How Meditation Helped Me Stop Drinking

SILENCE MATTERS –

June 7, 2024 – By embarking on an inward search, I settled into the calm awaiting beneath the choppy surface of anxiety and depression, a well-being so profound that I practiced TM daily. I unveiled the person I was meant to be once I drank less and practiced more introspection, a gradual transition toward befriending myself.

My first experiences with a practice rooted in mindfulness began while studying for Tibet House’s 100-Hour Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training with David Nichtern during lockdown. By that point, in addition to TM, I’d experimented with sound, metta, (loving-kindness), and breath-based meditation techniques. Yet, mindfulness practice resonated with me on an even deeper level. When taught in the Buddhist context, a mindfulness discipline trains you to observe how thoughts, emotions, and perceptions arise and vanish. These “movements” of the mind can vary from joyful to disturbing. By viewing these “movements” as separate and distinct from the mind, one can practice giving rise to skillful mind states while abandoning unhealthy ones. Herein lies the key to self-transformation.