Step Eight

Helping others by sharing the benefits we have gained

So far, the focus of this book has been mainly inward-looking. We have described a Buddhist understanding of how our minds work and the nature of reality, and then used this to offer practical steps we can take to free ourselves from addiction. Some of the steps do have an other-regarding aspect to them, especially Step Five, where we looked at the importance of skillful actions in our lives. However, the emphasis was still on self-transformation: coming to terms with and overcoming our past unhelpful habits and actions, as well as setting up new skillful habits. In Step Six, in going for refuge to the sangha we aim to develop friendships, yet here too the stress is on the crucial support and inspiration that friends can provide for us.

The focus on self is entirely necessary. Early in our recovery we need to find ways to pick ourselves up. We need to take addiction seriously and create the time and space to be able to make the potentially big changes that our life requires. Once we are in the grip of an addiction, it is a large undertaking to break free. It demands determination and our full attention.

The fourth sight

Yet, if we remain entirely focused on ourselves, our recovery is not complete, and that focus can even be an obstacle to recovery. In the final step we look at the place of helping others. We referred in Step Four to the importance of believing that recovery is possible. The Buddha, before he was Enlightened, needed to see the example of a truth-seeking wanderer (the fourth sight) to prompt him to leave home in quest of liberation. It wasn’t enough for the Buddha to recognize that life was full of suffering (the first three sights of old age, illness, and death). Without the possibility of a solution, he might have tried to reconcile himself with ordinary life as it is – as many did before and have done since. In his case, he might have attempted this by enjoying as best he could the pleasures and power of a worldly ruler. In the same way, when we are immersed in addiction and beginning to think about making a change, it can be really helpful to come into contact with someone who has made significant recovery from their difficulties. It demonstrates in a tangible way that recovery is possible.

Step Eight invites us, once we have made some progress with our recovery, to be that person for others. We can stop looking out there for our fourth sight to inspire us to change. And we can become the fourth sight for someone else. This can be a quite natural response. As our lives become more satisfying as a result of letting go of our addiction, we may feel some gratitude for having our lives back and some appreciation for the people and conditions that have supported our recovery. In return, we might want to give something back. In reaching out to others we have the opportunity to give back, and at the same time we are given a means to consolidate our recovery. We do not have to be perfect. We can still have many things that we are working on in our lives. What inspires people is seeing that our recovery is still alive, that we are working hard at transforming our lives. A renunciant begging for alms was the fourth sight for the Buddha, which inspired him to transform his life.

Recovery is always changing, and once we are on the path of recovery we can be an inspiration for someone who is not yet on that path.

We can be the fourth sight that inspires the group to recover and change. If we want recovery, it will take more than reading books about recovery. It will take faith in the process, self-surrender, belief in something bigger than ourselves, and putting recovery into action. We can stop going to meetings or groups and feel disillusioned and critical because most of the people still seem sick with their habitual behavior. Or we can go to that same meeting or group, and be the recovery we want to see in others.

If we want recovery, we must be the recovery. When we have recovery, it can be enough to have an impact on others. When we heal ourselves, we help others just by our natural way of being. Perhaps this can motivate us enough to see that we want recovery more than our dis-ease of mind.

In helping others, we also help ourselves, just as by helping ourselves (through the first seven steps) we put ourselves in a better position to help others. Helping others can be a reminder of where we have come from, it can give us a sense of purpose in our lives, and it can bring us closer to how things really are.

Helping ourselves and others

Reminding ourselves of where we have come from

Once we have made some changes and stopped, at least temporarily, our addictive behavior, we may forget just how much suffering our addiction caused us. In Step Six, we met Graham, who relapsed a number of times despite his drinking having caused him pancreatitis. There were various reasons why he relapsed – it is rarely just one thing – some of which we outlined in his story. One of the ideas that allowed him to start drinking was a thought that maybe drinking wasn’t so bad after all. That thought in particular nearly led him to start drinking again on the day he met Trevor.

We have a tendency to minimize past problems, whereas current difficulties loom larger. When Graham first had pancreatitis, it was so painful that he swore another drop of alcohol would never pass his lips. After a period of abstinence, the memory of just how painful pancreatitis was faded. Intellectually he still knew that drinking would cause him pain, but gradually this held less weight. By contrast, his present difficulties – feeling bored and fed up – held more and more sway over him. In his mind, drinking changed back from something that would cause him a lot of pain to a solution for his discomfort. Besides, he argued with himself, he could just have one or two drinks; his period of abstinence surely indicated that he had some control over his drinking now. In his heart, he knew this wasn’t the case. He knew that, if he had one drink, he would just keep on drinking. However, as the attractiveness of alcohol became stronger, he put this thought out of his mind.

