Overcoming Alcohol Addiction Talk

There are states of mind that words struggle to reach — and addiction is one of them. This talk, part of Daily Practice with Nikhil, doesn't try to explain it away or wrap it in comfort. Instead, it sits with it. It asks what presence, awareness, and a gentler kind of attention can offer when the usual tools fall short. Come as you are.

Transcript

So yeah, This is a new experience. I hope this is going to help a lot of us in our journeys and this may be something which we have never discussed in our daily life sessions. So this is new for me. So please bear with me as we explore this terrain of the series of concepts we are going to be discussing. So before that I invite you to start the day or evening wherever you are, Simply where you are, Noticing what is happening to you right now, Closing your eyes if that is convenient. If not, Leaving it open and simply bringing your mind to the breath, To your body, To your mind, To your soul, To your spirit, Whatever you feel needs your attention, Simply bring your awareness to that. Notice how you feel. Notice how you are present in this moment. And notice how each breath seems to be unique. Noticing the subtle differences of each one of those breaths. And simply experiencing it for the first time. Noticing it as if you've never noticed a breath before. Where do you even start? Maybe you even start outside of yourself. Noticing all the air around you which flushes in through your nose into your body. Just noticing, Simply noticing this for the first time, What it feels like to have this breath, This breath right now. And if your breath is not available right now, Maybe just simply noticing the surroundings, The contact points between you and your surroundings, Environments. This can be a good way in finding your stillness and your place in this moment. And sometimes when our minds wander, We often find ourselves outside of ourselves and not still in present. So I invite you to simply be present for this opportunity, This moment. And coming back to the breath, As soon as you notice your mind has wandered off, We are bringing, We are bringing the practice of mindfulness. We are in tune with ourselves. We are practicing the art of coming back to ourselves. We are practicing the art of being okay with whatever is happening with ourselves. We are practicing compassion, Kindness, Gratitude and acceptance to whatever is happening with ourselves. So simply being here for you today. Take a moment to notice your body, Your mind, Your spirit right here, Right now. And you can leave in this sense of calm and relaxation and mindfulness or you can stay in the knowledge that we may be discussing few things which may be really interesting, Difficult. So just orienting yourself, Just being present for it. At any moment you feel uncomfortable or distressed, I invite you to find something else you can bring your awareness to. And any time you feel like you want to leave, Please feel free to do so. There is no need for you to hang around if this gets a little uncomfortable. But it's part of the practice. Maybe things which may trigger emotions, Feelings which you may not be ready for. But if you are, I invite you to open up and ask yourself, How can I be with whatever is happening? How can I be present with whatever is coming up? In a kind, Compassionate, Grateful and accepting way. So with that meditation, We will go into the topic of our discussion today. So you can close your eyes or you can listen in, You can listen in passively, You can listen in actively by sharing your thoughts, Positive thoughts, Emotions, Feelings, Insights. As we discuss this idea, This topic of overcoming addiction with mindfulness. Firstly, We are going to be discussing addiction for me. So this is my personal story. I will use a little bit of educational ideas from psychology, Etc. But in general, It is a personal story. Secondly, I'm not a doctor. So if there is any serious implications or serious things you are working with in terms of addiction, I invite you to seek real professional help. What we are discussing is how I found the help of mindfulness in overcoming my addictive tendencies, Especially with alcohol. And for me, Alcohol, And I go back way, Way back, I think towards my 20s, Actually, Surprisingly, I started to drink alcohol only at the age of 22. That's when I started. And it's surprising because a lot of youngsters start very early. And it has been, It has been a problem for a lot of communities, A lot of cultures. So in the culture I grew up, Which is in South India, Drinking ages were pretty standard, If I could call it, But I was kind of a late adopter. But I think what happened over the time, I will discuss through the lens of mindfulness and how it changed my perspectives, How I understood what it is, And how I have been a non-drinker for best part of two years, And I do not feel any need for it in my life. Such a powerful state, Which I never thought I would be able to experience while I was in the grips. And this is, This may be sounding, What, No way. You cannot just leave something like that. And my point is, Yes, We can. Yes, We can change. Yes, We can find ways. So in this exploration, I invite you to keep an open mind, See what comes up. And if there is anything which intrigues you, Yeah, Explore it further. So when I was in the grips of my addiction, Let's just paint a picture so that you understand what I am talking about. I think I used to have daily, I used to have at least, I think 20, Close to 10, 10 to 15 bottles of beer. I used to maybe have one or two large glasses of wine with every meal. I used to have, Over the course of the day, Many opportunities to drink, Socialize, Drink and socialize. I used to have, With work, Every work day used to be a drink day. I used to notice myself feeling anxious, Feeling terribly insecure about myself if there was no alcohol present in anything. I was truly hooked. And in this idea, I would like to say like, First things first, Let us explore how mindfulness came into it. So when I was going through my phase of drinking, I never thought that it was a problem. I always kind of rationalized it, This is how everybody