Author: John Carter

Mindfulness-based treatment of addiction: current state of the field and envisioning the next wave of research

Contact us today to embark on your journey to recovery with a partner you can trust for excellence and compassionate care. Incorporating meditation into one’s personal journey of recovery can be a transformative step. It serves as a powerful tool for individuals traversing the challenging path of overcoming addiction.

Contributor; Editorial Advisory Board Member, Harvard Health Publishing

Addiction is a complex and multifaceted challenge, deeply affecting individuals and their loved ones. Navigating the path to recovery often requires a combination of strategies. Below, we’ll explore the transformative role of meditation in overcoming addiction. By integrating this ancient practice into recovery programs, individuals battling addiction can access new avenues for healing and resilience. Let’s unpack the numerous benefits meditation in addiction recovery in the journey toward sobriety and well-being. They may be able to give you some resources or utilize substance abuse therapies that incorporate mindfulness or other form of meditation in your therapy sessions.

Sequencing of mindfulness as a part of multimodal treatment packages

Being mindful is about being present, increasing our awareness, and opening our eyes to the reality of now. Introduced by the Buddha as a path to spiritual enlightenment more than 2,500 years ago, mindfulness is the art of being present in your own life. It’s a gentle way of opening your mind to greater awareness; to a truer, deeper understanding of yourself and your world. Meditation is ultimately intended to ground you in the moment, and most people report feeling extremely calm afterward (and some even fall asleep during their meditative practices). It brings you back to your body and the present moment, and allows you to live right here, right now.

Improves sleep

Contemporary advances in addiction neuroscience have paralleled increasing interest in the ancient mental training practice of mindfulness meditation as a potential therapy for addiction. In the past decade, mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have been studied as a treatment for an array addictive behaviors, including drinking, smoking, opioid misuse, and use of illicit substances like cocaine and heroin. This article reviews current research evaluating MBIs as a treatment for addiction, with a focus on findings pertaining to clinical outcomes and biobehavioral mechanisms. Studies indicate that MBIs reduce substance misuse and craving by modulating cognitive, affective, and psychophysiological processes integral to self-regulation and reward processing.

Effective, lifelong recovery starts by treating the whole person, not just the substance use disorder. This means treating the underlying mental health issues at the root of addiction and providing patients with tools they need for a healthier, more satisfying life. Meditation can also help you deal withprotracted withdrawal, which involves symptoms like anxiety, difficulty making decisions and strong drug cravings that last for several months after drug use is stopped.

Elucidating the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness as a treatment for addiction

Results indicated that studies with samples of only men experienced larger reductions in levels of craving and stress, and significantly larger increases in levels of mindfulness, compared to studies with samples comprised only of women or studies with samples comprised of women and men. Although the authors did not include a formal search for “gray literature” related to MBI treatment of substance misuse, they noted that funnel plots and Egger’s test analyses suggested that their findings were not likely due to publication bias. At The Recovery Village, we offer a comprehensiveaddiction treatment programthat includes holistic treatment options, including mindfulness meditation, recreational therapies, self-care activities, aftercare services and relapse prevention programs.

This large body of research suggests that addiction is best regarded as a cycle of compulsive substance use subserved by dysregulation in neural circuitry governing motivation and hedonic experience, habit behavior, and executive function 1. Though findings from the basic science of addiction have yielded novel treatment targets that may inform the development of promising pharmacotherapies, the behavioral treatment development process often lags behind the ever-accelerating pace of mechanistic discovery. In that regard, the mainstays of behavioral addictions treatment, cognitive-behavioral therapy and motivational interviewing, were developed decades ago and prior to the current understanding of addiction as informed by neuroscience. Yet, to the extent that behavioral therapies target dysregulated neurocognitive processes underlying addiction, they may hold promise as effective treatments for persons suffering from addictive disorders.

1. The challenge to altering addictions is the fear that you can’t change which can push you into denial and cause you to minimize the consequences of your unproductive behaviors.
2. Research on mindfulness meditation indicates that qualities we once thought immutable that form temperament and character can actually be altered significantly.
3. Your mind may drift, but it is important to bring your focus back to which sense you’ve chosen to perceive.
4. Participants are given therapeutic homework, consisting of formal and informal mindfulness practices as well as assignments to self-monitor symptoms like craving and negative affect.

A large 2014 meta-analysis of studies enrolling nearly 3,500 participants linked meditation with decreased pain. Focused attention meditation is like weightlifting for your attention span. If you or a loved one are in need of help with addiction, contact us today. Our professional and friendly addiction specialists are able to answer your questions and get things moving in the right direction.

How Meditation Benefits Your Mind and Body

In the past, when you repeatedly engaged in specific thoughts and behaviors that propelled your addiction, you unknowingly shaped your brain in ways that worked against you and prevented you from being mindful. That’s precisely the moment when adding mindfulness and meditation to your addiction recovery program could reboot your enthusiasm and re-energize your journey. Build a lifestyle that supports both mindfulness practice and recovery.

Keep a positive and open mind and be willing to try different forms of meditation to determine which one is right for you. If you are still determining which type of meditation is right for you, consider trying a few different types and see which ones feel most comfortable and beneficial. Many inpatient and outpatient recovery centers may offer yoga and meditation as part of their comprehensive treatment packages. Alternatively, consider setting your alarm a few minutes early to take advantage of quiet time in the morning.

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Twenty-eight of the reports presented the first published findings from the related study and six reports presented results of secondary analyses. Any given study could contribute findings only once to meta-analyses conducted within outcome domains. The adequacy of randomization was examined in all studies and analysis of covariance and linear mixed modeling were often used to control for any remaining pretreatment differences. Many studies had high attrition rates at posttreatment and subsequent follow-ups. Most of the 34 studies reviewed relied extensively on self-report measures of substance use and other constructs.