Addiction Recovery: "One Breath at a Time"

Kevin Griffin, One Breath at a Time (excerpts), BuddhistRecovery.org; Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

What would the Buddha say to an alcoholic or drug addict? What can the Recovery Movement offer the Buddhist path? Author Kevin Griffin immersed himself in the Buddhist and Twelve Step traditions, and in One Breath at a Time he gives some surprising and inspiring answers to these questions. As a Buddhist meditation teacher and longtime Twelve Step practitioner, he weaves his personal story of recovery with traditional Buddhist teachings, taking us on a journey through the steps

“Six months before the holiday retreat with [enlightened lay Buddhist meditation teacher] Ruth Denison [as confirmed by living Buddhist master  Ajahn Jumnien, who is profiled in Jack Kornfield's classic book on Buddhist greats], I went on a solo retreat for a week at a Buddhist monastery in the hills above Santa Cruz.

Living Buddhist Masters (Jack Kornfield)

“The first couple of days of sitting I continued my usual prayer rituals, morning and evening. But as I got deeper into practice, I found praying to something or someone outside myself started to feel false and artificial. I asked myself what 'God' felt like.

“As I meditated day after day, the idea of a being called God faded and was replaced by a sense of spirit that was in me and in everything. The name Great Spirit sprang to mind. This sounded almost silly, as if I were adopting a Native American belief system and yet, these words best fit my sense of a Higher Power: a vast, subtle energy pervading all things – a Great Spirit.”

[A better "Higher Power" than God]

I'm your Highest Power, goddammit!

“So for some years I adopted these words when I prayed. My Higher Power was both inside and outside. Today, verbal prayer sometimes falls away entirely, replaced simply by the effort to be aware and awake, to be mindful in each moment. At other times I use Buddhist forms of prayer (which I’ll explore in Step Eleven).”

“I don’t mean to say that I’ve got the Higher Power thing all figured out and I’m on the right side. Rather, this is where I’ve come to. Buddhist practice, in one way, strips everything away, so it’s hard to hold on to concepts like 'God.'

“On the other hand, the practice gives you such powerful inner resources that another kind of trust may supplant the formal faith in God.”

“The idea of a Higher Power changes; like everything, it’s impermanent. We learn to trust our understanding and let it evolve. Sometimes our inner landscape is so parched, there’s no sense of power or life; at other times we feel a gentle hand guiding us.

“Mindfulness, developed in meditation, helps us to see our relationship to our Higher Power in this moment and to work with that relationship in the most helpful way. In fact, mindfulness itself can be used as a Higher Power, as we shall see in Step Three” (pp. 41-42).

“Looking back, I see how in meditation it was possible to deceive myself. In silence, in my own mind, what appeared and disappeared, was not seen or heard by anyone else. I got no feedback, and besides that, I didn’t recognize the “nature of my wrongs,” the destructive and dysfunctional quality of my thinking – not to mention my behavior. This is where the Twelve Steps have something to offer Buddhism.”

[Is it any easier in Asia?]

Sons of the Buddha (Kamala Tiyavanich)

“In Asia, the monastery is the center of social life for many people. The monks are teachers for the lay people, even confidants. They offer guidance on matters large and small. Buddhism acts as a social and spiritual support system. However, for lay Buddhists in the West, we’ve largely lost this element...”

“What’s difficult to achieve is the kind of support that those in Twelve Step groups give each other. This may be because of a central difference in orientation between Twelve Step groups and Buddhist groups.

“In the Twelve Step groups, what brings people together is a common affliction, be it alcoholism, drug addiction, codependence, overeating, or something else. The members of these groups share a struggle, and also the willingness to engage that struggle with tremendous honesty.

“The Twelve Step tradition emphasizes the need for support, for “carrying the message”, for an ongoing fellowship as we deal with our failings. People in recovery also have the sense of having survived something together, and like any group of survivors, they share a bond forged in pain, struggle and eventual redemption.”

“In contrast, a Buddhist group is filled with people who, in some sense, are striving for Buddhahood, for perfection. Everyone is trying to learn Right Speech, Right Effort, Right Concentration, and on and on.

“In that context, there isn’t the same tendency to talk about one’s failings. You’re 'supposed' to be meditating right and being a good little Buddhist. There’s a striving for this ideal. And in that striving, there may even be a touch of competitiveness.

“So although the Buddhist teachings emphasize compassion and interconnectedness, in many Buddhist communities we haven’t found ways to bring the kind of immediate bonding that newcomers to the Twelve Steps can feel after their first meeting when they are surrounded by people offering their phone numbers and asking how they can help” (pp. 124-125). More

• One Breath at a Time
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part One: Surrender
• (Step 1; Meditation Exercise: Vipassana; Step 2; Step 3)
• Part Two: Investigation and responsibility
• (Step 4; Meditation Exercise: noting the Hindrances; Step 5; Step 6; Step 7; Step 8; Step 9)
• Part Three: Fulfillment
• (Step 10; Step 11; Meditation Exercise: cultivating the wholesome: mudita and karuna; Step 12; Back to Step 1)

RecoveryDharma.org is a recovery movement based on Buddhist principles.