Addiction and Free Will

The universe is full of action, but there is no actor.

--Nisargadatta Maharaj

Events happen, deeds are done, but there is no individual doer thereof.

--The Buddha

When we start inquiring into what is holding us back from realizing the truth, we come to the realization that there is really nothing there. There are no obstacles. Nothing is holding us back from awakening.

--Anam Thubten

When we maintain awareness, whether we know it or not, healing is taking place...When we can sit with a simple mind, not being caught by our own thoughts, something slowly dawns, and a door that has been shut begins to open....As the door opens, we see that the present is absolute and that, in a sense, the whole universe begins right now, in each second. And the healing of life is in that second of simple awareness....Healing is always just being here, with a simple mind.

--Charlotte joko Beck

What is to stop anyone from quitting the use of a substance? Whatever appears as the answer to this question is the sound of the Addictive Voice.

--Jack Trimpey

Your suffering is your own activity. It is something that you are doing moment to moment. It is a completely voluntary activity…all you are doing is pinching yourself. When you realize that, you just take your hand away.

--Adi Da

Choice implies consciousness--a high degree of consciousness. Without it, you have no choice.

--Eckhart Tolle

In any given moment everyone everywhere is doing exactly what he or she must do. They can't be or do anything else. Liberation isn't the act of breaking free of this. Liberation is knowing it can't be otherwise. 

--Darryl Bailey

You can't put a foot wrong, because nothing and no one is going anywhere. 'You' are not a character on a journey to self-realisation. It's all a play of appearances.

--Nathan Gill

Abandon yourself to God.

--The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

There’s nothing to fix in your life. Nothing to accomplish. Nothing to do. Except to abide in the Power that knows the way...You are that Power yourself.

--Robert Adams

Enlightenment is...to see ourselves not as separate, not as lacking, not as in charge, not as weak and helpless.

--Steve Hagen

Wakefulness is the Alfa and the Omega. It is what we are running from. It is also what we are seeking. We are escaping from the very thing we’re trying to get to. We are aspiring to the very thing we’re trying to escape.

--J. Jennifer Matthews

We want to be only good, and we want to remove all evil. But that is because we forget that good is made of non-good elements....You cannot be good alone. You cannot hope to remove evil, because thanks to evil, good exists, and vice versa.

--Thich Nhat Hanh

Expect nothing of the Nothing…and it cannot disappoint.
Also expect everything of it, and again it cannot disappoint.

--Douglas Harding

Effort is a sign of conflict between incompatible desires. They should be seen as they are – then only they dissolve.

--Nisargadatta

In a sense, addiction is our basic human problem. It doesn't have to be addiction to alcohol or drugs. I would define addiction as any habitual behavior or substance-use that feels out of control, compulsive, self-perpetuating and destructive. Addiction often involves an inner conflict between the desire to stop and the desire to keep going, both of which are a movement away from the present actuality of Here / Now. This movement away from present actuality is always a movement toward something that is imagined to be more desirable, whether that something is the addictive pleasure or the dream of being free from the addiction. Trying to stop is part of the addiction (and is different from actually stopping).

Because it involves the apparently involuntary and compulsive engagement in activities that we like to think are voluntary, addiction is a wonderful place in which to explore the whole question of choice and free will. This is an exploration that is available to almost everyone if we understand addiction in the broadest sense of the word. Most people are addicted to painful ways of thinking. Some people have an addictive relationship to normally healthy activities such as eating, sex or work. As a society, we in the United States are addicted to oil. To some degree or other, addiction is something we all know.

It should be noted that seeking pleasure and avoiding pain are survival mechanisms that make perfect sense in a purely biological context, but no other animal smokes and drinks itself to death. Capitalist-consumer society actually cultivates addiction. Paul Mazer, a Wall Street banker working for Lehman Brothers in the 1930s, was quoted in a documentary as having said: "We must shift America from a needs – to a desires – culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed….Man's desires must overshadow his needs." The advertising industy has permeated virtually every aspect of modern life from politics to spirituality, deliberately creating a sense of lack and then offering to fill it, or instilling fear and then promising a false security. It's no wonder we have wide-spread problems with addiction!

