He has since worked to support others with substance abuse issues, including by turning his former Malibu beach home into a men’s sober living facility called Perry House. Perry’s book earned comparisons to searing, intimate addiction memoirs by writers like David Carr and addiction meditation Leslie Jamison. Yet celebrity addiction memoirs can be a double-edged sword when it comes to inspiring recovery efforts, Moyers said. The resources that wealthy people can put toward sobriety are vast compared to what typical working people have to get effective care.
Over time, the individual may develop the motivation to reduce substance use or abstain entirely, at which point mindfulness may be useful for preventing relapse. After removing 595 duplicates (RK), 500 abstracts were reviewed (AZ, initial screening). The full-texts of 224 articles were then reviewed (AZ, secondary screening), and 34 articles were submitted for a tertiary screening. Twelve of the 34 articles (24–35) did not meet the eligibility criteria and were excluded. Of the excluded studies, two deserve an additional comment.(24,34) Both studies used the body scan technique as a study intervention.
Can Mindfulness Help Stop Substance Abuse?
To prevent relapse, individuals may be able to use mindfulness to cultivate an awareness of when substance use habits are triggered by substance cues even after an extended period of abstinence. For instance, monitoring their affective state, and knowing that increased stress, despair, or anger increases relapse risk, the individual may use mindfulness to contemplate the reasons they want to maintain their recovery. Consider an opioid-misusing chronic pain patient who used opioids to self-medicate depression and loneliness. After using mindfulness skills to successfully titrate off opioids with the help of her primary care provider, she began exercise therapy which she found helped with her pain and social isolation. One day she has a fall, which landed her in the emergency room with a broken ankle.
- Stage 1 (sessions 1 and 2) is geared toward identifying bodily sensations (identification).
- Davis said that this seemingly counterintuitive result likely reflects their motivation to quit; the people that were the most addicted had, at that point, tried everything, and were willing to try their hardest to make this therapy work.
- This lack of improvement in putative mechanisms of change may be due to the fact these are not the right mechanisms to be investigating.
- Many alcohol and drug addiction treatment programs have included meditation in their overall treatment plan.
- Although the included interventions were based on the MM principles, they were heterogeneous; evaluating them together as one “MM intervention” could have introduced bias.
Key findings on clinical implications, current limitations in the field, and suggestions for the road ahead are presented below. Sessions 1–4 are geared toward teaching clients how to direct and focus their attention [26]. This is done using a crawl-walk-run framework that has participants learn to focus their attention on something that is constantly occurring regardless of whether attention is paid to it or not, such as the sensation of breathing. Sessions 5–8 are aimed at using the skills of focused attention to help navigate through difficult situations that are related to substance use.
Mindfulness in Treatment Approaches for Addiction — Underlying Mechanisms and Future Directions
While the treatment of addictive disorders proves to be challenging, new treatment approaches that evolved around the concepts of mindfulness and acceptance have been utilized and investigated in recent years. Our goal is to summarize the efficacy and possible underlying mechanisms of mindfulness-based interventions (MBI) in addictive disorders. Despite sharing some commonalities, many of these programs have been designed for different populations and substances.
- One of the primary aims of the MBIs we reviewed is bringing focused attention to whatever is arising in the present moment (i.e. craving, sadness, pain, etc.) without judgment, and without a need to engage with, including actively avoiding, those feelings.
- For example, addicts may use it to slow down their breathing and calm their nerves then they’re feeling anxious or stressed.
- This means treating the underlying mental health issues at the root of addiction and providing patients with tools they need for a healthier, more satisfying life.
- Perry has been open about his addiction to alcohol and opiates, which led to him going to rehab several times.
This can lead to impulsive behaviors, making it harder for individuals to resist the allure of addictive substances. The reason for its rising popularity in drug rehabilitation is because mindfulness has proven its mettle in helping the psychological aspect of addiction recovery. “Wherever You Go, There You Are” is a best-selling book about meditation by Kabat-Zinn. There’s also evidence that meditation relieves anxiety, reduces stress, helps to cope with depression, strengthens the body’s immune system, and improves sleep.
