Craving Cessation using Meditation

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Where cravings come from

Long after we have detoxed from our drug or drink, we are stuck with cravings and urges to drink or use. These are are largely brought on by dysfunctional memories related to our drinking or using days. if we recognize these destructive memories and confront them, we can eliminate them, causing our cravings and urges to drop off and stop. We do this using a technique based in the science of memory.

Our memory works against us in recovery

In "Memory's Huge Role in Addiction / Alcoholism" we discussed the powerful role that memory plays in keeping us addicted and pushing us to relapse when we are in recovery. We introduced what I call "remember when" meditation - a concept borrowed from the Twelve Step program's slogans - as a highly effective way of eliminating the effects of addiction on our memory. This is a potent way to bring cravings to an end, and stop what we refer to as the "insanity of alcoholism / addiction" (Click Here).

 The brain has a tendency to do its own thing.

In  "Memory's Huge Role in Relapse" (Click Here) we discuss how memory's natural processes are affected by addiction to be a potent factor in driving us to relapse. We also discussed a way to undo this unfortunate hold on our memory processes so that we can stop their negative effects on our recovery efforts, and bring our drug or alcohol cravings to an end. To do this we use a principle from memory science called interference, and we do this by using a meditation technique called "remember when" meditation.

Memory's role in cravings and relapse is discussed in the article mentioned in the previous paragraph, but to summarize, these are the ways that addiction uses our memory:

1. we learn cues, or triggers, that make us think of drinking or using, and these triggers are embedded deep in our memory.
2. our mind is geared to associate drinking or using with "good times", which occur right away, and not the bad times (feeling sick, guilty, remorseful), which tends to occur the next day.
3. Our mind is geared to remember the good times from past experience, no matter how miserable we were at the time.
4. Our mind tries to rationalize our drinking/using behavior by making excuses for it (due to a psychological process called cognitive dissonance Click Here). Because of this, we remember our drinking or using as being justified and reasonable.
5. the obsession with drinking or using remains embedded in our mind long after the physical cravings are gone, until the obsession is confronted.

Stopping these harmful memories

The trick is to replace the dominant memories of the "pleasure" of our drinking or using with memories of all the misery that our drinking or using brought on, to "re-learn". This will not happen automatically, because of how our memory works, as we described in the previous paragraph. This technique is known by memory researchers as interference. Interference is self-explanatory: when one memory (the bad times when we drank or used) gets repeatedly recalled it disrupts another memory (the good times). This effect is magnified if we recall the preferred memory whenever the unwanted memory tries to assert itself. However, this process won’t occur on its own, as our mind is still geared toward remembering the good times. So, it takes some work on our part, and we must actively “remember when.” Unlike the process of extinction - where learned memories fade over time - which is slow and incomplete, unlearning harmful memories by interference is powerful and prompt, and can have a robust effect on defeating our alcoholism-addiction.

 Remember when.

By far the best way to engage this potent memory interference process is by meditation. Meditation isn’t as spooky or other-worldly as it sounds. I have practiced meditation for many years and I learned it as part of the process for getting my black belt in karate. In martial arts the idea behind meditation is that the mind is naturally weak and will go where it wants to go when it wants to. In a combat situation, if you get hit in the nose the pain will be intense and the mind will forget everything else and just focus on the pain. We will bend over, turn our back, and cower, resulting in us getting a really bad beating. Therefore, the idea of meditation is to practice focussing the mind and keeping it focussed, not allowing it to wander. With practice, our mind can become so disciplined that we can keep it from wandering away from where it needs to be focussed.

What is meditation?

Initially, the idea is to practice keeping our mind focussed on a thought or an object during a brief meditation, and bringing it back on track whenever it starts to wander off. Given the 8 second attention span of the human mind, this isn't as easy as it sounds. With time and practice we become good at it; our mind becomes disciplined. Then, we start adding distractions while we meditate, making it harder and harder to keep our mind focussed. Eventually, we become so good at it that our mind is disciplined even when we are not meditating. If something happens to us – such as encountering a trigger for our drinking or using – we are able to keep our mind from its usual practice of snapping to an undesirable reaction – such as picking up that first drink or drug.

