HOW DOES MEDITATION HELP?
Both Zen and Vipassana traditions employ techniques such as ‘mindful awareness’ and ‘self inquiry.’ In this, meditators observe and analyse the workings of their own mind.
They are powerful tools for recovery, says Nicholson, who has integrated both methods into the Bay Approach, because they lead to personal insights about the source of cravings. That, in turn, helps to dissolve them.
“Mindful awareness is the process of watching the mind,” explains Nicholson, a psychologist and meditation teacher for over 20 years.
“You observe your thoughts and feelings, without becoming attached to them. From this perspective, you can begin to see the subtle patterns and habits around your addictive behaviour. When you are aware of how they influence you, they have less hold over you.
“Self Inquiry is a process of exploration into the truth,” she adds. “You determine to look honestly at your past and present, for example, the impact your behaviour has had or is having on you and those around you.”
In the Bay Approach, awareness and inquiry are used to help clients overcome addictive patterns. The method is effective because the emphasis is on self-reflection and analysis.
“Combined with psychotherapy, these meditative tools encourage people to take responsibility for themselves. In gaining their own awareness and insight, clients are often motivated to change for the better,” Nicholson explains.
Additional therapeutic benefits of meditation for addiction recovery – points out Kevin Griffin, author of One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps – is that, after some guided practice, the techniques can be applied by people on an ongoing basis in their lives. If practiced regularly, its effects are transformative and long lasting.
“Meditation can be applied to whatever you are doing, wherever you are,” says Griffin.
“In addiction, people turn to drugs to escape from uncomfortable feelings but in meditation, you learn to do the opposite. You sit with yourself, your thoughts and feelings instead of running away. At first, that can be very unpleasant. But with meditation you cultivate a positive relationship to yourself and the world,” he says.
“Only 20 minutes’ practice a day can shift your perspective on what is important. You develop compassion for yourself and a deeper connection. After a while, that is not something you want to let go of.”

STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO MEDITATIVE PRACTICES TO HELP FREE ADDICTION
Contact meditation – relating to the present…
People with addictive problems often loose their sense of self in relationship with others, – and even in relationship to themselves. Brendan Healy, addiction counsellor at The Bay, recommends this ‘contact meditation’ to help people come into the present and strengthen their sense of self.
What to do.
Sitting alone or with somebody, focus on the factual sensory information you are receiving from your environment, internally and externally, without interpreting them.
Start with external sounds, smells or tastes, and then move to your inner sensations. If you hear chirping, say “chirping” – deciding it is a bird song is an interpretation, and that would be a secondary step.
Internally, you might feel tension in your belly, or heat in your chest. Describe your feelings physically. Then notice if these physical sensations give rise to you labelling them with an emotion such as anxiety or anger.
If you are with somebody, start a dialogue describing what you sense and feel in the moment and in response to one another. In this way, you start developing a sense of how physical sensations lead to feelings and then emotional reactions. If you use this method as an exercise with a friend or partner, you can become more conscious of your reactions to others while staying present with how you feel.
Awareness meditation – for difficult emotions.
Nicholson recommends this awareness meditation to help stay with difficult emotions as they arise.
What to do.
Spend about 20-minutes daily sitting quietly with you. Watch your breath rise and fall. As you do so, notice the activity of your mind. Watch thoughts come and go. When you realize you have become lost in your thoughts, come back to your breath.
In this way, you can develop a sense of yourself that is not your thoughts or emotions. It is the ‘watcher’ or the awareness that notices emotions and thoughts come and go, like clouds. This awareness is steady and timeless and the more you cultivate it, the more you notice how feelings, desires and cravings come and go. Developing a strong sense of awareness can help you sit with difficult feelings without acting on them.
Loving kindness meditation – developing positive regard.
Loving-kindness is a Buddhist meditation practice that systematically develops the quality of loving acceptance towards the self and others. When practiced regularly, it can help free a troubled mind from pain and confusion and make everyday relationships more meaningful, explains Kevin Griffin.
What to do.
Sitting quietly for 20-30 minutes, begin by developing a loving acceptance of yourself. You might start by imagining a light filled with unconditional love filling your body. Another technique is to imagine inhaling positive light and exhaling dark clouds filled with negativity. Alternatively, think of all the times you felt loved or were appreciated by others.
After filling yourself with love, think of a beloved person in your life. Send love to them. Repeat this with a neutral person and then a hostile person. Finally, imagine sending your love to all your friends, family – and people you hardly know. If you have trouble feeling self-love at first, this is probably due to feelings of unworthiness. Stick at it. Even if you don’t feel it at first, with practice, it will develop.

