Let me ask you a question – would you go to any dentist in any town for your routine check-up? Are you happy to go to any hairdresser who has an appointment? The answer will be no! – we do business with those we like, know and trust!
As customers we want to know if we can ‘like, know and trust’ the companies we buy from, so in this series we ask the person behind some of my favourite natural and organic companies to step out into the spotlight.
It’s the turn of Jo De Rosa from Quantum Sobriety
Tell us about yourself and your company…
For my whole adult life I was addicted to something, and in my mid 20s began searching for how to unlock the potential I knew was within me. First I tackled cigarettes, then cocaine, codeine, alcohol, sugar and lastly food. The 12 step programme didn’t resonate; I didn’t want to continue to give my power away, for I instinctively knew that to find freedom I needed to learn how to take my power back.
In the late 90s I began to do and then teach yoga and meditation, discovering how to connect with first my physical body in the postures, and then my mind and emotions in meditation. Slowly the addictive urge began to ease, and this non-academic educated herself about neuroplasticity and quantum physics. Then in 2012 I took my last drink and realised that something quite spectacular had occurred; I didn’t miss drinking.
What was happening to me was uncharted, nobody was talking about how easy it could be for all the conversation seemed to be around how the addict struggled for the rest of their lives. I realised that I needed to share this ground-breaking attitude that had worked so well for me, so that others could experience freedom in sobriety.
How did you get started?
In 2013, and only ten months into sobriety, my husband and I opened a retreat centre in Suffolk. We offer many different types of retreats and early on I knew I wanted to deliver an intense residential experience for people to actually ‘live’ my reality of freedom, in my home, for themselves. The Quantum Sobriety five-day retreat has now been running for five years and supported countless people through the programme.
It was obvious right from the start that there was a big gap, for many people globally wanted to access the approach, but were not able to get to the UK for a retreat. I began writing the Online Programme based upon the success of the retreat, with it being launched on 1st February 2016. We’ve had over 200 people join with some staying for its duration (in total it’s a three-year course), and others leaving once they have found freedom from the substance they joined for. I send guided meditations (a new one every two weeks in the first year) that are recorded specifically for addiction, and are where I guide the client deep within their own subconscious mind.
The book being published mid-2017 has been the icing on the cake; now we have an extremely inexpensive entry point to this method. I’ve included the whole content of the first year of the Online Programme in it, and if the reader likes what they learn then they can join the community and dive even deeper into the process of self-discovery.
In years two and three of the Online Programme the course is less about substances, and more about finding out who you really are underneath them. I call the course at this point a ‘School Of Life’, with self-realisation the theme as I do not believe that addicts are weak; I believe them to be the strongest amongst us. Just think about a professional athlete or musician; they must be obsessive about their practice to be the absolute best. The addict, once they heal the urge to self-harm, has an opportunity to use their inherent ‘addictive’ drive to do good in this world. Quantum Sobriety guides them to do this; which is exactly what I have done with my own deep driving desire to pass on all that I have learnt about freedom.
What were you doing in a previous life?
As a non-academic I left school at 16 and got a job in a department store in central London, so that I had money to pursue the party scene and have ‘fun’. I had a mortgage aged 20, worked for 12 years in Oxford Street, and developed a nasty cocaine habit.
In 2000 I sold my flat, made a lot of money, and ran away from my problems landing in idillyc Koh Samui, Thailand. I trained to be a yoga teacher and opened a shop selling all things natural; linen clothes, hemp flip-flops, and crystal jewellery. I taught yoga on the roof of my shop overlooking Koh Phang-gan, where the Full Moon parties are held, and life was hedonistic.
Until it wasn’t. I sold my business in 2004 and managed to spend all of the profit on drugs and partying, and I was desperately unhappy. It was time to come home in 2006 and this is when my drinking got seriously out of hand; I had swapped one substance for another, without dealing with the wound that was beneath it all, and so the cycle began again in the UK.
Why natural / organic / sustainable / holistic?
The 12-step programme doesn’t work for everyone with many of my clients ‘finding’ Quantum Sobriety after everything else seemed to have failed.
What’s your USP? What sets you apart from your competitors?
We offer a new, positive, holistic approach and aim to change the conversation around addiction. Who you used to be should not define you and hold you back forever, we believe in empowering the individual to step off the merry-go-round for good and into their exciting sober future.
What kind of feedback you have received from clients?
The QS testimonials page is here: https://quantumsobriety.com/qs-testimonials/
Check out the testimonials that are in the back of the book!. I add a daily quote from the private community each morning in my daily blog:
What’s the next big launch / project coming up for you?
- Go Sober For October / Dry January
- Get more people engaged in the programme leading up to Christmas
- New Year New You
What’s your big dream?
For Quantum Sobriety to be an established alternative to the 12-step programme, with meetings and meditation groups all over the world, and for us to be household name.
I’d also really like to get some high profile people through the programme, to enable QS to become a natural option for people who are struggling with addiction.