Yes you can use hibernate without Spring.
However, it's a lot less fun. Spring automatically handles a lot of grunt work for you, including making sure that things are cleaned up properly. It helps with transaction control and normalizes error exceptions. Plus it makes code reuse and
testing easier, since you can wire in alternate modules without having to change program code.
The core Spring and even Spring/JPA aren't that resource hungry, and they offer a lot for what they demand of you.
The secret of how to be miserable is to constantly expect things are going to happen the way that they are "supposed" to happen.
You can have faith, which carries the understanding that you may be disappointed. Then there's being a willfully-blind idiot, which virtually guarantees it.