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The ability to keep the mind focussed and prevent its distraction has other useful applications. First of all, if we are in a situation where someone angers us, the weak mind will go right to anger and we may lash out with some rash action we will later regret. The disciplined mind will stay on task, without becoming distracted by the anger, allowing us to process the situation and come up with a measured reaction. Rather than just lashing out in anger, we give a thought-out response. We remain in control of ourselves. We no longer react, we act in a measured and intelligent way. Think of what a wonderful life skill this is!


Going back to my martial arts example, in a combat situation if we get injured we can keep our disciplined mind on ending the fight, either by escaping or by fighting back, because we were able to keep our weak mind from focussing on the pain. Even better, our disciplined mind will help us keep our cool and de-escalate an emotionally-charged situation and avoid a fight to begin with. This is meditation as I learned it, applied to martial arts. The same concept has served me well in recovery, but a much watered-down version is perfect for engaging the extinction method of dispelling the harmful learning that led to our drinking/using triggers.

How to meditate

Ready to try some simple meditation? Don't worry, it’s not some kind of a secret ancient procedure, and it’s not mystical. Meditation is not time consuming, not about having an empty mind, sitting in weird positions, chanting, and it's not religious or other-worldly. In fact, it’s about being comfortable, takes only a few minutes or can be done momentarily through the day, involves an active mind, and it’s very real and practical. As I mentioned earlier, I learned to meditate as part of my martial arts training and the United States Marine Corps teaches it to their soldiers. Many people enjoy new-found life skills from its benefits, including eliminating drug or alcohol cravings. What could be more practical than that?

We start off in any position we wish, as long as we are comfortable. Sitting on the couch or floor – cross-legged or not – however we are most comfortable. Some people like to meditate laying down, but I don’t. Many are surprised by how incredibly relaxed our mind becomes as we meditate, and I have a tendency to drift off to sleep when I meditate laying down. In fact, on nights that I am unable to sleep I will lay down and start meditating on something pleasant and it always puts me to sleep.

 Let go and get comfy!

I recommend closing eyes, as it is much easier to concentrate and focus the mind with the eyes closed. As we start introducing distractions to our senses in order to challenge and advance our skills, keeping eyes open is one way of doing that. However, I have been meditating a long time and I still prefer keeping my eyes closed.

Breathing is very important for starting our meditation, because we want to send a burst of fresh oxygen to our brain to kick-start it into action. Even though our brain makes up only 2% of our body it uses 25% of all of our oxygen intake. Our brain needs to breath. While we meditate, we breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. If we keep our back straight and erect it gives our diaphragm – the big dome-shaped muscle between our chest and abdomen – more room to do its job as it contracts to draw fresh life-giving air into our lungs and up to our brain.


We start with three to five deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth, but no more than five. We don’t want to make ourselves dizzy. Some call these “cleansing breaths.” As we meditate we will continue breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth, but we’ll just breathe at a normal rate. Meditation has been shown to lower our metabolism; as our mind achieves a state of relaxation our body seems to follow. As our relaxation slows our metabolism our oxygen consumption drops and our breathing will slow and become shallow. So, don't be surprised if you notice this happening.

As a beginning meditator, it takes some practice to get physically and mentally relaxed. It becomes very easy before too long. Once we are in a relaxed state it's time to start our mental exercise.

We now focus our mind and all our thoughts, with eyes closed, on dark, empty space. Blackness. Nothingness. Every time our mind starts thinking about something, including what we are doing, we guide it back to focussing solely on the nothingness. This can be done for increasingly longer periods of time. It is important to keep focussing our mind, not allowing it to wander. Our undisciplined mind will keep trying to wander off on its own agenda: to some problem we’ve been dealing with, something someone said to us, something we forgot to do, what to have for supper, some big task coming up, and so on. That is our challenge: to keep guiding our mind back to the nothingness. Quite often, we will find ourselves thinking about something during meditation and we don’t even realize it initially, until after we’ve been thinking on it for a while. As soon as we realize it, we reign our thoughts in again. It's like our mind is a dog on a leash. Every time it tries to wander off the sidewalk we pull the leash to get it back on the sidewalk. We shorten the leash, and keep pulling it in. After a while, the dog starts staying on the sidewalk. So it is with our mind: with repeated practice it takes less and less effort to keep it focussed on the nothingness, and we rarely have to pull it back in. Our mind is becoming disciplined.


We limit our meditation to this simple exercise until we are very good at it. Initially our meditation should only last 2 to 4 minutes. As we get better we can start extending the time of the meditation. The longer we meditate the more challenging it is to keep our mind reigned in. Only when we can meditate for 5 to 10 minutes with a focussed mind without difficulty can we move on to the next step in developing our skill.