does it and I'm not, I'm not in any trouble. I don't think there is a reason for me to stop. I don't think there is a, I don't think there is any problem. And I kept lying to myself in this way. And it kind of took me to a place where I was waking up with anxiety, Waking up with other ailments, Lack of sleep, Dehydrated, Undernourished, Overweight, All of that. And it was during a random drunken night, Shall I say, Drunken night, I was really stressed. And again, Stress, The reliever of stress is not alcohol, Reliever of stress is a stress management technique, Which is different from numbing yourself. But in that instant, Something came over me and I decided to search for stress management techniques, Other than the use of addiction, Addictive substances or other stimulants or depressants. And I found a mindfulness-based eight-week course. And I've been reading about mindfulness for that past few years. So it was an ideal moment where I was like, Okay, This is interesting. This is something which, Which can help, I hope. And I started to explore it further. I understand, I started understanding the concept of being present. And that led me to this mindfulness-based eight-week stress reduction program. And immediately, It had an overwhelming impact. The first lesson I walked in and within the first practice of just, Just noticing your breath, Which I'd never noticed before, I was like, This is it. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life. Help people understand the power of mindfulness in that first session. On a side note, It took me a few years to realize how it, How it works and learn more about it. But in that moment, It was as clear as the daylight sun, That it is something which is very powerful and very impactful. So immediately there was an impact. And then suddenly mindfulness became part of my practices daily. And what happened is I started to become aware of my tendencies, My patterns, My behavioral triggers. I started to notice when I felt the sense of anxiety. This is just after eight week, Not even eight week practice, It is just after eight sessions of practice. So it was like every week I used to go to this practice and then do a couple of hours of meditation, Mindfulness. And then this, This little change had a profound impact in my awareness. And once I started to become aware of these tendencies, These coping mechanisms, Which are holding me back, I started to understand the power of mindfulness. And this is really, It changed, Changed the way I looked at everything. And it's not to say that it is something, Some sort of a real change. It's not a, It's just, It's just had an effect in my brain. And later I realized it is a unconscious or subconscious shift which has happened. So you started to change something in your subconscious mind and it takes time or sometimes it takes a little bit of practice to bring it to your conscious and to make it your reality. So sometimes it happens fast, Sometimes it happens slow. So for me it happened really quickly in terms of realizing the problems and what I needed to do. So with this practice I became much more aware. And then the more aware I became, The more centered, The more still I became, I started to notice these things. And in noticing about my alcohol addiction, I started to question, Question everything. I started to understand what it is that alcohol does. I started to understand why I have been using it. So to understand that, Let's just take some examples. So the first thing is to look at alcohol and really understand what it is that we're doing. So people, Firstly, I created these ideas. So initially I started alcohol as just a dare with a friend. For example, You joined a social circle, They're all drinking, They give you something to drink, You started drinking it, The first sip you're like, Oh, This is not tasty. But then over time it got repetitive, It got habitual, And then it got addictive. And a lot of people realize that very late into their psyche, Into their consciousness, Is that people think it's a habit, But it's not a habit. If it was a habit, We would drop it for some other habit very easily. So for example, Let me take this example as a habit. So if you had a habit of going for a walk every day, And then somebody said, Oh, I'll give you something amazing, Let's say, Whatever money in the world you want, $5 million, Whatever. And they said, OK, I'll give you $5 million, But you won't be able to walk, Or you shouldn't be walking. And you will be like, OK, If $5 million is important, Then you'll be like, Yeah, I can change that habit very quickly. Simply by an external influence like that, You can shift very quickly your habits. But what happens with alcohol is not a habit. And this is true. People who change things do not really change their drinking patterns. And that's why it's not a habit, It's an addiction. So, That is first realization when I was becoming more and more aware of what it meant to be drinking alcohol. In terms of practices, No, I was never brought up with any, Well, I was brought up in a Hindu household, And there were a lot of practices, There was a lot of practices in the rituals in which were around me. I engaged in some of them. Some of them I was a bit agnostic about. So it really didn't resonate with me, Shall I say. So, Yeah, It was not until recently when I leaned into more of understanding of spirituality and understanding the nature of myself and what is around that I really value habits and rituals. But coming back to alcohol, I realized through mindfulness I was able to bring this fact or this awareness, This insight, Which only happened when I was present with myself. This only happened when I was noticing what I was feeling. And that's when I realized it's not a habit, It's something addictive, Which is keeping me in this process. So that is first thing. Then what changed considerably is I started to notice it as different. It is, It's a different thing. It is a, It is in this, In the literature or the reviews, It is actually a depressant anesthetic. So what it does is it numbs you and depresses all the nerves, The neural connections into so that you don't feel much. So this is what happens. People