Fortunately, on the very day that he had finally decided to drink, he ran into Trevor, who saved him from returning to drinking. At the same time that Trevor was helping Graham, unbeknownst to Graham, he was helping Trevor. Seeing Graham in an ambivalent state, unhappy and close to going back to drinking, reminded Trevor of his early recovery. He recalled times when he had thought of giving up and going back on the booze. Now he felt much more confident about sobriety and was pleased to be abstinent, but it was salutary to see Graham wavering. As Trevor heard Graham’s description of pancreatitis, he remembered the time he had had DTs (delirium tremens), and how frightening that had been. After their meeting, Trevor came away even gladder that he was sober and more grateful for his life.

Helping other people who are still in the clutches of addiction or in the precarious, early stages of recovery can refresh our memories of the pain of addiction. Seeing the adverse effects more vividly can help to deter us from returning to addiction when it lures us as an easy solution to our difficulties or appears attractive and free from negative consequences. In addition and perhaps more valuably, it can give us a positive appreciation of our lives, as we see how far we have come.

Creating good karma

In Step Five, we discussed how to live skillfully. We live skillfully by being mindful of the principles of karma. The Buddha put it like this:

Experiences are preceded by mind, led by mind, and produced by mind. If one speaks or acts with an impure mind, suffering follows even as the cartwheel follows the hoof of the ox (drawing the cart) [...] If one speaks or acts with a pure mind, happiness follows like a shadow that never departs.¹

The basic idea of karma is that willed actions have consequences. When we act (with actions of body, speech, or mind) out of mental states rooted in craving, ill will, or confusion, we will suffer. Conversely, actions based in contentment, kindness, and clarity will have a beneficial effect; that is, they will create positive karma. When we help someone, particularly when we do this in a relatively unselfconscious way, we are likely to be acting out of kindness, and this will have a positive effect on us.

In this step of our recovery, we are not helping others primarily because of the positive effect on us: rather, it is a happy coincidence, a win–win, that, when we help others, both they and we benefit. To deliberately try to help others because we want the positive effect is likely to backfire. It’s like the young scout who tries to help the elderly person across the road – even though they don’t want to cross the road. If we are doing it primarily for our own gain, that will come across, even if only subliminally, to the other person, and they are likely to feel coerced. Feeling manipulated, they are likely to resist, leading to tension and difficulties between the person being “helped” and the one trying to help.

The attitude we are trying to foster in this step is an interest in other people for their own sake. Real helpfulness comes from a place of abundance. We are grateful for and appreciative of our own lives, and out of this comes the heartfelt desire for others to enjoy recovery in their lives. From this perspective we can be more objective toward others. We are likely to see what really would be helpful and offer help in a more unobtrusive way.

A sense of purpose

Having a sense of purpose in our lives can be a great support to recovery. It gives us a broader perspective, which can help us through the struggles that we will inevitably face. To find recovery – as we have mentioned a few times – we need, at least at first, to take care of ourselves; we need to put ourselves first. However, in the end, self-concern becomes limiting. Focusing on ourselves eventually narrows us down, unless there is something bigger than us in our lives. Helping other people can draw us away from self-preoccupation and can be one way of providing a sense of meaning to our lives.

Justin’s story

Justin had been a professional musician before his career was wrecked by drug use. During a lengthy period of treatment for his addiction, he came to the conclusion that he could not go back to the music industry, as it would be too risky for his recovery. Once he was able to think about working again he changed careers and retrained as an electrician. He heard about a self-help project for people in recovery and decided to see if he could help out. In the project he assisted in setting up a music group. This was a way for him to use his musical skills, since music had been such a passion in his life, and to help others who were at an earlier stage of their recovery. Justin really enjoyed the group and it gave a new sense of satisfaction to his life.

The wisdom perspective

When we help others, we are aligning ourselves with reality. Most of us, most of the time, behave as though we were separate, independent units. It is as though we see ourselves as an island state in an ocean with many other islands. We feel that we have to defend and protect our own special island. Buddhism refers to this as having a belief in a fixed self. We create a sense of self-hood through our beliefs and the narratives we tell ourselves. These stories are often about what sort of person we are, our likes and dislikes. In this way we mark ourselves off from other people, holding a boundary in our minds between us and the rest of the world.

In the early steps we explored the inevitability of suffering and the reality of impermanence – the fact that everything changes. These two concepts belong to an essential Buddhist teaching called the three characteristics. These are characteristics of all phenomena, including human beings. The third in this group is the characteristic of no-self. This is somewhat hard to grasp, but we need to have an understanding of this concept. No-self means that there is no fixed, unchanging core of our being. The mind is not self because it is subject to change. However, many people identify with their mind, fixing it and calling it “self.” We identify with the thoughts in our mind and then all we can see is the person with the addiction. However, if we could see that there is no fixed self, that we are always changing, this could free us to recover.