Perhaps the most fundamental human addiction is our addiction to the story of “me,” an apparently separate unit of consciousness supposedly endowed with free will and encapsulated inside a bodymind, looking out at an alien universe. From this imaginary vantage point of "me," a fragment in a fragmented world, there is always a sense of lack and a search for happiness (or love, or joy, or peace, or freedom), always imagined to be "out there" somewhere. Perhaps this thought-sense of separation is at the root of all the dysfunctional ways in which human beings seek pleasure and try to avoid pain.

When we look closely, we find that this separate self is a mirage-like appearance composed of ever-changing thoughts, images, memories, stories, beliefs and sensations. Some functional identification with the bodymind is necessary for survival, but the egoic sense of identity and separation that creates our human suffering involves a storyline, a sense of fragmentation and alienation, a fear of death or annihilation that goes beyond the biological survival instinct, a self-image that needs to be enhanced and defended, and the belief that this "me" is (or should be) in control. It has been said that this phantom "me" is the root addiction of which all other addictions are in some way symptomatic.

But there are many factors that play into addiction and compulsion, so I would always caution against the assumption that there is any one-size-fits-all explanation or any one-size-fits-all solution that will cure every addiction or work for every individual. People mistakenly assumed for a long time that certain conditions such as depression or addiction were entirely moral, psychological or spiritual problems only to discover more recently that many other forces are obviously at work including neurochemistry, genetics, emotional trauma, brain trauma, and various other physical, emotional and socioeconomic conditions. Compulsions (such as fingerbiting) and addictions (such as alcoholism) may each come from different problems in different areas of the brain. We can find differences between different addictions, and between addictions and compulsions, and we can find similarities. In this article, I am emphasizing the similarities, the common ground, but I don't mean to deny the differences either. And I encourage all of us to keep an open mind and not imagine that we know everything there is to know about addiction and recovery.

Faced with uncomfortable feelings such as anxiety, irritation or hurt, or with painful stories about being inadequate or misunderstood, we typically look for a way out or a way to soothe ourselves. As I pointed out before, avoiding pain and seeking pleasure (fear and desire) are conditioned biological survival functions that make perfect sense in a certain practical context. But in human beings with our complex brains, these basic survival instincts get carried over into the psychological realm where they can easily become dysfunctional and destructive. Driven by imaginary fears and misdirected desires, we overeat, over-spend, work compulsively, think compulsively, watch too much TV, drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, shoot heroin, or whatever it is that we do. The more we seek pleasure and run from pain in compulsive and addictive ways, the more painful it gets. It's like a case of poison ivy where the more we scratch, the more it itches and the more it spreads. Momentary highs are followed by devastating lows.

The particular shape this avoidance and seeking takes in each one of us has to do with nature and nurture – genetics, neurology, neurochemistry, childhood experiences, conditioning, social pressures, environmental forces, the condition of the brain, and so forth. Some people get caught up in addictive behaviors only very minimally, while for others, it snowballs into something that destroys the very fabric of the person's life and often many other lives as well. Some addictions are very mild, others are fatal. Some people are drawn to over-working, some to alcohol, some to heroin, some to child molesting or serial murder.

Most people think it is a matter of choice whether or not we drink excessively or molest children, but when we look closely and carefully, either with science or with meditative inquiry, we may find that everything is arising out of infinite causes and conditions and that these kinds of addictive and compulsive behaviors are like a form of hypnotic entrancement. It's as if we have been hypnotized or conditioned to injure ourselves (or someone else) and we are unable to stop.

So is there any way out? Can we choose to wake up or step out of this downward spiral? If you are convinced you know the right answer to that question one way or the other, I would invite you to drop that answer and for just one moment, to not know.

There are many different approaches to addiction recovery and new discoveries are happening all the time in neuroscience and in our understanding of the brain and the mind and how it all works. But in one way or another, I would say that recovering from an addiction always has something to do with learning how to be with the itch of our fundamental fear, discomfort, unease or restlessness without scratching the itch and making it worse. It has something to do with learning to be present and awake without running away and without expecting perfection. It has something to do with the power of awareness and waking up from the trance of conceptual thought (all our ideas, beliefs and assumptions about life), and with discovering an openness that is the opposite of control or will-power, a letting go that is often called surrender or grace.