Website Link: http://www.buddhistrecovery.org

Now the hard science has caught up: a comprehensive scientific study showing that deep relaxation changes our bodies on a genetic level has just been published.

What researchers at Harvard Medical School discovered is that, in long-term practitioners of relaxation methods such as yoga and meditation, far more ”disease-fighting genes” were active, compared to those who practiced no form of relaxation.

Immunity
Relaxation appears to boost immunity in recovering cancer patients. A study at the Ohio State University found that progressive muscular relaxation, when practiced daily, reduced the risk of breast cancer recurrence. In another study at Ohio State, a month of relaxation exercises boosted natural killer cells in the elderly, giving them a greater resistance to tumors and to viruses.

Blood pressure
A study at Harvard Medical School found that meditation lowered blood pressure by making the body less responsive to stress hormones, in a similar way to blood pressure-lowering medication. Meanwhile a British Medical Journal report found that patients trained how to relax had significantly lower blood pressure.

Inflammation
Stress leads to inflammation, a state linked to heart disease, arthritis, asthma and skin conditions such as psoriasis, say researchers at Emory University in the US. Relaxation can help prevent and treat such symptoms by switching off the stress response. In this way, one study at McGill University in Canada found that meditation clinically improved the symptoms of psoriasis.

Switch off stress
How can you use relaxation’s healing powers? Harvard researchers found that yoga; meditation and even repetitive prayer and mantras all induced the relaxation effect. ”The more regularly these techniques are practiced, the more deeply rooted the benefits will be,” Jake Toby says. Try one or more of these techniques for 15 minutes once or twice a day.

Body Scans: Starting with your head and working down to your arms and feet, notice how you feel in your body. Taking in your head and neck, simply notice if you feel tense, relaxed, calm or anxious. See how much you can spread any sensations of softness and relaxation to areas of your body that feel tense. Once your reach your feet, work back up your body.

Breath Focus: Sit comfortably. Tune into your breath, follow the sensation of inhaling from your nose to abdomen and out again. Let tension go with each exhalation. When you notice your mind wandering, return to your breath.

Sitting quietly with eyes closed for 15 minutes twice a day, and mentally repeating a simple word or sound such as Om can evoke mantra repetition the relaxation response.

Guided Imagery: Imagine a wonderfully relaxing light or a soothing waterfall washing away tension from your body and mind. Make your image vivid, imagining texture, color and any fragrance as the image washes over you.

Website Link: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/relax–its-good-for-you-20090819-eqlo.html

We drove through the most beautiful pine-covered wilderness I have ever seen to meet with elders and attend other small meetings and ceremonies and walk through sacred burial grounds. I was introduced to the backcountry of some members of my extended family. The land was wealthy with the powerful medicine of the First Nations here. I was humbled and more honored that anyone deserves to be honored. I was taken to the Abiinooji Aki Cultural Healing Center, where ancient ceremonial lodges were guarded by a fine stand of Ponderosa pine, as though the trees were the ancestral centennials, guardians of the old ways and language of the people.

We hiked miles through thigh-deep, damp light green fern in a thickly forested unmarked pathway to the burial sites of generations of Tribal medicine people. Even in physical death, their love and prayers permeated deep into my living soul and I surrendered to this precious and powerful moment in time. I was grateful for every surrender during the years of my recovery from alcohol and drug addiction that carried me to this extraordinary series of events. Every time we got back in the car we headed northwards to reach our final destination along a snaking route past the Great Lakes that looked more like the shorelines of an ocean with beaches containing the tallest pines in the entire world. I was completely enraptured by the endless wilderness around me. The small Canadian reserve was near the shoreline and across the huge body of water before me was the home of my family’s ancestral matriarchal clan. I completed my committed obligation to the local Tribe during the morning hours of my second day at the reserve. We were gathered in the Tribal hall and a buffet of salmon, cream cheese, and other native delicacies awaited my hungry indulgence. As I took a plate to fill, the hand of another woman, who asked me to please wait before eating and come with her, covered my hand. Again I surrendered…reluctantly I surrendered.

