From Hell to Happiness: How Mindfulness Delivered Me From My Addiction
Rock Bottom
When my alcoholism was at its peak, there was no functioning without it. After having witnessed some of the most tragic scenes humanity had to offer during my army service, my ability to function without chemical assistance was impossible. Trauma and substance abuse often go hand in hand, and my case was no exception.
Truth be told, I drank to deal with my childhood trauma before the army, but the necessity was not the same. There was a time in my life when I could only participate in society somewhat flashback-free if I was nursing a drink, and even my loved ones urged me to have a shot or two when the symptoms got bad enough. It was a dependency completely backed up with justification and consensus. It wasn’t actually helping, of course, but I wasn’t ready to believe that.
It did nothing to make my condition better; it just gave me something to shoot the misery down with, to make it more palatable. Then, when the alcohol inevitably left my system, I was wracked with panic attacks and fits of convulsions, screaming, flashbacks. The thing about Hell is, pretending you aren’t there doesn’t help you leave.
Some Additional Context
It was at that point in my life I was also re-evaluating my relationships with my religious identity and God. I was raised in a religious family and was part of a faith-based community until my army service. Although I didn’t fully ascribe to the ideas of my upbringing, I certainly did have a set of beliefs leading up to the time of my trauma. Then, once I experienced those life-changing scenes, those beliefs were shattered.
I had to rebuild my worldview from the ground up.
I had been in and out of numerous types of therapy, some of which were quite helpful, some less so. One thing that I learned was that the therapist could be helpful in their own right, separate from the form of therapy they administered. Human connection is a powerful door for healing to enter through.
I think that’s really the crux of it—healing through our humanity. But I’m really getting ahead of myself. Back to therapy.
Human Connection
My first therapist had a Buddha statue on his desk. I asked him if he was a religious man, and he said he wasn’t in the slightest. He told me that after he had experienced trauma of his own, the teachings of the Buddhist tradition helped him recover, though he wasn’t inclined towards organized religion. I thought it was interesting but gave it no further thought. Little did I realize that had been the only part of our therapy that would have a lasting impact.
Shortly after, I checked myself into a facility, as my mental state was at its absolute lowest. Between the flashbacks, the mood dysregulation, the mounting substance abuse, and the plummeting depths of my suffering, I had no other option. I needed to do the hard thing and admit I couldn’t do it alone.
It was in the hospital that I saw a wonderful psychiatrist. A thoughtful, compassionate man who treated me with respect and dignity, despite me being half-mad. I told him I was struggling with the trauma of not only seeing absolute horrors but having my entire worldview destroyed. He made me feel a whole new level of being understood. We bonded over a shared love of Søren Kierkegaard of existentialist fame and discussed Viktor Frankl’s titular work Man’s Search for Meaning.
Meeting with a human being rather than a PhD with a clipboard was something I didn’t know I so desperately needed.
The psychiatrist told me that he had been raised in a very abusive home and that his siblings were all too damaged to live functional lives. He had been the only person in his family to come out all right. I asked him how he saved himself, and he told me he had turned to Buddhist teachings and practices. This being the second time I had heard the story of someone being saved by a long-dead Indian prince, my interest grew.
Clinical Treatments and Conventional Wisdom
Upon discharge, I was sent to a DBT program. DBT, for those unfamiliar, stands for Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. To oversimplify, DBT is a treatment where you are taught the skills to process and handle life as it happens to you, changing your relationship to your emotions, interactions, and daily situations.
It has four modules: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness.
As I participated in DBT, my life took the turn that set me on the trajectory I’m currently on. In therapy, we practiced the Buddhist tenets of mindfulness, holding space for the coexistence of life’s opposites and contradictions, radical acceptance, non-attachment, letting go, and active compassion.
Leap of Faith
Once I began practicing these things in my daily life through therapy, I saw improvements and knew I wanted to take things to the next level. So, I became a Buddhist (I’ve since morphed into a syncretic mystic). I am not saying that everyone who wants to quit drinking needs to become a Buddhist, but this is just my story.
Once I fully committed myself to overcoming my suffering through Buddhist practice, I did something I never thought I was capable of doing: I let the suffering in.
All of the things within me I feared, hated, was ashamed or in denial of flooded in to be dealt with.
It was excruciating. Getting better was quite possibly the most turbulent, terrifying thing I’d ever done in some ways, as I opened the door to all of my personal demons. Once acknowledged, I was able to deal with my long-neglected issues through what I had learned from those therapists, DBT, and Buddhism: compassion.
Once I mustered up the courage to confront my pain, I had gained the opportunity to heal it. And of course, at first, it was very overwhelming… until it wasn’t.
Trading the Bottle for the Teapot
In the beginning of the process, I continued to rely heavily on alcohol in emergency situations. From the point I began mindfulness to when I quit drinking, it was a two-year journey. I became functional enough to go to college, but I did many of my classes via Zoom. I drank to go to mandatory in-person lectures without breaking down and sobered up in time to teach mindfulness and meditation on the grass.
Coexistence of contradictions, am I right?
As time went on and the mindfulness really began to fortify me, I found a strange thing happening: mindfulness and alcohol were becoming mutually exclusive.
Mindfulness was becoming a stronger refuge for me, and alcohol hindered it. Alcohol was immediate and strong, but mindfulness was cumulative and was changing my relationship to my life, my trauma, and my addiction. More than that, though, was how alcohol and the comedowns undid the progress from the mindfulness and slammed me with fits of flashbacks and anxiety.
I understood that if I wanted to ever be okay, I needed to go with the sustainable, truly beneficial option. The things DBT, Buddhism, and recovery taught me were my chance at a normal life, but the dependable constant needed to be thrown away for them to take full effect.
This was after years of “I need a drink” being my way of saying, “I’m not okay and I wish I was.” But now it was time to be okay—and that was okay.
Nowadays
It’s been a year and a half since I fully replaced drinking with mindfulness. I have been working as a holistic healing practitioner and trauma coach in that time, and my clients have most certainly given me a new perspective on what it means to heal and grow. The key to a successful healing session is creating an environment where the client has the safety and security to face whatever traumas, fears, and pains are buried within them.
My biggest takeaway from my personal journey, especially with the perspective of my recent healing work, is that extending the compassion I have for others to myself can make all the difference in overcoming personal struggles. If I can love and accept anyone who comes to me for treatment, no matter how much of a mess they are, I can love and accept myself. My heart and mind have finally become a safe environment for me to live in.
Now you.
We’d love for you to share in the comments:
Has “letting suffering in” played a role in your own healing?
Was there a moment in your life or recovery when you realized that continuing to drink was incompatible with something that was helping you heal?
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Such a beautiful, powerful, hope-inspiring share, Gabe. Thank you.
For me, continuing to drink began to feel deeply misaligned with my mindfulness, meditation, and yoga practice. This realization was one of the primary reasons I decided to quit, and I’ll celebrate five years of sobriety this February.
What an inspiring and beautiful story Gabriel. Thank you for sharing and congratulations on your sobriety and recovery.
Mindfulness and meditation have been keys to my sobriety (2+ yrs), recovery, and finding contentment and peace within in myself.