Surrender doesn't mean surrendering to the addiction. It means right now, letting go of all our efforts to escape from or resist the present moment, stopping the search for a cure or a fix, and simply being fully open to what is -- without judgement and without trying to change it. Surrender means relaxing the movement of the mind that wants to seek and grasp and resist and defend and control what is showing up in this moment. It means waking up from the trance of thinking that we are encapsulated inside a bodymind looking out at an alien world, and recognizing instead that there is only the boundlessness of Here / Now, beholding and being everything. Surrendering is not something "I" (as the thinking mind, or as the character in the story) can do, for it is the realization that this "me" who seems to be living my life and thinking my thoughts is only a mirage-like appearance. We could say that surrendering is more like not doing anything at all – but it may take awhile to really understand what that means. It doesn't mean taking your hands off the steering wheel of your car, being a doormat, staying in an abusive situation, or not taking appropriate action to fix a problem. It means totally entering the present moment. (Of course, there is no way not to be the present moment since that is all there is, and there is no one apart from the present moment to enter it, but this is simply a pointer to a kind of relaxing and opening and surrendering).

In 12-Step programs, they speak of recognizing our powerlessness (as the thinking mind, as the phantom me), and turning our life and our will over to a power greater than ourselves. Some people understand this "Higher Power" as God, others understand it as awareness or as what Eckhart Tolle has called "the Power of Now," others think of it as the True Self, some see it as what is called the Self (the One Reality) in Advaita. However we think of it and whatever we call it, this Higher Power is not something apart from us. As Nisargadatta said, "I Am That." But the "I" he was referring to was not the false sense of encapsulation as the phantom me. It was rather this all-inclusive Boundlessness or Aware Presence that is beholding and apprearing as everything (including the phantom me).

Surprisingly, true surrender turns out to be the gateway to true responsibility -- the ability to respond intelligently rather than simply reacting in habitual knee-jerk, conditioned ways. It is in completely letting go that something truly new and creative can enter the picture. And it is in recognizing our utter powerlessness as the individual bodymind that we come to recognize our True Self as the boundlessness of Here / Now, the no-thing that includes and is everything. As the Whole, we are both completely powerless and absolutely responsible for everything.

It doesn't work to fight against unconsciousness or to try to control the movement of life. What can truly transform our experience is awareness. Awareness accepts everything just as it is. It shines light on what is. It illuminates and clarifies. Awareness is Intelligence Itself. It allows true transformation to happen by seeing everything freshly and allowing something new to emerge. Awareness is unconditioned, unbound, unlimited and uncaused. Recovering from an addiction or dissolving the illusion of separation involves waking up from the hypnotic and habitual entrancement in thoughts, stories and beliefs. It involves being able to experience disturbing or unpleasant sensations without needing to turn away or numb out. Recovering from an addiction is all about allowing the Intelligence of Life Itself to unfold freely without obstruction. Of course, in one sense, that is always the case, because there is nothing that is not the One Reality, but it can seem otherwise, and so, we have recovery programs and meditation and nondual teachings, and all of this (the addiction and the recovery, the confusion and the clarity) is the One Reality. The absolute understanding doesn't deny relative reality, it simply isn't bound by it. In Zen they call enlightenment the merging of difference and unity, leaping clear of the many and the one, realizing that What Is, is "not one, not two." Realizing that there is "no self" and "no independent free will" doesn't mean there isn't absolute freedom Here / Now. True freedom isn't the freedom of an independent will, which is really only an illusion of freedom. True freedom is the freedom at the very heart of this moment, the freedom of awareness. This isn't the freedom to do whatever I want, but rather, the freedom to be what I am. This is the freedom of not knowing, the freedom of being open to everything.

Surrendering or waking up is not a one-time event, nor is it about adopting a new philosophical belief or having an experience of spaciousness that lasts forever. I'm talking about a present-moment shift, not once-and-for-all, but now -- a shift from thinking to simply being aware, a shift from trying to control life to relaxing and letting go (or "turning it over to God," as they say in 12-Steps) -- not moving toward anything or away from anything, but allowing everything to be just as it is. Being the boundless space of awareness beholding it all, and as awareness, being completely at one with whatever is showing up, going completely into the sensations and the bare actuality of this moment -- not pulling back into thinking about it (as in, judgement, analysis, storyline) -- but being this-here-now, just exactly as it is, without division, without trying to change it, without seeking a result. This is not so much a shift as a recognition of what is actually ever-present.

