just being there to talk to a complete stranger about their day. I do it constantly and it brings me all of the joy. As an addict myself as well, I need connection and other people to keep me clean just as much as anybody else needs me. Isolation only works to get clean in the very short term, but long-term you need a network of good-influence friends to stay clean.
I remember spending years going to festivals with the sole intent to have the best ever time ever, do far too many drugs so that I would just die happy while I was there. Especially the Sunday, I would do triple or quadruple whatever I did the other days only to find myself to be the last one in the field and honestly disappointed that I am still alive and have to go back to “real life.”
Now that I have dedicated my life to helping the younger, still wrecked version of me, I go searching for a registered charity to donate the prize money from this Shambhala contest to. I am honestly looking for the space that would have helped me or the people I care about before we died from this disease of addiction.
After hours of searching the internet on numerous different occasions, I cannot find ANY charities in Canada that are doing anything even close to the objectives I have. I want a charity that shows people how to enjoy life clean and sober. The biggest issue I had getting off drugs, was I didnt know how to enjoy life clean. Anybody can quit doing drugs. The problem is life without them is fucking brutal if you don’t know how to enjoy it.
I did find some charities that do things similar to this, but they were all strictly focused on the United States or the United Kingdom. I messaged them looking for information but it really made me realize the need for something like this in Canada. Especially with our tragic epidemic of deaths from fentanyl, there has never been a bigger need for these services in this country.
Therefore I have decided to start my own charity, with the sole purpose of teaching addicts how to enjoy life free of drugs and alcohol. We will do this by things like sober events, festival camps, networking (social & in person) and general outreach support.
I never would have come this far without Shambhala & their Greater Good Contest.
Again, Shambhala is continuing to change my life for the better.
We will be celebrating my 3 years clean at Shambhala’s Camp Clean Beats on August 12th, 2017 at 5pm after a 4pm addiction support meeting. Event details can be found here: Saturday Cake Day: Festival Addict’s 3 Years Clean
We will also be having a Unicorn Dance Party on August 13th which currently has over 600 people interested, with 200 of them as confirmed guests. Keep an eye out around Shambhala for 200 unicorns dancing from stage to stage starting at 7pm for Mat The Alien’s set at the new Pagoda Stage. Event details can be found here: Unicorn Pagoda Dance Party.
With events like these and promoting our own clean & sober camp similar to Shambhala’s Camp Clean Beats but at festivals all over the world, our Festival Addict Charity, will promote the practice of learning to enjoy life clean and sober around the world. We are essentially already doing it but to date, we are doing it with the financial backing of just one person, me. Through starting a charity, we hope to someday increase these efforts greatly and help more people than I ever could have imagined.
If you are looking for someone with a similar vision, you can check out Natural High which is based out of the United States and aims to “inspire & empower youth to find their natural high and develop the skills & courage to live life well.”
I am looking to do the same thing but for addicts. I have been thinking about starting this charity for nearly 3 years but through creating this “Greater Good” contest, Shambhala has given me the kick I need to put it in motion.
I vow by next year’s Shambhala to have the Charity registered, set up and changing lives. If I do win any of the prizes in this “Greater Good” contest, I would love for that to be our first donation. If Shambhala needs a charity named before we are set up, then I will happily hand over the donation to Natural High as I truly believe that they are doing good work.
I know you cannot start a charity overnight as I have done many hours of research into it a couple of years ago, as I was looking into ways of gaining support for (non-institutional) small option homes for adults with severe disabilities like my brother Kyle. I also know however, when you are truly determined to do something, you can accomplish the world.
So, watch out world, here we come!
If you want more information on Shambhala’s Greater Good Contest, you can check it out by clicking here: http://shambhalamusicfestival.com/greater-good-contest/
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❤
PLUR!
-Stanley Arthur
