Julia, I'm certainly not a seasoned meditator as I started doing it based on watching the videos I described and then the class. I believe there are different types of meditation and I have only tried the mindful meditation.
For me it does a couple of things. It puts me in tune with life, myself, what's happening around me in the moment. It's helps me to stop and "smell the roses". The other thing it does is it offers me an escape sort of like alcohol (hmmm...that's probably why a lot of people recommend it as part of recovery).
Once I became practiced and was meditating regularly (especially during the 8 week class I took) if something was stressing me out and I could feel my BP rising I could take as little as 5 minutes (anywhere, anytime) and meditate and it would bring me back down a level or two. Somewhat like a mental recess.
I'm glad you brought up the topic and thank you because I really haven't practiced my meditation since the class ended and I was still drinking then so now I am very curious to get back into practice in sobriety and see what it has to offer.
I think the key to getting something out of meditation is to practice it regularly. When I first started the 8 week class I wasn't getting feeling much of a difference, but by mid-way through and certainly towards the end there was a noticeable difference. BTW, I didn't join the class to help me stop drinking at that point in time I didn't think drinking was a problem.