Habits are conditioned responses that we have, well, habituated. And, any addiction that someone develops is, in essence, a habit. Whether that be as potentially benign as caffeine every morning or as complex as an alcohol or substance abuse disorder that is increasingly adding to personal and collective suffering, addiction, as extreme behavior, habitually pulls us away from the middle path or the middle way. 

Finding the middle way or the middle path is the intended result of the prescriptions defined in the noble eightfold path. As discussed in the blog I shared to close out 2021, Using Wise Effort To Live As Your Best Self As We Move Through The Holidays And Into The New Year, here’s a synopsis of the noble eightfold path. 

“For those of you unfamiliar, the noble eightfold path is one of the cornerstones of Buddhist philosophy. It consists of eight aspects of life, all to be practiced and integrated everyday, and can be best explained as the middle path. The intent of these eight prescriptions is to help us focus on living in accordance with the highest version of ourselves by encouraging a turning away from extremes and, instead, seeking a simple, compassionate approach to how we live our lives.”

When engaging in any addictive behavior, a person is generally far removed from the practice of the noble eightfold path and the life prescriptions that help us avoid extremes and, instead, walk the middle path. Rather, either consciously or unconsciously (sometimes both), we have agreed, within ourselves, to continue responding to our thoughts, feelings, triggers, cravings and/or to the actions of others and situations in the world around us in a way that we have habituated, which is often not supportive of the change and growth we want to create in our lives.

The loop of any habit, including an addiction, generally follows a pattern. It consists of a trigger/craving (thought, feeling, etc), followed by an action (the behavior), which is then followed by a reward. The problem with addiction is that the reward is generally short-lived, causing the person suffering from an addiction, which was born from a desire to alleviate suffering, to crave the substance and subsequent reward with increased frequency and in greater quantity.

When this happens frequently, what may have started off as occasional use for an occasional reward, it becomes more ingrained, and can turn into abuse and eventually addiction.

As humans, we react or respond in some way to everything inside of us—our thoughts, feelings, beliefs, perceptions and behaviors—and to those things around us—other people, the media, the world and to nature herself—all of the time. At times, we may be able to stay focused on the present moment that we’re currently engaged in and not get lost in reactivity, but when in the throes of addiction, those suffering are often jolted into a specific, ingrained mood state, often through a trigger that leads to a craving, ultimately resulting in taking an action to relieve the feelings associated with suffering. 

Whether it be drugs, alcohol or even a cookie, in large ways, as humans, our operating systems can get hijacked by a combination of variables. A trigger that leads to a craving can push us to take even those actions that we vowed we would not take—like eating, drinking or using a substance that we told ourselves we would not continue doing. 

In order to change addictive habits and/or to mitigate or alleviate the use of mind-body-spirit altering substances, we must learn how to compassionately interrupt triggers and reframe how we perceive ourselves, our place in the world and the world around us. An effective way to begin this process is through pausing and self-inquiry practices to humanize our experience, increase self-compassion/self-awareness and create a new pattern. 

A Mindfulness Practice To Change Addictive Habits 

I invite you to go through this brief practice with me. 

Imagine that you’re at the beginning of the habit loop (trigger-action-reward) and a craving has arisen, creating a desire for a particular food, substance or behavior that you have vowed to discontinue. We’ve all had moments like this, in one form or another. 

As you recall a time/situation when this occurred for you—perhaps it’s occurring for you now as you read this—rather than visualizing yourself immediately succumbing to the habit, try creating a sense of spaciousness through mindfulness and self-compassion to attempt to interrupt the ingrained pattern. Through interrupting the pattern in any way, we can change the entire loop.

Judson Brewer, MD, PhD, a psychiatrist and internationally expert in using mindfulness training for treating addiction, offers valuable insight into how to use mindfulness to change any habit in his 2015 TedMed Talk, A simple way to break a habit. In his talk, Brewer explains that we can break or change addictive habits by becoming more curious about them. He highlights that trying to resist a food, drink, substance without information about how the habit has formed, how the behavior makes us feel and acquiring wisdom about what it’s actually doing to us (the short and long-term consequences) is, essentially, us attempting to fight one of the most evolutionary-conserved learning processes currently known in science—the trigger-behavior-reward loop. 

He also notes that the prefrontal cortex, the youngest part of our brains from an evolutionary perspective, is the part of the brain that understands on a cognitive level why engaging in a certain addictive habit is not good for us, and it tries its hardest to help us avoid the food, sustance, behavior that we’ve vowed not to do. The problem, however, is that when we get stressed out, overwhelmed, triggered, etc, this is the first part of the brain that goes offline, making us far more susceptible to engage in the unwanted behavior. However, as he highlights, “when we get curious, we step out of our old, fear-based, reactive habit patterns, and we step into being.”

Brewer continues to explain:

“When the prefrontal cortex goes offline, we fall back into our old habits, which is why this disenchantment is so important. Seeing what we get from our habits helps us understand them at a deeper level -- to know it in our bones so we don't have to force ourselves to hold back or restrain ourselves from behavior. We're just less interested in doing it in the first place. And this is what mindfulness is all about: Seeing really clearly what we get when we get caught up in our behaviors, becoming disenchanted on a visceral level and from this disenchanted stance, naturally letting go.This isn't to say that, poof, magically we quit smoking. But over time, as we learn to see more and more clearly the results of our actions, we let go of old habits and form new ones.”

So, when the trigger arises, rather than move directly into the behavior, the suggestion from Brewer and research and experts continually demonstrating the effectiveness of mindfulness, is to intentionally and mindfully pause and inquire into the source of the trigger (how it’s making you feel, why you desire this particular substance and the potential consequences of taking the craved action) and thoughtfully consider whether to still engage in the behavior or to make a different choice. 

