Those cases which have been long and habitually on drugs and alcohol sometimes suffer from a “SOMATIC SHUT-OFF”. They appear anaesthetized (unfeeling) and sometimes have “nothing troubling them” whereas they are on drugs, drink and are in reality in a suppressed physical condition and cannot cease to take drugs or drink.

One can find, in such a case, a very high TA which doesn’t seem to reduce. The TA can be brought down by auditing the drug and alcohol engrams as a chain.

However, there is another approach.

Any such case took up drugs or alcohol because of unwanted pain or sensation or misemotion. You can use that as a stable datum which resolves the situation.

All it requires is a special assessment called a PRIOR ASSESSMENT. For the person looked on drugs or alcohol as a cure for unwanted feelings. One has to assess what was wrong before or prior to the cure.

You determine if the person is on drugs or alcohol habitually. If so you determine which was earlier.

Now you ask for and list the pains, sensations, emotions or feelings he or she had before taking drugs or alcohol.

In doing this assessment, you must grab the read and mark it plainly as it occurs. If you just list and then go over the list the person may be back in present time and, as these are now cut off by the masses of drug or alcohol engrams on top of them, they won’t read again. So you must catch the read as the person first mentions it.

You choose the longest read and find and run the chain by R-3R as in any other Standard Dianetic auditing.

The only difference is the assessment time period. You are listing for a time before they went on drugs or alcohol.

The running out of the chain of unwanted feelings they had before going on drugs or alcohol removes the reason they started taking drugs, smoking marijuana or drinking. The compulsion to still use drugs or drink is lessened and they can come off it.

This can also be used as a working rule to get earlier than any “curative” activity. Almost anything which comes later is a cure for something earlier. It could be said that the present time being is a compound of past cures. To handle, the action would be the same as for drugs or alcohol. List the unwanted pains or feelings before the cure and run the longest reads by R-3R.

As there will be more than one chain involved, you of course take your next longest read and run that next, just as in any assessment.

The general term for this type of assessment is PRIOR Assessing, not because it is done before auditing but to determine what the pc was suffering from before he used a harmful “cure”.