Now that we have the trappings of a disciplined mind, let’s try a visualization exercise during our meditation. We start out as we did before: positioning, cleansing breaths, clear mind. Once we have achieved our relaxed state, we visualize breathing in cool, blue air. We take in air that is deep ice-blue: cool and pure, fresh, clean air. The blue air we are inhaling is cool, but also calm and smooth. It comes in through the nose.


When we exhale, we visualize hot, red, bad, toxic air going out through the mouth. It’s actually red in color, very warm, dirty, angry air. This red air is turbulent and poisonous. This red, hot air is filled with anger, hate, fear, and guilt. It comes from down deep inside of us, and dissipates into the sky once it's out.

We continue breathing in this cool blue air, in through the nose, and exhaling this hot red air, out through the mouth. We visualize the cool blue air going deep down inside us and swirling around, and pushing out the hot red air, which rushes out of our body and dissipates into the sky. We can feel the cool blue air going throughout our body as it circulates, reaching every part of us, all the way down to our fingers and toes. As it does this it pushes the hot, red air out of every last part of our body.

As we continue to breathe, we imagine there becoming progressively more blue air deep down in our body, and less and less red air. Gradually, there is less and less red air, and more and more blue air, until finally there is nothing but cool blue air, blue air coming in when we breathe in, our lungs full of cool blue air, and cool blue air coming out through our mouth when we exhale. There is nothing but cool, blue, calm, clean, smooth air in and out. At this point, our mind is relaxed and focussed. We are unaware of our body, and have no thoughts beyond our breathing.


The cool blue air represents peace, serenity, confidence, love, goodwill, cleanliness, health, positivity. As we feel the blue air circulating through our entire body, being distributed by our circulation to every inch of our body, we feel the cool air's effects: we feel peaceful, serene, confident, loving, positive. We keep visualizing this and let it affect our mood. For the rest of our meditation we just keep our mind focussed on the clean, cool blue air coming in and out, reaching every part of our body.

This exercise is an excellent way to practice relaxing and focussing our mind. Once we have practiced this visualization a few times, we can use it to focus our mind and center our mood at the start of a meditation, or use it as the entire meditation for its calming, centering effects. I often start every meditation with this visualization, because it makes me feel like I am purifying my body and emotions.

Using meditation to crush cravings

These are just a couple of very simple introductory meditations. In my up-coming book Science Meets Spirituality I get much more into basic and advanced meditation skills and how to apply them to our daily life. Now, let's apply the "remember when" principle to our meditation. For me, this is the skill that most contributed to taking away my obsession and cravings for alcohol and drugs. What we are doing is using meditation to replace that learned association between drugs or alcohol and "good" things, and replacing it by an association with the bad things. This is putting the science of memory to full use in our recovery by maximizing the interference learning principle.


We start out in the same way, getting physically comfortable, and then mentally comfortable and focussed by using either our "nothingness" meditation or our "blue air" meditation. Then, we focus our mind on the hell that our substance use put us through. We meditate on the time and effort and money we had to spend getting and hiding our substance, the things we lost, the people we hurt, the hangovers and withdrawals, the guilt and shame and regret, the wasted days and months and years. Every time our mind wanders off topic we bring it right back. We don’t have to spend long at it, just a few minutes every day. Before long we find it easy to call up those memories when our stinking thinking kicks in and we are struck by memories of the good times and left with a desire to relapse.

This speeds up and deepens the process of interference. This advice is not only for newcomers; the further away from the events we get, the more likely we are to remember the good times and forget the bad. So, the further we are into recovery, the more susceptible we are to these memories that can trip us up. As well, meditation doesn’t have to be all about bad memories. Some of the other things to meditate on are: the things in life we am grateful for, reflecting on the day to see what we could have done better, reflecting on our defects of character that we can improve on and how they came out in our actions today, and pleasant situations and places that relax our mind.


The other way this meditation can help our immediate recovery is by giving us the mental discipline to snap our mind back to reality anytime our disease causes us to think about picking up drugs or alcohol. If we allow our weak mind to be led down this thought path far enough we may fall. The disciplined mind is easily able to counter-act our disease's attempts to highjack our thoughts.

There are many other ways we can use our meditation to enrich our recovery, and life. I encourage everyone to learn more about meditation.