How does that shift or that recognition happen? In a sense, no one knows how it happens. Is it a choice? We can't really say. No description of reality can capture reality. The common assumption is that we all freely control and choose our thoughts and actions and the movement of our attention, and thus, anyone can stop an addiction if they want to stop, and anyone can choose or decide what to want. This misunderstanding leads to guilt, shame, blame and frustration. Other people, steeped in Advaita and radical nonduality, sometimes assume that “no self” or “choicelessness” means there is nothing anyone can do to end an addictive pattern. They sometimes have the idea that trying to stop an addictive behavior violates some basic tenet of Advaita or radical nonduality. If everything is perfect as it is, they reason, and if there is no self with free will, then who would want or be able to change anything and why would they want to? But this is a misunderstanding of Advaita and nonduality.

Change is the very nature of life and each of our actions, abilities, desires and insights are part of how totality is functioning. In one sense, it's absolutely true that everything is perfect just as it is, including addiction, and yet, it's equally true that the desire to wake up from entrancement and suffering is also perfect. Meditation, psychotherapy, yoga, bodywork, somatic awareness work, satsang, Tai Chi, recovery programs, social action programs to protect the environment or to relieve suffering and correct various forms of injustice -- all of these are ways that human beings come together to clear up confusion and wake up to new possibilities. This happens very much in the same way that white blood cells work together in the body to fight infection and clear up diseases. It may seem as if "I" am the one making choices, having intentions, and taking action, but if we look closely, we can't find anyone running the show. All of our intentions, urges, thoughts and actions -- all of our apparent "choices" and "decisions" -- are the activity of the whole universe, just as the white blood cells are an activity of the whole universe. The "me" who seems to be thinking "my" thoughts and making "my" choices is only a mirage, a phantom, an illusion. In this sense, we speak of there being no self and no choice.

But that doesn't mean nothing happens or that we must therefore sit on the couch for the rest of our life "doing nothing." In fact, we will be moved by life to act in one way or another. When the right conditions come together, the bodymind can learn or be trained in all kinds of ways so that it has more choices, better choices, more control, more refined control, more possibilities, or however you want to put it. A skilled athlete has more choices, more control, more possibilities for how to move her body than someone without that training and practice. A skilled writer has more choices, more control, more possibilities for how to express himself clearly in words than someone who is illiterate. And in the same way, it is possible (when it is) to learn skills in recovery programs, in therapy, or through meditation that give us more choices, more possibilities, and more ability to respond constructively rather than destructively to certain feelings, urges, discomforts and upsets. Learning happens -- learning to be with the itch and not scratch it, and noticing that when we do this, the itch eventually dissolves. It is possible (when it is) to become aware of how we are pinching ourselves – how we are doing our suffering – and in seeing that, quite naturally, we stop.

Yes, in the larger sense, all of this learning happens out of infinite causes and conditions and could not be otherwise in any moment than exactly how it is. No independent executive is "doing" any of this. But still, it can happen (when it can, when the right conditions come together). So although there is no choice in one sense, you still have to play the game and "decide" (when life so moves you) to pay attention, or meditate, or go to 12-step meetings, or turn your life over to a Higher Power, or relax the thinking mind, or read nondual books about "doing nothing," or whatever happens through you as a way of learning to not scratch the itch. You have no choice! There is a power right here that acts and you are that. This power is not the phantom-me, which is only a mirage. Nor is it the thinking mind which only pretends to be in control. We could say, that which acts is either the force of habit and conditioning (the infinite chain of cause and effect) or else it is the Power of Now, the Aware Presence that is causeless and free. But these aren't really two separate things. Awareness or Presence is like the water in every wave, and the infinite chain of cause and effect (nature and nurture) is like a conceptual map of the waves. It all happens by itself.

