TKS

I have been struggling with the widely-held notion that there is always a root cause to our alcoholism. Searching deeply for many years, and there really is nothing that I can put it down to. Sure, there were family issues when I was a child, but I honestly don't feel scarred by them, and to lay blame for my actions on past circumstances would, to my mind, be simply be a convenient fraud against myself in order to find an excuse.

So today I was pleased to read a notion that I can relate to (in a book I borrowed recently entitled 'Taming the Mind' by Thubten Chodron, an American-born Tibetan buddhist nun). This statement is more aligned to how I view the recovery process, despite being at odds with more popular 'beliefs' within the recovery networks.

From a Buddhist point of view, it's senseless to search for the beginning of our existence and the start of our afflictions. The Buddha was extremely practical, stressing that we deal with the present situation and try to remedy it. Getting lost in useless speculation prevents us from focusing on the present and improving it.

For example, a person is hit by a car and lies bleeding in the street. Before he'll accept medical attention, he insists on knowing who was driving the car, who manufactured it, and when it was made. While seeking the information, he dies. We would say such a person is foolish. Knowing the origin of the car doesn't change his injury. Nor does it save his life. He would have been wiser to deal with his present situation, get medical attention, and recover.

Similarly, it's better to examine our present difficulties and their cause - the afflictions - and remedy them, rather than get lost in speculation about a non-existent beginning. The Buddha didn't discuss the origin of the universe because knowing that doesn't help us solve our problems or improve the quality of our lives.

Dee74

I really like that TKS

D

GwenCummings

This is the philosophy I am trying to learn about and embrace. Thank you for posting this.
I have serious problems in my past and they do cast a shadow over my now... But all my questioning of it has been done with the aid of a large glass of wine. Now I can see that endlessly chewing over it is never going to make me happy. I want to learn to quiet my unquiet mind. The voice of my mind talks crap to me all day long.

GerandTwine

Rational Recovery proposes only one reason for addiction. The desire for deep pleasure. Not complicated at all. Liking science, I try to question reasons, but haven't been able to refute this one and only reason.

GerandTwine

Addictive Voice Recognition Technique did wonders at ending my internal debate about drinking some more. But it only worked if I started off with no alcohol in my blood.

TKS

Gwen, the unquiet mind has plagued me for years, to the point where the last couple of years I have seriously speculated on whether I'm suffering from Schizophrenia (I tick many of the boxes on those silly internet tests). I'm interested to see how things change within my mind without being on alcohol, or the strange & unusual research chemicals that I was taking in the last 6 months of my spiral down to the bottom.

And although I'm not interested in following any Buddhist traditions as such, I believe that meditation & buddhist literature is going to play a significant part in the recovery process. I'm really bad at meditation so far (well, it would be said that there is no bad meditation), but am willing to keep at it for the foreseeable future, in a led sitting.

Amazingly, the book I quoted from isn't even about substance abuse & recovery whatsoever, yet on page 5 that statement appeared, and I immediately felt I could relate to it.

Gerandtwine - what is 'deep pleasure' ?

GerandTwine

What I was feeling as I poured (or ordered) my second double Chivas Regal scotch-on-the-rocks, stirred the ice around with the little plastic swizzle stick, heard the tinkling cubes, felt the cold tumbler in my other hand, lifted it to my mouth, smelled that familiar slightly burnt scent, and took another slow swallow.

DG0409

Nice post.

jkb

TKS-
I struggle with "staying in the now" and I really like what you posted. I am reading about Buddhism as well. However, in my opinion I do know that I drank in search of "deep pleasure" and that remained my main motivation. Living in the now however, that is what I need to do to remain "at peace".

I guess my point is I know why I drank and remaining in the now just helps me to live life to its fullest. Two separate things.

Thanks for the post.... will keep an eye on this thread.

Jess

RobbyRobot

For me, I continued to drink well past those early beginning years of having deep pleasure with my drinking. I suppose we all have our individual experiences and appreciations of what is and is not deep pleasures. Individual experiences define us of course.

In the final analysis for me, I simply drank because of my enslavement to my addiction to alcohol. No longer enslaved, I am free to not drink. Deep pleasure experiences were never enough in themselves for me to drink as I did addictively and chronically.

Now I have a different kind of continued deep pleasure while not drinking, and all this without addiction consequences, LOL. Having in-the-now real pleasure with quitting fits me much better then deep pleasure with my addictive drinking ever did. Yeah, life in real time rocks.

Soberpotamus

Same here! And I'm not that great at meditation either Still doing it though. I'm very surprised at what I keep finding out about Buddhism. Loving it. It's excellent for people in recovery.

freshstart57

I don't believe that meditation needs to be something that we work at to get good at. It is just something to be done. The goal is found in the doing, I think.

