The Tao of Addiction Recovery: The Drunken Buddha Principles
Addiction recovery is undergoing a revolution.
Here are the principles that underpin the Drunken Buddha approach!
Big, hairy newsflash: there is nothing wrong with you!
We live in a world that so often doesn’t meet our human needs. So you’re in pain and your body is finding ways to prevent you from being overwhelmed by that pain.
If we ignore the pain that’s driving us, then our addictions will just shape-shift.
And we’ll still feel crap (even if sober). As addiction expert and all-round Truth Gangster Gabor Mate likes to say: “We don’t ask why the addiction, but why the pain.”
When you want relief, it’s ALWAYS from some feeling or other in the body.
The body never lies. If you see your body moving towards relief of some kind (alcohol, Netflix, approval, sex, radical political ideologies, whatever) there’s something in the body that is looking to be soothed.
No judgement. Let it be. Just notice.
Most of the ways in which we suffer are either below the level of our
awareness or just so normal for us that we simply don’t notice them.
But they are still unconsciously driving our behaviour. And our mind is constantly spinning lies about it to keep what it sees as protective mechanisms in play.
Skill is required to bring them to the surface to be seen.
The mind is not the place to address these issues (despite what it might tell you!).
That’s not where the problem is.
Plus, mind-based strategies and rules (“shoulding” on yourself, berating yourself) tend to create more stress in the system.
For radical relief from addiction, we need to inquire with kindness
and compassion into the trauma, shame and pain in the body.
Feel it to heal it.
For radical relief, nothing less will do.
My meditation teacher said to me: “letting go is a welcoming”.
Most of us spend our lives trying to manipulate our experience.
Bit by bit we welcome those stories and feelings we strive to push away.
No one is ‘sober’, really.
Everyone uses something to deal with the pain inherent in life.
So why shame or judge? They only add more fuel to the fire.