Whatever life moves us to do to refine and enhance the functioning of the bodymind is wonderful. I'm very grateful that I'm not still drinking myself to death, smoking several packs of cigarettes a day, and flying into uncontrollable rages as I was forty years ago -- although that life wasn't all bad either -- in many ways, it has been a source of wisdom and compassion. "Joan being drunk and enraged" was no less a manifestation of the One Self than "Joan being sober and loving." In reality, everything is one, whole, seamless, undivided flow from which nothing stands apart, and in the end, there is no way to separate "the good" from "the bad," except conceptually, in the mental map. The thinking mind always wants to map things out and figure out what causes what. It wants a strategy for achieving what it considers to be improvement and success. This is a survival function, and in a certain context, it works quite effectively. And within that conceptual construction of cause and effect, it certainly seems that psychotherapy, meditation, martial arts training and various forms of awareness work all had something to do with bringing about "my" transformation from drunkenness to sobriety. But when we look more closely, we can't really find a solid boundary between one state and the other, or between "Joan" and the rest of the universe. So while it can be functionally useful to have the idea that psychotherapy or a recovery program may be a helpful resource in breaking free of an addiction, the problem comes when we imagine that this solution will always bring about the desired results, or when we believe that there is an executive at the helm who can (or "should") accomplish this task on command or at will, or when we expect perfection or believe our dualistic and simplistic ideas about good and bad, or when we think there is any single recipe for transformation that always works. Whenever we believe those kinds of ideas, it becomes a set up for guilt, shame, blame, frustration, despair or self-righteousness.

There are many approaches to working with addiction. There is no single "right" way to recover. The best path for another may not be the best path for you, and what looks like failure may be the perfect unfolding.

In addition to various recovery programs, the most effective way of undoing addiction that I know of is by giving non-judgmental, open attention to what is happening right now in this moment without seeking a result or trying to change it in any way – simply seeing it clearly. Let's take alcoholic drinking as an example. If you're not yet ready or able to completely stop drinking, then pay attention to the whole process of drinking as it happens. Notice that first impulse for a drink – see what triggers it, be aware of how it happens, notice what it feels like in the body. What is this urge itself actually like? What thoughts are showing up, what mental images, what storylines, what sensations? Is it possible to pause for a moment and fully experience the bodily sensations that go with this urge for a drink, the sense of urgency, the excitement, whatever it is? And then the whole process of "deciding" whether to give in to this urge or whether to resist – how does that so-called decision-making process actually unfold, what are your thoughts telling you? And then buying the bottle, opening it up, pouring the first drink – what does each moment in this process feel like in the body? And then the first sip, what is that like? And how do you feel after one drink – what is pleasurable about it, what isn't? What moves you to have a second drink? What is this urge – do you really want another drink, or is there a fear of what you might feel if you don't keep drinking? How do you feel after that second drink – do you actually like how you feel? What do you like about it and what don't you like? What do you feel like the next morning? What thoughts and stories are arising? Simply paying attention to this whole unfolding process and observing it every step of the way. You'll learn a lot. There are no "right" or "wrong" answers to these questions, and the answers may be different at different moments. It's all about paying attention, being aware of your thoughts, noticing the storylines, feeling the sensations in the body, discovering what is actually going on every step of the way. When you realize that you are pinching yourself, and when you see how it happens – what the allurement is, how it seduces you, how you do it, how ultimately unsatisfying it is, how it hurts – naturally, you stop.

The more the light of awareness shines on these habitual mechanisms, and the more clarity there is about how they work, the more choice and the more possibility there is. The urge for a drink may still arise, but it may be possible not to go with it. And when it isn't possible, then you drink. And you notice what that's like. Maybe over time drinking happens less and less, and maybe alcoholic drinking falls away completely at some point. Maybe at some point a clear decision to stop emerges, or a decision to go into some recovery program, or whatever it might be. It is not actually "your" decision, it is the action of Life Itself.

For more on that kind of awareness-based approach, I would recommend my own books, all of which talk extensively about addiction, and also my article on “Meditation and Inquiry,” one of the outpourings on this website, where I talk about how an addictive thought pattern was dissolved through meditation and awareness. Also for more on this kind of approach, I would recommend a number of the other authors on my recommended book list such as Eckhart Tolle, Toni Packer, Pema Chodron, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Joko Beck, Gangaji, Benthino Massaro, S.N. Goenka, Anthony deMello, Ajahn Sumedho, Cheri Huber, Thich Nhat Hanh, Claude Anshin Thomas, and J. Krishnamurti. I also recommend the little book on my recommended list by J. Matthews called Radically Condensed Instructions for Being Just as You Are, especially the final chapter, "Summary and Conclusion," for insight on addiction.

