Meditation for Addiction Recovery (Methods & Techniques)

The problem of addiction has reached epidemic proportions in our society. While most of us occasionally engage in activities that aren’t exactly healthy—think binge-watching that new series, finishing off that pint of ice cream, having an odd night out at the friendly neighborhood bar—for addicts, the substance or behavior they’ve become addicted to is the main focus of their lives. Can meditation help with addiction?

Recent studies have looked at questions such as “Can meditation help with alcohol addiction? With drug addiction? How about addiction to gaming, tobacco or gambling?” When we practice meditation, especially mindfulness, we train in remaining present and recognizing all feelings, from discomfort to joy, with equanimity and goodwill. And then we let them pass. This is one way meditation helps people work with addiction. Research confirms that meditation has been proven to counter addiction issues especially when combined with psychological methods, as in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. Mindfulness-based practices can also be very effective in helping prevent relapse. Guided meditation is also recommended.

For the best course for meditation and addiction recovery, we recommend Addiction, Recovery and Forgiveness.

Healing Trauma Through Meditation

2022-07-03T20:20:07-07:00By Mindworks Team|

What Qualifies as Trauma, and How Does It Affect our Brain Structure? Meditation can help you heal from trauma and PTSD, but it’s not always the cure-all we want it to be. For some, meditation may appear to make trauma worse. Meditation brings conscious awareness to the activity in our mind, but we’re not always [...]

How to Live in the Present & Overcome Fear

2021-12-11T21:05:56-08:00By Tokpa Korlo|

Overcoming the Fear of Now: A Journey from Addiction to Meditation Regardless of where we come from or who we are, we all have our own path to live. I was born into a family of meditators. I had a wonderful upbringing and caring, loving parents and yet I still found the need to [...]

Overcoming the Grip of Social Media

2021-12-11T21:07:21-08:00By Tsony Devroux|

How meditation on basic goodness can keep it from controlling you Mindworks spoke with Mind Trainer Tsony Francis Devroux about understanding the connections between social media and stress and potentially negative effects on self-esteem. His answers, rooted in decades of experience meditating and teaching meditation, go straight to the heart of the matter. Mindworks: Nowadays, [...]

Forgiveness Meditation Practice

2022-07-24T10:52:45-07:00By Joseph Rogers|

Healing relationships is key to addiction recovery Without relationship, there is no practice, there is no recovery. Finding a way to heal relationships and the pain that can get in their way is core to our recovery. That’s why we begin our meditation by recognizing what was done and the pain that it caused. [...]

Mindfulness and Addiction Recovery

2023-05-25T11:09:45-07:00By Mindworks Team|

Meditation as a path to understand addictive behavior Mindfulness is a centuries-old contemplative practice that can help you develop awareness, clarity and focus in your daily life. Today, therapies based on mindfulness are used effectively to treat addiction. In the context of addiction recovery, mindfulness can be considered a form of mental training. Here, [...]

Alcohol and Meditation

2022-10-15T19:55:27-07:00By Mindworks Team|

Like other forms of addiction, addiction to alcohol causes great harm to those who are dependent and everyone connected to them. While there are many possible definitions of addiction and alcoholism, one that may sound familiar comes from Alcoholics Anonymous. It proposes that alcoholism is a threefold disease comprised of a physical allergy that [...]

Lovingkindness in Meditation

2022-04-19T17:07:23-07:00By Noah Levine|

Meditation changes our relationship to pain What is lovingkindness meditation? While there are many different types of meditation, there are specific practices that we call lovingkindness where we actually train our hearts and minds to wish for well-being for others — “may all beings be at ease”. This is a universal, healthy desire that we [...]

The Psychology of Addiction

2022-07-24T11:08:11-07:00By Stephen Dansiger|

The intersection between modern trauma theory, addiction & mindfulness by Stephen Dansiger The problem of addiction is not just a problem for people struggling with addiction. It’s a problem of the ages, and at one point or another, just about every person involved with addiction—especially those in recovery—comes to a point where he or [...]

Can You Quit Smoking Through Meditation?

2021-05-14T11:34:47-07:00By Mindworks Team|

We all know someone who is addicted to smoking – a family member, a co-worker or friend, or maybe even you yourself. Once you start smoking and develop a habit out of it, quitting can be extremely challenging. Nicotine, the active compound contained in cigarettes, is one of the most addictive drugs there is. [...]