Overcoming addiction is singlehandedly the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.
Through addiction and recovery, I learned more about myself than I ever thought possible. I learned that my mind was highly susceptible to outside influence, and that’s something I desperately needed to change.
My painful road to addiction
In the prime of my life, I was in a terrible car wreck. My friends and I were driving home from the beach on a beautiful sunny day in June. The world was at our feet. Or so we thought.
My friend John was driving along the long stretch of road that ran alongside the ocean. It was a beautiful drive, and he liked to drive fast.
I knew it was dangerous, but I didn’t want to seem uncool. So I sat there in silence.
As we were careening down that road, a white sedan attempted a u-turn into our lane. Either she didn’t see us or didn’t realize how fast we were going. The next thing I knew, I was in a hospital bed. I was recovering from many injuries, including a spinal fracture. Pain medications become a way of life.
I lost two friends that day, including John. And that’s a pain that no meds could cure.
I returned home from the hospital with a long list of care instructions and a prescription for OxyContin. The painkillers worked as advertised. They worked on the physical pain and even seemed to dull my emotional pain.
At first, I took my prescription as recommended. But it wasn’t long before I needed higher doses to relieve the same pain. I was amazed at how quickly my tolerance grew.
Prescription painkiller addiction
I don’t remember the exact moment when I realized I was addicted. I started to catch on when my doctor was reluctant to refill my prescription. But part of me believed he was overreacting. Part of me needed to believe that.
After my own doctor stopped prescribing pills, I found others who would. In addiction circles, we call this “doctor shopping.”
I guess I realized I had a problem when I was on my second or third doctor. Because I started having trouble getting refills, I had to go longer periods without “a fix.” Then I felt physical withdrawal symptoms, and I couldn’t ignore the problem any longer. I was an addict.
Addiction and brain chemistry
It’s a very humbling moment to realize you’ve become an addict. How did this happen?
From the outside, it’s easy to wonder why I wouldn’t get help at this point. The answer? I had a disease. The disease of addiction changes your brain chemistry so you lose your own free will.
The progression from prescription pills to heroin was much easier than I would have ever expected. And then came another level of shame. People think addicts don’t care about these things, but that’s not true. We care; we just can’t help it.
When I finally hit rock bottom, I was ready and willing to do whatever it took to get sober. I was motivated, but I didn’t fully understand what was in store for me.
Depression, anxiety, and recovery
I started at a typical rehab center where they helped me through the physical detoxification process. This is the part that includes some very ugly withdrawal symptoms.
But that wasn’t the worst of it by far.
They released me from the rehab shortly after my physical symptoms subsided. And then I met PAWS.
Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome (PAWS) is the stage of recovery that comes next. Because drugs alter your brain chemistry, it can take months or even years for your brain to relearn how to work without them. During this time, your brain struggles to supply the right amount of natural dopamine to keep you functioning normally. This is why depression and anxiety are such major parts of recovery.
I was struggling hard. I was even thinking about relapsing.
And then I met the person who would change everything.
How meditation helped me overcome addiction
On a particularly difficult day, I stopped for coffee on the way to work and ran into an old friend from rehab. He looked amazing!
Unlike me, he seemed confident and secure in his sobriety. I jokingly asked him his secret, as if there’s a magic pill or something. In reality, I was convinced that he was just a stronger person than I was.
When he told me what he was doing, I was skeptical.
Barry credited meditation for pulling him out of the depths of despair. That sounds dramatic, I know, but those depths are real. I was talking to Barry from my own despair pit on that very day.
When I got home, I began feverishly researching meditation. And then it all made sense.
What I learned that day was enough to drive me to start meditating straight away.
The meditation-recovery connection
As it turns out, meditation and drug abuse have something in common: Dopamine.
Dopamine is closely associated with pleasure-seeking activities, including addiction, but it also has other roles. It plays a part in memory, mood, learning, and sleep. If your body doesn’t have enough dopamine, you may become depressed. In the case of addiction, dopamine is partially responsible for the intense cravings that drive you to use drugs.
Interestingly enough, meditation also increases dopamine in the brain. In fact, Kjaer and colleagues (2002) found that meditation increased endogenous dopamine by 65 percent.
Through my practice, I’ve learned that meditation not only provides a natural dopamine boost, but it also helps strengthen the mind. When I finally gained some control over my negative thought patterns, I found it much easier to resist any cravings.
I’m not sure where I was headed on that day that I met Barry in the coffee shop, but my future wasn’t looking good. Today, I have a completely different outlook, and I feel like I have a new lease on life. It was still a difficult journey, but meditation helped me overcome the biggest struggle of my life.
Source:
Kjaer, T. W.; Bertelsen, C.; Piccini, P.; Brooks, D.; Alving, J.; Lou, H. C. Cognitive Brain Research 2002, 13 (2), 255–259.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11958969/