And if sobriety doesn't happen in this moment and the addiction or compulsion continues, then in this moment, it could not be otherwise. Whatever happens in each moment is the result of infinite causes and conditions. Everything is the way it is because the whole universe is the way it is. Some bodyminds have more stormy weather than other bodyminds, just as different cities have different weather conditions. We each contain the whole universe, the saint and the sinner. There is no one to blame because everything is the cause and the effect of everything else. But don't think that this description of reality means that you "should" or "must" just keep on drinking or smoking, or that everything won't change in the next moment.

It is indeed very liberating to realize that addiction and the freedom from addiction are not personal faults or achievements, and that whatever is showing up could not be otherwise in this moment than exactly how it is. This is the understanding of both radical nonduality and cutting edge neuroscience. When you really see that there is no separation anywhere and no independent self in control, then nothing that happens is taken personally anymore. This is a huge relief, and for this liberating realization, I recommend all my books and also the books on my recommended book list by Darryl Bailey, Gary Crowley, Leo Hartong, Wayne Liquorman, Nathan Gill, Sailor Bob Adamson, J. Matthews, Karl Renz and Tony Parsons, plus two other books also on my recommended list: Incognito by the neuroscientist David Eagleman and Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Clearly understood, this perspective is immensely liberating. But if possible, don't confuse descriptions with prescriptions, or get stuck in concepts and beliefs about “no self” and “no choice,” or mix up the relative and the absolute. As one satsang teacher very wisely put it, don't hang yourself in an Advaitic noose. In the end, no way of trying to conceptualize or describe life is anything more than a map or a menu. If I pay close attention to any simple action such as opening and closing my hand, I cannot find anyone who is in control of the impulse or the intention or the doing of that action. It all happens by itself out of infinite causes and conditions. It is an activity of the whole universe. And yet, if I simply wait around for grace to open and close my hand, I'll have a long wait. So if possible, don't get stuck in ideas about free will or the absence of free will. Hold the words and the formulations lightly, find the ones that work for you in each moment, and turn your attention to the reality behind the words.

There are many different recovery programs available. The best known programs are probably 12-Step programs such as AA. There are 12-Step programs for just about every form of addiction, including alcohol, drugs, sex, money, and food. I have great appreciation and respect for the 12-Step approach, and I find it in many ways surprisingly congruent with Buddhism, Advaita and nonduality. But the 12-Step approach won't be right for everyone, and there are aspects of it with which I don't resonate. Many people in 12-Step programs are very open-minded and will tell you to take what works from the program and leave the rest. But you do find some folks in these programs who are quite doctrinaire, and who insist that the 12-Step approach is the one and only way to truly recover from addiction, and unfortunately, that view is to some degree promulgated in their literature. I sobered up in 1973 in short-term therapy with a physician-therapist who specialized in addiction recovery, and she used a radically different approach from AA, so I know from my own experience that the 12-Step approach is not the only way.

My therapist used an approach that was a fusion of gestalt therapy, transactional analysis and radical therapy. She did not believe in the disease model of addiction, but instead viewed addiction as a choice I had made unconsciously, and she believed that I could make a conscious choice not to engage in addictive behavior now. For me, this approach worked very well. I sobered up, stopped doing drugs, and stopped smoking cigarettes.

SMART Recovery is another approach I discovered on the internet. I don't have any personal experience with them, but they describe their approach as one that can be applied to any kind of addiction and that can be used alone or in conjunction with other programs. The SMART Recovery website says that their approach has a scientific foundation, open to new information and change, rather than a spiritual approach like the 12-Steps. SMART Recovery seems to be strongly influenced by the ideas of cognitive therapy, and they say their approach teaches self-reliance rather than powerlessness; that they don't regard their way as the only way; that they encourage attendance at meetings for months to years, but not a lifetime (as AA does); and that they discourage the use of identity-labels such as "alcoholic" or "addict." That all sounds similar in many ways to the approach used by the therapist with whom I sobered up.