I cannot relate the details of the next few hours without dishonoring the sacredness of the healing ceremony I attended. A complete stranger again drove me in a four-wheel-drive vehicle, deep into the ancient wilderness to a cabin near a ceremonial house. A medicine woman and her apprentice performed the ceremony in the language of the people. I had never learned the language but it was somehow supernaturally infused into me and I was able to communicate fluently and easily throughout the entire visionary experience. I witnessed a healing which would be considered by modern medicine, as completely impossible. When we surrender to the service with which we are presented, miracles beyond human comprehension may occur. We may journey to places and intimate dimensions of our culture that reach far beyond our most wild and drunken dreams. Surrender and expect a miracle of healing and it will come!

Exploring Native American Wisdom: by Fran Dancing Feather
Link: http://frandancingfeather.com/surrender/

The only thing that calmed me was going to meetings and reading the AA book. That’s why I sometimes went to 13 meetings a week. Life was too scary outside the rooms. I still didn’t want to ‘say the words of one who kneels’.

Step 3 for me actually started between two meetings. I went to the sunrise 7 o’clock meeting at the Fellowship Club. As with all newly sober alcoholics, I was experiencing agonizingly raw feelings that previously I had numbed. That morning both rage and fear gripped my mind and paralyzed me as soon as I left the corner meeting room.

Avoiding the coffee club in the hallway, I ducked into the first empty room and shut the door. I curled up in the corner and cried, before lying down prostrate * on the carpet. It didn’t smell good. I remember that. My life stunk and it felt right to be there, though.

I cried and I prayed. I gave up. Gave it all up. I was done trying to control, trying to make sense of my life. I made a decision that day. Come whatever, I wanted God to control my life. There was not one thing I was withholding from Him any longer. I gave up. The decision was made.

Admittedly, I had no idea of the cost, the process or the outcome of taking Step 3, but I had the heart for it. I had trust that He could and would help me out of the mess that was my life.

I made a decision, once and for all to do whatever the program prescribed. I was going to take the Steps, and take them like my life depended upon it, because that was true. It did. I was done trying to do it my way. And those are the words of one who kneels.

PS: What was your theme song?

* I was a drama coach while I taught high school English, so while this didn’t seem overly dramatic for me, it wouldn’t fit for most people.

Good Life: http://goodlifenoalcohol.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/step-3-part-3-decided-to-stop-singing-i-did-it-my-way/

What Bill Wilson originally penned and what ended up coming off the presses as the text-book for AA does differ, slightly. Sometimes editing changes are insignificant; sometimes they change the tone and blur the passion, if not the intent, of the author.

You may have read the following sentence before, if you’ve studied the history of the Big Book, but it’s no longer in the pages of our text. It not only gives us a clue to Bill’s forceful personality, but also sums up his convictions concerning the principles of AA. I laughed out loud when I heard it.

If you aren’t convinced of these vital issues, you ought to reread the book to this point or else throw it away!

Amen! I would have loved to have met the guy.

What he meant by vital issues is on page 60 following the 12 Steps:

a. That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives
b. That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism
c. That God could and would if He were sought

Bill’s suggestion of re-reading the book up to this point for those who are not convinced of the ABCs, is not a blustery attempt at humor. The statistics of alcoholism are on the rise and the demographics have broadened dramatically since the first publication of the text in 1939.

We alcoholics are fighting for our lives, or else in a gesture of defeat, we’re drinking ourselves into an early grave. There’s no riding the fence for an alcoholic. To drink is to give up; to drink is to die or slowly become brain-damaged and disabled first, and then die a tragic alcoholic death. I’ve met a lot of sober alcoholics that quit drinking for the sole reason that they didn’t want to die like that.*

Of course, there’s another option. We can just put the cork in the jug and live an emotionally crippled life without the numbing effects of alcohol but with the craziness of alcoholic thinking. We can choose to be a dry drunk, going on emotional binges and isolating ourselves while we nurse our grudges and focus on maintaining our pride, refusing to change. This is not recovery.