There Power And Possibility In The Pause 

As a therapist and teacher of meditation, as well as a long-time practitioner of mindfulness, I constantly learn and relearn the exquisite power in the pause. 

“This is the key to life: the ability to reflect, the ability to know yourself, the ability to pause for a second before reacting automatically. If you can truly know yourself, you will begin the journey of transformation.”

-Deepak Chopra

When we PAUSE as we become aware that we’re in the midst of being triggered, we gain the freedom to take a different action—an action other than the one in which our habituated pattern was leading us

to an unwanted habit or behavior.

And, if we INQUIRE within that pausing moment, we have an opportunity for healing and, ultimately, transformation. Pausing allows us the time to investigate what is happening in the moment and to think about engaging in a behavior that we might later regret. 

If the desire is to change an addictive habit, when in the throes of a trigger, you might pause and ask yourself: 

What am I doing right now?
What am I about to do?  
How did I get here?

Treating yourself with SELF-COMPASSION is imperative as you ask these questions. 

There is a big difference between asking, “What are you doing, you thoughtless, crazy alcoholic?” and gently asking, “What just happened or is going on right now that is making a drink seem like a good idea?” 

Can you see the huge difference—in tone and intention—between berating yourself and compassionately asking yourself what you are feeling? 

By kindly inquiring into ourselves about the thought/feeling/trigger that is leading us to continue a habit we want to stop, we create a space to increase self-awareness and can use our own Wise Mind to treat ourselves with increased love and compassion, which we are likely lacking as we feel triggered to reach for a drink that we’ve vowed not to take. 

What we may find when we investigate deeper into what triggered us is that there is a feeling of shame or of not being enough. While this may feel painful to discover, this awareness coupled with the knowledge that we are human and meant to learn and grow, can change the trajectory of our personal path. I’ve suggested that there is usually some version of shame, or an inner sense of unlovable-ness, that brings us to loop in a seemingly endless desirable action and a reward that, while can be pleasant, almost always also carries the sharp edge of distress or discomfort. 

Using the example of alcohol, we might ask why the desire for a drink even though we know that our use/abuse of alcohol does not serve our highest self? Through compassionate inquiry in the pause, we might consider that this craving is arising from a combination of a physical, biochemical phenomenon—we want alcohol for a dopamine spike. We might also discover that this craving is arising through a conditioned response that tells us that a drink (or many) will soothe us and help us relax in a time of stress. Finally, if we continue to dig deep, we might conclude that we are experiencing feelings of shame, self-disgust, hopelessness and/or a powerlessness over alcohol that makes us feel like it’s not possible to be able to contain/reframe an urge. 

As well as pausing to create the space for self-inquiry to increase self-compassion and, ideally, interrupt the ingrained pattern and make a better choice, research and demonstrated history shows that support through groups composed of others wanting to abstain or mitigate use, such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), Narcotics Anonymous (NA), Annie Grace’s The Naked Mind, Soberful Life and LifeRing, to name a few, increases opportunities for connection, to better understand substance abuse/addiction, to compassionately humanize the addiction experience and to achieve success. 

Change An Addictive Habit And Reap A Different, Empowering Reward 

Although it’s certainly challenging—especially at first—to insert in a pause, when we mindfully and compassionately look for what underlies the response to the trigger and what underlies the action we are about to take, we can notice unwholesome thoughts and body states and perhaps make a turn away from the unwanted behavior and choose a better, more caring, self-supporting option. And, that caring alternative becomes the new reward, which increases our sense of value, worthiness, confidence and, especially, self-awareness. 

By pausing, creating the space for inquiry and then taking alternative action, we demonstrate that we are deserving and we can appreciate and celebrate our choice and ourselves. We know we feel better when we make better choices. Trigger-by-trigger, moment-by-moment, we can compassionately ask for the self-love, self-compassion and motivation needed to make behavioral shifts. 

When we employ the pause, inquiry and compassion, we mindfully and actively begin to shift any pattern. 

We move from Trigger - Action - Reward - Consequence (I added consequence here because there is almost always mental, emotional, situational consequences attached to addiction) to Trigger - Pause/Inquiry/Compassion - Wholesome Action - Reward. 

When we respond with self-compassion and take a more wholesome action, we begin an upward spiraling to the version of ourselves we desire to create. When we avoid the substance, our reward comes through strengthening our best self, deepening trust and contentment in and of ourselves through compassion and we begin to experience the joy that can arise through living in a moment the way we really want to live.  

Sometimes, however, we won’t be able to catch our behavior until after the fact, and that’s okay. It’s part of the learning and growing process that makes us human. What we can do when we’ve succumbed to a trigger/craving into unwholesome action/reward, we can ask ourselves to root into compassionate inquiry and to be kind, knowing that another opportunity will arise for us to try again to change addictive habits into more wholesome rewards.  

It’s all about returning again. Mindfulness means to return, to begin again, and to keep our mind full of that which can bring us joy and contentment. And to do so again and again and again. 

To finish, I’ll return to the wisdom given to us from the Buddha in the prescriptions outlined in the noble eightfold path. There is the potential for a relief from suffering when we focus on living in accordance with the highest aspiration of ourselves. By encouraging a turning away from extremes and, instead, seeking a simple, compassionate approach to how we live our lives, we can change addictive habits, make wholesome choices and reap long lasting rewards that bring us into alignment with who it is that we innately are and aspire to be. 

Honored to continue along the path with you –

Karen