There are many other programs as well that you can find through the internet. One of those that you may come across is Rational Recovery (RR), founded by Jack Trimpey. They have some excellent insights to offer, and I found Trimpey's book, Rational Recovery, quite helpful and eye-opening. In particular, I found his Addictive Voice Recognition Technique (AVRT) very useful. But I think Trimpey's understanding of addiction is off the mark in some ways, and I was put off by his dogmatism and fanaticism and by his right-wing political ideology ("substance abuse is a direct cause of liberal politics," he says). He also seems to completely dismiss factors such as childhood sexual abuse, brain damage, PTSD, neurochemistry, unfavorable economic conditions and the like as nothing but imaginary problems or excuses for an individual making poor choices. So for these reasons, I would not recommend Trimpey or RR overall, but you might find parts of his books useful, as I did. Apparently SMART Recovery was connected to RR in the beginning, but SMART Recovery seems to have broken off completely from RR and gone their own way, and in contrast to RR, SMART Recovery sounds very open-minded and inclusive. So if you're looking for a non-spiritual alternative to AA, I'd suggest checking out SMART Recovery.

In addition, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (Steven C. Hayes), other forms of psychotherapy, meditation, yoga, changes in diet, somatic awareness work such as Feldenkrais, or work such as Peter Levine's on trauma and PTSD can all be helpful in recovery. (You'll find links to many such resources on my links page). The support of a recovery group, a therapist, or a true friend can be very important. But there is no one right way, so don't assume anyone else knows what's best for you.

For additional resources on addiction, I would also recommend the excellent chapter on addiction in a book called The Guru Papers, which is on my recommended book list. And on my link page, in addition to links for some of the things mentioned above, you might also check out Gabor Mate, Geneen Roth, Scott Kiloby, Kevin Griffin, Mel Ash, The 12-Step Buddhist, Marsha Linehan and Kiera Van Gelder. Gabor Mate (a medical doctor) has an excellent book on addiction called In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction; Geneen Roth (a workshop leader) writes mainly about food addiction (but it can be broadly applied); Scott Kiloby (a nondual teacher) writes and talks about his experiences with addiction and recovery and has a forthcoming book called The Natural Rest Method: A Revolutionary, Simple Way to Overcome Any Addiction; Kevin Griffin (a Vipassana teacher) has several books on Buddhism and the 12-Steps; Mel Ash (a Zen teacher) has a book on The Zen of Recovery; Darren Littlejohn (a student of both Zen and Tibetan Buddhism) has a book and a website, both called The 12-Step Buddhist; Marsha Linehan (a psychotherapist and researcher) created Dialectical Behavior Therapy (a cognitive-behavioral and mindfulness-meditation based approach to borderline personality disorder and associated issues such as addiction); Kiera Van Gelder (an author and teacher) writes and speaks about how she recovered from addiction and borderline personality disorder through Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Buddhism. Advaita teachers Wayne Liquorman and Sailor Bob Adamson both talk openly about their histories of addiction and recovery through AA.

Most in the addiction recovery world believe that total and permanent abstinence is the only real solution to addiction, but in the case of some addictions, such as overeating, complete abstinence from the addictive substance is not an option. The physician-therapist with whom I sobered up in 1973 believed that permanent abstinence was not always necessary and that a once-alcoholic-drinker could learn to drink in moderation after dealing with the underlying causative issues in therapy. She approached addiction not as a disease over which I was powerless, but rather as a behavior that I was unconsciously choosing to do. She believed that I could become consciously aware of how I was making this choice, and then I could consciously make a different choice to be sober, or to drink alcohol only in moderation. For many years, this approached worked perfectly. I rarely drank or even thought about drinking. Then after nearly three decades of what I would describe as sobriety, I suddenly found myself caught up again in frequent and excessive drinking, a tendency I had thought was gone for good. The drinking wasn’t nearly as extreme or as destructive as what I’d done decades before, but by my standards, it was definitely addictive and excessive. After a few years of drinking this way off and on, “I decided” (or we could say, a decision emerged) not to drink alcohol at all anymore. I'm committed now to complete abstinence for the rest of my life.

I no longer advocate moderation as a wise choice with addictions where total abstinence is an option. It may work for some people, as it apparently did for me for several decades after my initial sobering up. But this can suddenly turn into something much less moderate and once again addictive, as it did for me after nearly three decades of living a life that was almost entirely alcohol-free. Now I believe that this kind of partial abstinence can keep the door open for relapse, however well it seems to be working. It allows the desire for alcohol (or cigarettes or whatever it is) to be restimulated and it invites self-deception, denial and setbacks. So I would say that complete and permanent abstinence, where possible, is the safest and most reliable cure for addiction. It's the path I'm on now. But it may not be the best way for everyone. What matters most is the present moment, because really, that is the only moment. Trying to solve our problems in the future never works. We can only solve a problem now. That is the single most important key to liberation. Focus on now, not yesterday or tomorrow or forever-after.

