Maintaining sobriety is a daily challenge for those in recovery from alcohol addiction. The journey is filled with ups and downs, and finding effective tools to navigate this path is crucial. At Renewal Lodge, we’ve incorporated mindfulness & meditation into our recovery program since 2005, and this approach to addiction treatment is continuing to gain recognition and support for its efficacy in achieving sobriety.
After all, mindfulness is simply a regular practice that allows individuals to cultivate awareness, manage emotions, and build resilience – all vital skills for a lasting recovery.
What is Mindfulness in Recovery?
Mindfulness is the practice of being fully present and engaged in the current moment, aware of our thoughts and feelings without judgment. In the context of addiction recovery, mindfulness helps us observe our cravings, emotions, and thought patterns without automatically reacting to them. This creates a space between stimulus and response, allowing us to make more conscious choices about our behavior.
For alcoholics and addicts in recovery, mindfulness can be a game-changer. It provides a way to stay grounded in the present, rather than getting caught up in regrets about the past or anxieties about the future. This present-moment awareness is a powerful antidote to the impulsivity that often drives addictive behavior.
Benefits of Mindfulness for Alcoholics
Establishing a mindfulness practice is a valuable part of your recovery toolkit – for any stage of your recovery journey – and it shouldn’t be disregarded.
Mindfulness offers several benefits for recovery alcoholics:
- It helps reduce stress. Meditation helps calm the nervous system, reducing overall stress levels.
- It helps regulate our emotions in real time. By observing our emotions without judgment, we can learn to respond rather than react.
- It helps manage and respond to cravings. Mindfulness techniques can help us observe cravings without giving in to them.
- It empowers self-awareness of our thoughts, words, and actions. Regular practice increases our understanding of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
These benefits work together to strengthen our ability to maintain sobriety, even in challenging situations.
How Can You Start a Mindfulness Practice?
Beginning a mindfulness practice really isn’t complicated. It really boils down to pausing the hustle of daily life for a couple of minutes to bring your awareness back to the present. In other words, mindfulness and meditation is in many ways the art of doing nothing right now.
Here are some simple ways to get started:
- Basic breath meditation: Set aside 5-10 minutes a day to sit quietly and focus on your breath. When your mind wanders, gently bring your attention back to your breathing.
- Body scan: Lie down and slowly bring your attention to each part of your body, noticing any sensations without trying to change them.
- Mindful activities: Choose a daily activity like washing dishes or walking and practice doing it with full attention.
The key is consistency. Even a few minutes of daily practice can make a significant difference over time.
Combining Mindfulness with the 12 Steps
For those following a 12-step program, mindfulness can be a valuable complement to these traditional recovery approaches. Here are a few specific steps we can look at that are easily compatible with (or even enhanced by) mindfulness.
- Step 1 (Powerlessness): Mindfulness helps us clearly see our relationship with alcohol without denial or minimization.
- Step 3 (Turning it over): Meditation can deepen our connection to a higher power, our common humanity, or inner wisdom.
- Step 10 (Continued personal inventory): Mindfulness increases our self-awareness, making it easier to notice when we’re off track.
By integrating mindfulness with the 12 steps, we can enhance the effectiveness of both approaches.
Overcoming Common Challenges With a New Mindfulness Practice
As with any new practice, you may encounter some obstacles when first starting mindfulness meditation.
Restlessness & Boredom
Many beginners feel a sense of restlessness or boredom when first practicing meditation. Our daily lives are often fast-paced, stress-filled, dynamic experiences, and our minds tend to wander constantly. When you notice this happening, you should gently redirect your attention to your breath and body.
Difficult or Painful Thoughts & Emotions
When you allow yourself to sit quietly, sometimes painful thoughts and feelings bubble up to the surface. Our natural reaction to this is to shut down the uncomfortable feeling either by forcing it away, stopping the practice, or allowing our racing thoughts to try to solve the problem. An important part of the practice is learning to allow these uncomfortable thoughts and to simply observe them with compassion. Then, you can return your awareness back to your breath and body. This can happen many times in a single meditation session.
Maintaining a Consistent Practice
Finding time and space in your life to sit for a single meditation can be difficult. It can be even more challenging to maintain a regular and consistent practice. That feeling of friction or hesitance to essentially sit and do nothing is a consequence of our busy daily life. You should try to start small and gradually increase your practice time to a level that feels right for you. Setting a regular schedule can help.
There is no such thing as a “perfect” meditation. The practice itself, including the challenges, is what builds our mindful awareness, leading to enhanced connection with a life in sobriety.
Mindful Recovery in Support Groups & Communities
Recovery is often more successful when we have support.
If you search around your local area, you may find that there are mindfulness-based recovery groups that can help keep you accountable to a consistent practice. There’s also a wealth of online communities and mobile apps designed to help structure and guide meditation.
Just like other aspects of recovery, sharing the practice with others can provide motivation, accountability, and a sense of connection.
The Science Behind Mindfulness in Addiction Recovery
Mindfulness and meditation is an inherently spiritual practice. However, there are many studies that show the effectiveness of mindfulness in addiction medicine as an evidence-based treatment approach.
Research supports the effectiveness of mindfulness in addiction treatment.
Studies have shown that mindfulness practices can:
- Reduce substance cravings
- Decrease stress and anxiety
- Improve emotion regulation
- Increase gray matter in brain areas associated with learning, memory, and emotional regulation
These findings help support why some of the most effective recovery programs – like the one here at Renewal Lodge – incorporate mindfulness as a key component of treatment.
Embracing Mindfulness in Recovery With Renewal Lodge
As you move forward, consider how you might incorporate mindfulness into your daily life. Start small, be patient with yourself, and notice the positive changes that unfold over time. Your journey in recovery is uniquely yours, and mindfulness can help you navigate it with greater awareness, compassion, and resilience.
Remember, we call it a mindfulness practice for good reason – it’s not about doing it in a right or wrong way, but about showing up and doing your best each day.
If you’re struggling with addiction and relapse and the idea of a more mindful, self-aware life resonates with you, please reach out to us. Renewal Lodge offers short-term inpatient rehab programs for both drug addiction and alcoholism that will help you begin a life in recovery that incorporates mindfulness.