On the other hand, to believe that the ABC’s are true, means that we can look forward to learning new ways; changing our lives, walking forward with hope and help, and into new solutions for living.

It’s a choice. We can choose to remain victims of alcohol by volunteering for the role of victim and continuing to drink; or we can discover a better way of living by assessing the reality of our situation and taking the 12 Steps to recover.

It’s not quite as easy as my quick summary sounds, but it’s not real complicated, either. It’s simple…very simple. It’s not easy.

It all starts with the ABC’s. Elementary. It’s so foundational that a recovery without using the ABC’s is not the recovery Bill had in mind. I don’t know about you but my definition of recovery is his. I couldn’t have my recovery without these. It would be like writing a post without being able to use A or B or C. For me, it wouldn’t work. Without them, I would have given up. Many do.

Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Alcoholics Anonymous, 2012, p 60

PS:If you want to pull back the curtain of grief that is alcohol, I would suggest you take a look at Danger-alcohol, a post by a young woman who fights daily to become a survivor of alcoholic grief.

Re-Blogged from: http://goodlifenoalcohol.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/step-3-part-2-abcs-of-aa/

The subliminal place within us is beneath the hardwood floor of our consciousness. The subliminal is the unconscious behavior, desires and the place of dreams. For deep healing to occur, it does best to sink beneath the consciousness of our daily reality. It can be an exciting journey to try to discover all the ways Creation attempts to reach inside us to create miraculous events. The most romantic and powerful poetry is written in the natural world.

Rain mixed with snow and sleet patters on my shoulders as I continue to fulfill my commitment to walk up the mesa every morning even in the coldest months of the year—the very dead of winter. The early hours of morning are still cloaked in complete darkness and the road is nearly invisible. It’s 20 degrees and the even the silhouettes of the frozen tree-skeletons cannot be seen this time of day. The half moon hides as though she were nowhere behind clouds that are heavy with the assaulting winter storm.

At the top of Smith Mountain the sun begins to squeak between the tops of the surrounding snow-covered mountains and a thick black layer of clouds. The first color of this icy day is provided by sparkling dew atop a delicate layer of green grass! Grass? It draws my attention away from the effort of the climb, to the subliminal renewal and love of my Creator. All that healing and honoring of the winter requires is the willingness to search the world around me for the miracles of life. Life is stronger then the freezing cold. Suddenly a crowd of winter geese creates a crescendo of sound that rises from the pond below as they celebrate in flight by heading to the larger water on the reservation near the casino, on the far side of the mesas. Then a coyote yips in the waning darkness near the river below. Then another and another as they celebrate a new kill, perhaps a young deer this time. As I head back down two does dressed in heavy winter fur startle me, bounding across my path. Life is in session and we are never ever alone! Soon the sun wins against the darkness and the road ahead is easier to follow. As light yawns across the earth, I see there is the same tiny delicate grass across the entire landscape. It sparkles with the new moisture of the recent quick storm as far as the eye can see. How have I not seen this before on other morning walks? I give thanks.

As our recovery continues to unfold into greater spiritual awareness, we are constantly being healed by the many subliminal murmurings of Creation. If we are open to these miracles, they appear before us like shiny new toys in the eyes of a child on Christmas morning. We learn to wonder and smile easily without judgment of one another. I have been exploring the wonders of the natural world for many years in various locations. The tiny winter tundra has always amazed me the most. Among the delicate grasses is also some clover-like growth that appears with a closer look. The elders say the medicines in the wilderness will show themselves to us when our heart and spirit are ready to find them.

Small plant life on the surface of Mother Earth changes more frequently than the seasons. There is always something new throughout the days and each tiny un-noticed herb provides new colors and aromas that make subliminal healing medicine beneath the floor of our consciousness. Seeing and smelling them causes hundreds of biochemical responses inside our bodies, of which we are completely unaware! We are affected every moment outdoors in the natural world. We rarely give thanks for these tiny medicines because we are rarely aware of them unless we learn to recognize them. As we recover we continually allow the gifts of Creation to enter more deeply into us to relieve us and heal us from wounds of our broken past. Just for today, we allow ourselves miracles of wholeness and freedom.