The 12-Step approach of admitting that we (as the mirage-like self or the thinking mind) are powerless over addiction, and that we cannot and do not control this life (or this world, or this universe), and that only a power greater than the illusory separate self can undo the knot of addiction -- that all feels very congruent with nonduality and with the realization that the phantom executive that is supposedly calling the shots is actually illusory. 12-Step Programs talk about making a decision to turn our will and our lives over to a Higher Power. "Abandon yourself to God," it says in the Big Book. That Higher Power can be thought of as "the Power of Now," Awareness, Presence, Life Itself, Mother Nature, the Tao, or God. We could also say that this decision to turn our lives over to this Higher Power is a decision that emerges out of life itself. It happens when it happens. A tipping point is reached that no one can engineer. We could describe this "decision" as a falling away of the pretense or illusion of control. We could say that it is a movement of surrender that involves not arguing with reality or not rejecting what is. It is the absence of resistance, effort and judgement. It is about relaxing and opening, letting go rather than grasping, allowing rather than pushing away. It is an ease of being.

When we truly abide in the Now or abandon ourselves to God, when the sense of conflict and separation dissolves, addiction ends completely. That doesn't mean it might not come back or that it's gone forever, but in any moment of totally abiding Here / Now, addiction ends. Of course, the Ultimate Understanding is that there is nothing apart from Here / Now. God is all there is. In that sense, there is no one to abide or not abide. But "abiding" (or "abandoning yourself to God") are pointing to truly realizing that ultimate understanding, not just holding it as an intellectual belief. Abiding in the present moment or abandoning ourselves to God are expressions that point to relaxing the thinking mind and opening the Heart, allowing the center of our attention to shift from the encapsulated and separate perspective of "me" to the all-inclusive boundlessness of God, being awake Here / Now as awareness, recognizing that everything is the seamless happening of life and that none of it is personal (there is no "me" doing it, and it doesn't mean anything about this illusory entity). In the words of Zen Master Hongzhi, abiding means "emptying and opening body and mind so they are vast as space."

Is this a choice? Is it something we can do? We can't say yes or no. Liberation is discovering for oneself what it means to empty and open, what it means to surrender, what it means to abandon ourselves to God, or to allow Boundless Awareness to replace "me," or to recognize everything as a seamless happening. It is a little bit like riding a bicycle -- you can't really explain how you do it, and in a sense, no one is doing it. Liberation is both the realization of our complete powerlessness as the phantom "me," and the discovery of the infinite potential that Eckhart Tolle calls "the Power of Now."

You may think life without the addiction will be unbearable, but my experience is that the truth is exactly the opposite. And if you can't stop an addictive activity in this moment, then can this activity be seen without judgment or resistance, in the same way you might see a thunderstorm or an abstract painting? Can all of this be approached with curiosity and love? Can we appreciate how tenacious and alluring these habitual behaviors are and thus have compassion for all who are caught up in them? Can we also discover firsthand how utterly powerless and non-existent these habits are in any moment of waking up? In the end, it doesn't really matter whether this waking up happens by recognizing our powerlessness or by cultivating our self-reliance. Travel far enough to the east and you'll end up in the west, and visa versa. Find the approach and the perspective that resonates and that works for you in this moment. In the next moment, it may all be different.

You may discover that addiction is a way in which the illusion of separation, the illusion of the phantom self, is kept alive, a way in which we hold back, pinch ourselves and pretend to be bound, a way of denying or avoiding the absolute freedom of Here / Now -- this placeless place that is timeless and boundless, ever-changing and ever-present, deathless and unborn, without beginning or end. You may also discover that what we call addiction is an inconceivable happening in the ever-changing movement of life, a passing moment in a dream-like appearance, and that there is actually no one to be hurt or bound and no way to avoid Here / Now.

Finally, the words are only words. The map is only a map. The reality itself cannot be reached by abstract thought or rumination. It must be experienced directly, explored energetically, felt into as an actuality and not merely conceptualized as an idea. This exploration is effortless and simple. It is not about trying or straining or figuring this all out mentally and getting entangled in complexity and confusion. It is waking up from all that, discovering the simplicity and the immediacy of what is.

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