Family is the basis for substance use prevention, says Fr. Hans Stapel

During the 6th Freemind International Congress, held in December 2019 in the city of Águas de Lindóia/SP, Friar Hans Stapel – Founder of Fazenda da Esperança and Consultant of the Pontifical Council for the Laity –  shared with the congressmen his life experience and the importance of the family in his education and also spoke a little about his work in the recovery of drug users:

The older I get, the more I see the importance of family. I remember my very poor childhood in post-war Germany and one day I wanted to have an ice cream with my friends in a newly opened Italian ice cream parlor. My mom didn't have the money to give us, so all my friends had the ice cream and I didn't.

 That day I learned an important lesson: you can't have everything you want.

You need to have a clarity in the family: if you don't have it, you don't have it!  and not to lend or go into debt to give what you can't to your children.

On another occasion, my twin brother and I wanted to go to a camp and my mother wouldn't let us because we had the flu. So, we decided to ask our father's permission. And we went.

He answered us, we explained what he would have and what we wanted to go to and he asked us: "Have you talked to your mother? What did she say?"   We told her she hadn't let me.

They pulled our ears and said, "Don't ever try to divide mom and dad again!" Then I understood that the two are one. How important that was! To this day I value this unity of my parents.

They don't have to be perfect parents, but they do need to love each other and be united.

Another scene that was pivotal for me was in the Advent season. We would gather at home, me, my brothers, Mom and Dad, we would sing and talk about the coming of Jesus. At one point, I hugged my mother and said, "Mom, how nice it would be if there wasn't death. We could always be together." She looked at me and said, "You're a big egotist, you only think about yourself... Without death I could never find my parents and so many others who are gone."

I was little, but at that moment I understood that that desire for unity is not possible by thinking only from birth to death. You need to open your eyes beyond life and know that death is part of life.

And here I confess: many attitudes that we are witnessing in the country: corruption and everything else bad that we see... It seems that there is a lack of this vision that here everything passes, that there is a life after death and that we need to prepare ourselves, because the fact of death changes everything.

He who is very important today will be after death will no longer be so. This look at the other, looking at the afterlife, was fundamental in the education I received from my parents.

When I arrived in Brazil, I went to work with drug addicts. No experience, no study, no titles. But he had a desire to love his neighbor. I remember the first ones who arrived and asked for help, I welcomed them into my home and listened... I listened into the night and saw that behind the drugged house, there is a cry of love.

Since I didn't have much study of psychology and medicine, I thought: what can I give them if they haven't received love?

Today 70% of our parents are separated, the absence of the father, the absence of the mother, many are rejected, adopted, 50% were sexually abused in their childhood, within the family cycle...

I thought: what can heal these young people? Only love. And where do we find this true, pure love, which is not a feeling? There are parents who give everything to their children, thinking that this is how they are loving...

What is the criterion for being able to say: this is true love? I learned in Germany that Jesus is the teacher and the teacher who teaches us to love. And  how do I know if I'm loving or if I'm just sympathetic? To love everyone, to love always and not only when you feel like it, to love for the first and, the most difficult thing, to love your enemies.

To love our enemies is to do good to those who wish us harm. Jesus became a Eucharist to teach us to love and enable us to forgive. You weren't born to be a victim forever.

Today I argue: we need the help of psychology, medicine, but first of all, we need to learn to love. Because love heals! 

Love takes us back to where we came from: we were all meant to love and at a certain point we break away from love. We made a different choice and there began a path that leads us to loneliness.

How many offers the world has for our young people. Little is said about loving. Little is said about a spirituality. Everyone is born to love, regardless of religion.

But everyone needs to learn to truly love. That is why I always argue that in order to recover our youth, we need a new culture: the culture of giving, the culture of listening, of thinking of the other and of making the other happy, because then I will be happy.

Now, of course, it is not enough just to live and recover young people. It needs to involve families, and sometimes families also have great wounds.

Parents were also hurt and often did not receive love. And so history repeats itself. Every month we have meetings with parents. And when the child finishes his recovery, they continue in the groups called Esperança Viva. They continue in the recovery groups with their families, to help others together.

Those who think of the other stand firm and do not fall. This work with parents is very important. In my land there are some laws in recent years that I liked a lot. My niece became pregnant and during this period she does not have to work and for 2 years after giving birth she can be a mother, breastfeed and take care of the child. All this while receiving the salary. Then she came back and got pregnant again 3 more times...

But one might say that this is costly for the state...

No, it's cheaper than having children who are sick, who aren't happy, who can't cope with a difficulty, who are going to have problems with alcohol and drugs, who are going to kill themselves...

Why? Because there is a lack of basic trust in a person who is the mother. If the child is breastfed from an early age, how much good does this do for health. If the child receives this affection and security and then the affection of the father, he will make a difference in society. This is much more economical than the mother having to work, work, work...

If we want to recover, we need to go back to where we are. We were born to love. Happiness is in the other and not in selfishness.

Here in Brazil, we need a lot of spirituality. We need to learn to live the gospel.

In our therapy, we have 3 points: community life (we feel the need for young people to be the family they often did not have. We don't have many TVs or cell phones, so they have time to talk to each other.

Then there's the work. Not as therapy, but as production, to maintain oneself. If they can't support themselves while they're with us, how can they stay in society, get married, and have children? They need to learn a certain discipline, to obey, to have order, to do it with love and commitment.

We involve parents, who don't pay anything, but we ask parents to sell a basket of the products their children are producing. The parents, when selling the products, talk about their children and that they are recovering on the farm.

This also helps parents: talk about it and don't hide it. Selling the baskets has nothing to do with money: pedagogy of involving parents, going out of oneself and loving concretely. We must stop this welfare paternalism that spoils the other. The other is fulfilled, if he loves.

And the third point is spirituality. The authorities want us to change that, but we're not going to change anything, because it works. I believe that love conquers all!

To access Fr. Hans' lecture in full, access the Freemind Spirit's YouTube. There you will find all the lectures of the 6th Freemind International Congress.