Hi Sam,
I like the idea of mindfulness as well. I ran across the idea "Acceptance and commitment therapy" the other day, which is a mindfulness type approach. If you look it up on wikipedia, in the note section #6 there is a pdf link that is a nice little article on it that i read most of last night and plan on finish tonight if I have time. I'd post a link but am signing in remote, so not sure if it would take and can't preview to check. Anyway if you are interested in mindfulness you may want to check it out or let us know anything interesting you have read.
To me everyone can think of addiction and get to the other side whatever way makes sense to them. For my way of thinking though addiction is just a habit simple as that. It's not a matter of good or bad, it's just that it eventually becomes rather unhealthy and would be in a persons interest to quit the habit. We are creatures of habit though and all habits are hard to unlearn, even if we are motivated and it is in our own self-interest to do so. Once you get into the habit of recovery and a new fulfilling life, that eventually becomes harder to break out of too though.
Take care,
Todd