think this as courage and think that, Oh, My true self comes out when we drink, Which is absolutely false because actually you are cutting out various parts of your self. So the true self is not when you are in a state of alcohol-induced numbness. So the other awareness which came to me was, Are we really doing it for the taste? And now this is a difficult one because a lot of people still believe it's for the taste. And I would argue not because before you ever drank a drop of water or observed everyone around you drinking, You might have had early experiences with alcohol where it actually, It actually didn't fit in. It actually tasted really bad. And you even get this when little alcohol is given to any animal or any creature, They don't actually appreciate it, They chuck it out. So even if for the first time you're trying it, You will actually chuck it out. You will actually spit it out because it's not, It's not tasty. And we over repetition, We habituate with the taste and we then label it as taste. And it's amazing. The reason being we have actually numbed ourselves again to the taste of what this is. It is, It is not something which is tasty. So that's another realization I had. And in that realization, I started to notice I was enjoying it less. And with mindfulness practices, I was able to actually notice the taste. So I did a practice with, With actually drinking while I was meditating. And it's not recommended, By the way. It's just something I had to try to see what it means. So I used to drink this thing and actually do the raisin exercise, But with alcohol. And that's when I realized how distasteful this is. So that's another realization which came across over, Over me. And all of it were starting to change my beliefs about all of what alcohol can do for me. Then we have the, Then the main, The main problem people feel with alcohol and at something realized is actually the narrative about I drink to change my relationship with stress and anxiety. So I'm stressed and anxious all the time. So this helps me calm my nerves. And this is often, Often the main reason people still engage in this activity. So you may have seen people saying that they need a drink. You also have probably poured yourself a drink. And your experiences showed it that it could take the edge off. It could relieve your stress and anxiety. It was easy to assume alcohol was a stress reliever and you quieted your anxiety. Yay. So eventually you said, Okay, Alcohol was necessary to relieve stress, But let's just consider this mindfully. So alcohol relieves my stress and anxiety. Let's take that statement. So when you started drinking or if it's, I don't know if it's relevant for you, But when I started drinking the first, The last five years of my life, I used it to relax. Ironically drinking made my life much more stressful. My health was affected. My stress levels were through the roof. My relationships were affected. So all this idea of stress and anxiety was just reinforcing the numbness that comes with each and every drink. So let's just explore what is stress and anxiety for a second. So stress and anxiety is a misalignment in your energy levels and flows. And you need certain things or you have not been, You maybe have, Either you missing out some things from your routine like sleep, Dehydration, Nourishment, And that's the main reason why people feel stressed. And then the quickest way to get relief of stress is to have a glass of alcohol, Alcoholic beverage. And it is important to understand that it is not that they are doing something bad. It's just something which has been addicted or it has created this addiction within you. It's not like the person itself is a bad person for reaching out for alcohol. There's another significant insight which came to me while practicing mindfulness is this idea that it's, We are not bad. It's not bad. You're not a bad person for drinking alcohol. Any person who uses alcohol has probably a chance of making it an addiction and more or less it is an addiction. Even if people say, I only have one or two glasses and it doesn't really affect me, But there is a chance that it is, This addiction will grip you. So it is not you in a sense, It is something that happens to you. So in order to relieve stress, For example, What do we do? We get good rest, Good sleep, Etc. Go for a walk, Exercise, Meditate, Read a book, Learn about things. That is how you relieve stress, You become active, Etc. So drinking to relieve the stress and anxiety is like a vicious circle. So you start to drink when you are stressed and then that relieves the stress for a bit and then that adds more stress when you don't drink because of the withdrawal symptoms because alcohol again is an addictive substance and all addictive substance has what is known as withdrawal. So when the thing doesn't do the thing in your body, Your body goes into over balance that causes this anxiety. So the only time you are not stressed is when the time you are drinking. This is the issue and people don't realize that the stress and anxiety you feel had a major cause from alcohol and that idea that stress was actually a withdrawal symptom and also physiological depending on how much you've had and etc. So how much time you've had, What other parameters are there. So if you take a healthy person who actively participates in all sorts of healthy routines but they do drink a couple of times and they feel that takes the stress away, Again for them you can't take the stress away through numbing yourself or actually you can take the stress away by finding ways to manage your stress. So that is another, It's not the opposite, It's not really the opposite of relief, It's actually you're blocking your own emotions and your feelings which you feel as something. So how does this all, So these are like few of the insights I learned. So how does this, How does this affect me, How did that affect me? For me it took me few years to understand these ideas, Start to work with myself, Become more still, Become more grounded, Become in tune with myself and I was able to kind of put together these pieces of these questions, These ideas, These beliefs which were not true and I