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Treating Addiction With Meditation

photograph of a woman meditating on the beach

In a recent post on AddictionNews, we learned that mindfulness was the least impactful of four therapies taught to children in terms of their tendencies to abuse substances as adolescents. These insights come from amazing longitudinal studies that give us a better sense of how people get addicted, and how they get out of addiction.

We’re not saying that mindfulness doesn’t help treat addiction in adults. It does help many adults by increasing attention to the present moment and not dwelling on the past or projecting into the future. Interestingly, the most impactful youth therapy for resisting later substance abuse is deep breathing. Since deep breathing is often a part of mindfulness training, it shows that some aspects of mindfulness are therapeutic.

Taking a deep breath is often step one in resisting an urge. Counting the breaths further refocuses the mind on breathing. Watching the breaths and/or counting the breaths can help the mind ride a wave of desire long enough for a rational decision to be made. In this way, delay discounting — the ability to refrain from instant gratification — is strengthened. Every breath builds resilience. Every day sober is a success.

Interesting new studies on internet addiction show that meditation is effective at retraining the mind from a love of scrolling to a love of nothing. A study in the Mahratta Multi-Disciplinary Journal found the following benefits from meditation in the recovery from substance use disorders:

  • A reduction in depression
  • An increase in emotional stability
  • Improved mood
  • Reduced risk of relapse

Researchers associated with Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth, a university in Pune, India, summarize that… 

The practice of meditation is very effective in reducing recklessness and increasing patience of common stressors.

The researchers note that meditation involves “taking deep breaths.” Without citing a reference, the researchers state, “Meditation is proven as six times more effective than any other traditional therapy to help in the speedy recovery of addicts.”

A more scientific approach to the issue is a systematic review of the literature on smartphone addiction and meditation from the Journal of Research in Traditional Medicine. Researchers from Manipur University in India compared the results from 32 papers on treatment for smartphone addiction.

They traced the path of both smartphone addiction and meditations through the prefrontal cortex, the cingulate cortex, the nucleus accumbens, and the orbitofrontal cortex. What they found was:

[T]he brain areas activated during different kinds of meditation techniques are implicated in the reward system, response control, impulsivity, salience, and cognitive function.

Again without citation, the authors state that meditation and breathing exercises “improve brain structure and function.” While the review makes its way through all 32 papers, the end result is the researchers say that meditation strengthens the areas of the brain that addiction tends to degrade.

How exactly does meditation help with addiction recovery? For an interesting deep dive into the process, try an article from Vox, of all places, entitled “How meditation deconstructs your mind.” Mindfulness and breathing exercises just open the door. As meditation practice deepens, one can observe the self from a detached perspective.

This ability to examine the self from a distance allows one to better see the problems their addiction may be causing and also actions that need to be taken to change course. Oshan Jarow, who covers consciousness for Vox, writes about a deeper level of meditation that can “change the way your mind generates experience in the first place.” Jarow does cite studies that show that:

Meditation makes parts of your brain grow thicker. It changes patterns of electrical activity in key brain networks. It raises the baseline of gamma wave activity. It shrinks your amygdala.

Jarow follows the practice of meditation through four levels: focused attention, open monitoring, non-duality, and cessation. Refocusing the attention on the present is the core strategy of mindfulness. Open monitoring is the ability to see your thoughts as thoughts without the need to react to them. Non-duality eliminates the distinction between subject and object. Finally, cessation is the lack of consciousness.

Jarow writes that there’s a saying that mindfulness can make you 10% happier. These deeper meditation techniques, he writes, can make you “10 times happier.” He says that meditation achieves these results by “deconstructing the predictive mind.” And here’s where the payoff comes for those struggling with addiction.

Deconstructing the mind turns down the volume on all the concerns for the future or events from the past, “releasing the grip they ordinarily hold on awareness.” Focusing attention helps turn the knob down on everything else. Open-monitoring allows you to observe your thoughts, feelings and emotions as they rise and fall. Non-duality allows you to see the oceans that these thoughts are floating by in.

And then there’s cessation. “Cessation is like going under general anesthesia, but without any drugs,” writes Jarow. One of the leading researchers on consciousness, Thomas Metzinger, has just published a book collecting more than 500 firsthand reports from serious meditators throughout the world on the experience of non-duality and cessation. They write about the ability to “reprogram ourselves” using these techniques.

From simple urge suppression to reprogramming someone off an addiction, the techniques of deep breathing, mindfulness, and meditation have much to offer the person in recovery.

Written by Steve O’Keefe. First published January 23, 2025.

Sources:

“Importance of Yoga And Meditation in The Treatment And Rehabilitation Of Drug Addicts,” Mahratta Multi-Disciplinary Journal, July 2021.

“Understanding Smartphone addiction and the role of Meditation in its management — A review,” Journal of Research in Traditional Medicine, June 2021.

“How meditation deconstructs your mind,” Vox, January 8, 2025.

Image Copyright: evgenyatamanenko.

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