For example, I might believe that the ability to sit for an extended period of time with a simple mind might make me good at meditation. In fact, what I believe now is that it is the interruption of simple mind and the subsequent awareness, acceptance, and return to center, that makes meditation helpful.

It is good stuff.

mecanix

I do sometimes wonder whats with all the questions .. I don't have any .

Just drop it

m

Ananda

I've been listening to Jack Kornfield alot lately...and sitting. My own sort of sum up is that when I'm not awake (not aware) my minds "habits" rule me. This would include my past, my present and my future. But when one is awake, habitual thoughts and patterns can (at least to some extent or as long as you stay in awareness) loose their power to bind you and be something you utilize by choice (such as a routine that serves you well but doesn't "own" you).

Finding a root cause isn't very productive for me..but if I just sit, sometimes something that appears to be a root cause sort of pops up at me. Sort of an "ah" moment..

Kornfield does a great job of describing the sort of balancing act betweeen digging though the muck and stiring the pot in a senseless way and the actual awareness and acceptance and I don't know..perhaps the compassionate understanding of ourselves and where we have come from. One of the most misunderstood (or at least not widely understood in the same fashion as many teachers) aspects of karma is that it is simple LOL...the threads of Karma are so tangled and numerous that it would be impossible to follow one strand back to a root cause.

Hope I didn't go too far off topic!

PS ... as a non-believer in the reality of time, past/present/future ...well...I'm always in the moment in a sense. It's just what particular segment, imput or data I select to experience at this moment....

MythOfSisyphus

Great topic! It's true- on one level it doesn't matter how it started or what the cause is; the problem is the present. We need to learn to not drink. That said, while I don't subscribe to the disease model of addiction I think there is some genetic component. A lot of people I've talked to say that they hate the feeling of getting drunk. That baffles me! The drunker I got the better I liked it. There almost has to be some specific physiological component, something that makes me enjoy getting ripped where other people find it unpleasant.

I also have no desire to embrace Buddhism, although I respect and admire a lot of it. The goal of mindfulness is one concept I like. On one level I think I drank to "quiet" my mind in an effort to be more present, to experience more, to feel more...to just magnify the feeling of existing. For many years I've had this idea that if I could just hold onto the moment more...I don't know what really. Just that it would be more "real" somehow.

Now I can see that booze was carrying me in the opposite direction that I wanted to go. I'm far more present now in my own life than I was when I drank.

fantail

Wow, I have been thinking about this exactly. I always felt kind of removed from reality, if not all the time then most of the time, and felt like drinking would help me get some more immediacy or something. I don't know, it's hard to articulate. But I hear what you're saying. Very cool to hear you mention it!

MythOfSisyphus

This may be wandering off the trail a bit and getting a little esoteric, so I apologize in advance if I'm going off topic. But my username refers to "The Myth of Sisyphus" by French existentialist writer Albert Camus. In ancient mythology Sisyphus offended the gods with his arrogance, and for it was sentenced to push a rock uphill, only to see it roll back down; this was to be repeated for all eternity. Camus suggests two possible means of coping with this reality. In the first, Sisyphus could rail against the gods, performing the deed as an act of defiance. In the other, Sisyphus could embrace the rock; he could learn it's every dip, crack and depression. He would fully embrace the task of rolling it uphill, being present in the moment..almost relishing the burden and the rock.

I think Camus suggested that the latter was the only sane way to embrace our lives. The fact that we're mortal and seek order in a universe that's entirely ambivalent to us is the root of 'the absurd'. Embracing the absurd and fully experiencing the moment can keep us sane. Or at least provide the most useful framework for living our lives.

To me this is similar to the idea of being 'present' in our daily lives. I try to live this way, and did long before I'd ever heard of Camus. For instance, my job could be viewed as tedious to some...even absurd. I work as a cook, and it can be demanding mentally and physically. I deal with it by loving the work. Even if I happen to be cooking a simple burger I try to make it as perfect as I can. I completely engage in the craft of it, trying to refine it further each time I do it. The same approach informs my clean up at the end of the night. It must be done, so why not embrace it? I'm aware of the coolness of the stainless steel, the scent of the bleach solution. Ultimately I do some things so many times that it becomes rote, and the performance of the task is moving meditation. I've brunoised carrots enough times that I no longer think about, it simply happens. The same when I cut tenderloins into filet steaks.

Again, sorry to the OP if this is a derailment!

soberlicious

MOS, I don't think it's a derailment at all. What you're talking about....mindset...is actually what I see as the crux of ending addiction. When I look at how people deal with adversity (overcoming addiction counts) the common denominator among those who persevere with grace and equanimity is that they realize that how they think about something is directly related to how much suffering that same thing actually causes them.

These type of people rarely see themselves as victims and when they are real victims of something, they don't let that dictate their lives. They are, in effect, in charge of their minds which results in being more in charge of their lives.

The car accident analogy mentioned upthread is actually the modern version of the Buddha's parable of the poisoned arrow.