Link to website: http://frandancingfeather.com/subliminal-healing/

When we retire at night, we constructively review our day. Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid? Do we owe an apology? Have we kept something to ourselves, which should be discussed with another person at once? Were we kind and loving toward all? What could we have done better? Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time? Or were we thinking of what we could do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of life? But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others. After making our review we ask God’s forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken.

On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives.

In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while.

What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it.

We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn’t work. You can easily see why.

If circumstances warrant, we ask our wives or friends to join us in morning meditation. If we belong to a religious denomination, which requires definite morning devotion, we attend to that also. If not members of religious bodies, we sometimes select and memorize a few set prayers, which emphasize the principles we have been discussing. There are many helpful books also. Suggestions about these may be obtained from one’s priest, minister, or rabbi. Be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer.

As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day “Thy will be done.” We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions. We become much more efficient. We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves.

It works – it really does.

We alcoholics are undisciplined. So we let God discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined.

But this is not all. There is action and more action. “Faith without works is dead.” The next chapter is entirely devoted to Step Twelve.

Of course, we alcoholics and addicts know all too well how fast and easy payoffs come back to haunt us. But this pertains not only to our drinking days but to our recovery as well. Being a gift from God, sobriety is true good and thus requires real work. There is no “easier softer way” to come by a gift as precious and holy as spiritual, mental and emotional healing.

There’s an old parable about a man who brings his young son to the river in the middle of the winter to engage in the mystical practice of purifying immersion in water. The man cracks the ice with an axe then lowers the boy into the freezing water. The boy shrieks, “Eek!” The father pulls the boy up, wraps him in a blanket and the boy sighs, “Ah.”

“Anything in life that starts with an ‘ah,’ will certainly end with an ‘eek “Let this be a lesson to you, my son,” says the father, “immersing in the water is a holy ritual and so it starts with an ‘eek’ but ends with an ‘ah.’ Anything in life that starts with an ‘ah,’ is certainly not holy and will just as certainly end with an ‘eek.’”

This same idea is also expressed by the terrible descent in both vitality and health during our active addiction. Negativity has no real staying power. It is always in a course of decay. Any appearance of it having substance is but a show, set up to lure man into taking its bait. The realm of holiness, however, is eternal. Any changes within it are only in a manner of increase and ascent from level to level.

Our relationship with alcohol begins with it giving us much for very little but regresses exponentially until giving us less and less for a more and more of a price. Recovery, in contrast, makes hefty demands from the outset but grows increasingly precious as the days go on.

There’s a rhythm to the steps, too. Something significant happens after taking Step 5. Actually, Bill W suggests we return home and for an hour, quietly reviewing what just happened.

Taking this book down from the shelf we turn to the page which contains the twelve steps. Carefully reading the first five proposals we ask if we have omitted anything, for we are building an arch through which we shall walk a free man at last. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous, 2011, p 75

Those first 5 steps are basic to recovery. If I short change any one of them, my recovery becomes a fight against the tides.

A major reason is, just as Bill says, we are building an arch through which we shall walk—free at last! The keystone of the arch is built during the process of Steps 1 through 5. I would guess that’s why he suggests we review our initial Steps before going ahead with Steps 6 through 12.

I’ve heard it said, “You can always go back and do it better next time, just get through the 4th step as quickly as you can the first time.” Compare that to what Bill says about the 4th Step.

We went back through our lives. Nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty. When we finished we considered it carefully. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous, 2011, p 65

Freedom comes from seeing my life clearly and accepting my own part in the patterns of my life. It doesn’t come from rushing through the facts or trying to race through the 4th step just so I can be done with it. The longer I’m in recovery, the more I rely on the 4th Step. I try to use it every time I am upset, afraid, angry, or unbalanced in life. When I feel the sand shifting beneath my toes and the tides of life are tipping me, I know it’s time for the 4th.

When I work a 4th step inventory today, I am set free. Free because I get a better grasp of my own reality, my own truth. That kind of truth does set me free. However, I have to seek the truth to be freed by it, don’t I? It doesn’t free me if I’m in denial, or don’t take the time to seek it.

The truth will set you free, to the extent that you recognize it and cooperate with it.

PS: James A. Garfield said, The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable. Amen!

Read Heidi’s Blog: http://goodlifenoalcohol.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/stepping-fourth/