A few years ago, I conducted research on Buddhism and addiction at The Wat Thamkrabok Monastery in Southern Thailand. Within the monastery is a drug rehabilitation center that uses only Buddhist philosophy, meditation, and herbal remedies to “cure” addiction. The monastery was built in 1949 during the opium trade in Southeast Asia. Since then, the monastery has been servicing patients addicted to a range of substances, from heroin and crack cocaine to cigarettes. “The Wat”, as it’s affectionately called by those who have been there, has been touted as having as high as a 70% recovery rate. The monastery, however, refuses to back up such claims.
My intention behind researching Buddhism and addiction was to see how a radical program like Wat Thamkrabok’s could be integrated into Western rehabilitation programs. Integrating Buddhist and yogic philosophy into modern day drug treatment presented a huge problem – Eastern and Western social, cultural, and religious paradigms are so divergent that integrating any type of Eastern style philosophy to western psychotherapy is virtually impossible. Yale and Harvard Medical Schools attempted to close the paradigmatic gap between east and west by initiating their S-3 therapeutic model. Their model, while more successful than any twelve step program and cognitive behavioral therapy to date, is too new to see any long term results.
Buddhist and yogic philosophy understands that the origins of addiction lie in our attachments and desires. Attachment and desire are rooted in our fears. Understanding this, we can see that most modern day drug rehabilitation models are only treating the symptoms of addiction. Working with the root causes of addiction (fear) might be the only way to “cure” addiction once and for all.
I came to a standstill with my research until I started working through attachment in my own life. I am not addicted to drugs and alcohol, but like any other human being I have my own set of emotional and psychological desires and residual attachments. Renouncing (tyag) small addictions, like sugar and food, and then moving onto bigger addictions like relationships, I’ve been able to literally “feel” out both ends of the spectrum: raga (attachment) and devsha (aversion). Having done a myriad of fasts both from food and from intimate relationships, it’s easy to set up camp in dvesha. However, it’s still extreme, and it’s still showing that on some level I lack control.
The final stage of this process culminates with vairag (non-attachment) and anurag (after attachment) where one reintegrates the object or emotion that originally had us hooked, considering the attachment isn’t something dangerous and unhealthy like drugs. In order to put this into practice, we just take a “taste” of what was once forbidden. Naturally, emotions will arise, as will our tendencies to hold on very tightly to what we are so attached to. This is where our asana and meditation practices become so important as they provide us with the training to simply sit and observe our emotional process.
Please join Yoko and I this Sunday at Purple Yoga. This month we delve into sitting with discomfort, energy, and emotions as they come up. We’ll also look at how to separate our emotions from physical sensations and feelings. Please email us with any questions. Satsang, as always, is a donation-only event.