meditated with them for a long time. I used a lot of meditation, Mindfulness practices and my main practice around that time was kindness and self-compassion and that is one thing which completely changed the way I started treating myself, Especially with regards to alcohol. So I would practice self-compassion and kindness meditation a lot because previously when I tried to quit, For example, There were, In the UK there was this sober month kind of thing which is like everybody goes sober and it's kind of fascinating to see like a lot of people go sober and then they struggle through it only to start all over after 30 days of actually ridding them of this, This poison and that is what happens with addiction. So it for me, It took me a lot of time to practice that self-compassion, Kindness to help me realize that it's okay to feel in this way and it's okay to notice. It's okay to notice those bad things or the things which you want to get rid of or move. It's okay to notice them. It's okay to be with them. It's okay to even drink while you are trying to figure it out. This sounds insane but yeah, It is okay to keep doing what you're doing for right now while you work yourself or you practice more self-compassion, Kindness, Knowing that yes, Right now it is not something, It's not working for me. I know it will change. I am going to be kind with myself. I know I'm doing the right thing. As opposed to having negative talks about yourself, Changing your ideologies, Changing your thoughts is very difficult when you have that inner critic kind of mentality where you judge everything and you treat yourself badly when you say you want to give up alcohol for 30 days and you don't give up alcohol for 30 days. Maybe after 10 days you drink, You start to say, Oh, You are so this and that. You are so bad. You can't even do this. That's the opposite. I would even say, Yeah, You did 10 days. That's great. Now you had one drink. That's okay. It's okay. Come back. Come back to stillness. Come back to this moment. Come back to compassion. Come back to kindness. And over time I was able to really embed these ideas into my subconscious, Into myself, Into my mind body. And what happened was truly remarkable. What happened was one day out of the blue, I didn't need it anymore. It just happened overnight. One day I woke up, I remember exactly the day, It was a day where the previous night we all went for a big meal, It was a family thing and we were just chatting and I could feel like I was engaging in drinking. I could feel like there's no more joy in this. I could feel like this is no longer my identity. I could feel like this has changed. And the next day and from then on I found a little bit of freedom. So thank you for sharing the space with me. I know this has been a kind of long chat. I hope, If anything, I hope you found the true insights are within you. I hope you found that the essence of change is within you. I hope you found that there is true compassion and kindness within you. So doesn't matter what you are going through, Bring presence, Bring acceptance, Kindness to yourself. And yes, Yes, It was like falling in love again with yourself. And yeah, Five years ago while I was drinking, I would have never said those words. That would never have occurred to me and I would have found it really cringe. But now it is absolutely true. I think it is falling in love with yourself again. And being kind about yourself. These are difficult topics and my experience will not literally translate to every single one and I appreciate that. But what I am trying to say is that mindfulness really helped in that process. Now, I can talk a lot about the other limiting factors, The ideas of alcohol, But this is not a session on that. It is a session about realizing the power of mindfulness in difficult situations you consider right now through awareness, Experience, Insight. So you become aware, You experience it fully and then insights start to fall left, Right and center. So being patient, Being kind, Compassionate, All that really matters is what I want you to take away from this daily practice with me, Nikhil. So thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing the space. If you like what you heard or listened to, Please comment, Please donate, Please share your thoughts, Please share and know that you are not alone also, Yet you might find your own way. So I would reiterate, Do not blindly copy anyone else's idea. Just take whatever you can, Little, Little fragments and find a way to use it to help overcome whatever it is that you are going through and the main point as we leave this chat is, It is possible. So I'd just like to do a little bit of meditation before we close today because it's been a long one and a bit interesting and deep and intriguing one. So just take a moment to notice your breath, Your body right here, Sitting here, Noticing any changes from the start of the practice, To notice any areas of your body that require your attention and appreciate yourself for taking the time out to truly get in touch with your inner wisdom and trusting that you have the power within you to change your reality. So thank you. Thanks everyone, Appreciate it. Thanks everyone, Thank you for listening. Thank you, Sanchia, Thank you, Lydia, Thanks, Thanks, Lynn, Thanks, Everyone, Thanks. Thank you for sharing, Sanchia, Lynn, Yeah, Who's battle addiction really understands. Are there any particular meditations you recommend for self-compassion? Yes, Many. I think it starts off with, May I be healthy, May I be kind, May I be peaceful, May I live with ease, May I be healthy, May I live with ease, May I be peaceful, May I be happy. Just those four can start off and then you can adapt it to the situation and whatever it is that you're going through. So yeah, Start with those. Wonderful, Thank you, Thanks, Thanks, Sanchia, Thank you. Yeah, Thanks, Deb, Thank you, Appreciate that, Really do. I think for me, It has, Yeah, There's been major changes in my life because of, Oh, Sorry. Yeah, Because of this 100%, There's so many changes and yeah, One of the things was, Yeah, A lot of things, A lot of things happened. Again, It's not like I'm saying that this is,