Many people in addiction believe they cannot change, that addiction is their destiny. They have fixed themselves into a particular state, giving themselves no way out of addiction. However, we could ask ourselves the question: what is the I, or me, or mine in the person who was once a one-day-old baby, who was once a child, and is now an adult, with gray hair? Where is the I, me, or mine in the person who was once upon a time clean and sober, and who is now in the throes of addiction (or vice versa, if you are no longer engaged in addictive behavior)? What we are trying to highlight is that there is no fixed self: the self is always changing. If we believe in a fixed self, that implies we cannot transform ourselves.

Valerie’s story

Twenty-three years ago I walked into a Buddhist center with “I hate myself” ranting around my head like some sacred mantra. The practice of loving-kindness restored me to sanity, helping me to cultivate a calm and sober mind. The undermining voice began to cease, and I would hear: “I love myself.” However, I resigned myself to the fact that sometimes the voice of “I hate myself” would arise, and I would just match it with “I love myself.” But somewhere I still believed this thought. Then one day the voice arose: “I hate myself.” And I spoke to it loud and clear, telling it: “There is no self to hate. There is no self to identify with.” Finally I was beginning to let go of this thought. The undermining voice becomes quieter and quieter as every day I continue to practice loving-kindness and remember there is no self to identify with.

I began to see how my thoughts are an illusion, a game of misinterpretations, assumptions, and judgments. My thinking had been the dis-ease of resentments, jealousies, dissatisfaction. They had kept me trapped in suffering. I had spent so much time restricting food that I had missed the point. I needed to just let thoughts arise and cease, let go of all the assumptions and illusions that had created a self I had fixed as unlovable, which could never be lovable. How could I let someone love me if I could not love myself? Realizing there is no self has allowed me to change radically. I look back at my past fifty years and hardly recognize myself. If I live another fifty years I hope it will be the same. Can’t change, won’t change – we are always changing, whether we like it or not.

From an everyday practical perspective it can be helpful to think of having a self. We look in the mirror in the morning and see roughly the same person we saw the night before. We go about our familiar daily routines. Friends and family call us by our name, which we recognize and respond to. And we do need to look after and protect this thing we think of as “self.” However, from another perspective, our selfhood is a fiction. When we look at our experience more closely, we cannot find a fixed self at our core. It is as though we perhaps imagine a “me” at the center of our experience, who directs all our actions and thoughts, like an operator sitting in a little cabin in a crane. Instead we are an ever-changing process amid a world of flux. We depend upon and cannot be fully separated from that bigger world. If you stand on a bridge spanning a big river, you can see all sorts of eddies within the river. The eddies have a certain constancy, and yet you could not separate one eddy from the rest of the river, which is continually moving toward the sea. Our “self” is like an eddy in the bigger river of life.

When we try to separate ourselves from the rest of life, by holding onto a fixed sense of self, we suffer – as we have indicated in the earlier steps. We might notice this when someone holds a belief contrary to ours. We might then feel threatened and want to argue with them. Often we can hold on to views of who we are, even when they are not helpful. When we are underweight with anorexia, we may continue to believe that we are fat, or we may adhere to a view that we are essentially unlovable. Our views about ourselves are peculiarly sticky: they are hard to shift and we have a force, like gravity, that pulls us back to our concerns about ourselves. Thus our basic tendency is one of self-preoccupation, even when that is a negative self-preoccupation about how bad we are.

Addictive behavior, because of its sense of urgency and compulsion, accentuates this preoccupation with self. It can render us vulnerable to being obsessed with me, mine, and myself, which inevitably leads us to suffering. When addictive behavior is at the center of our lives, all we can think of is ourselves. We feel ourselves to be at the center of the universe. Since everyone else believes that they are at the center of the universe, conflict and suffering are bound to follow. In order to recover, we have to move beyond the delusion of self and break free from the clinging to self. Our self-view is like a distorting lens, which creates stories in our minds about our experience, interpreting what happens in terms of me and mine.

When we seek to help other people, we move beyond this self-preoccupation. We become concerned with someone outside of ourselves. When this is not done out of self-denial (see below on the dangers of being a helper), we can forget ourselves in a positive sense. We move into the flow of life. We can then experience more connectedness with others. Since reality is an interconnected, interfused whole, by helping others we are moving closer to how things really are. In effect, we are no longer resisting reality, by holding on to a separate sense of self. We let go of the guards patrolling the borders of our selfhood.

While helping others, a strange thing may happen: we may find we can access a new source of energy. When we are defending our sense of self, we use up energy in resisting reality. All the time, reality is throwing evidence at us that we are not a fixed, stable center of the universe. We use energy to manage the signs that we are aging, reiterate to ourselves our familiar and reassuring likes and dislikes, or get angry at others who seem to think that they are the center of the universe. Taking an interest in other people can help us to let go of unhelpful self-preoccupation and free up energy.

The two main characteristics of Awakening are wisdom and compassion. Wisdom is seeing the nature of reality. It is understanding on a deep level that everything changes and is interconnected. The natural emotional counterpart of this is compassion. Compassion is not something added on, rather it is the spontaneous outpouring that comes from understanding how things really are. In fact, it is said that the Buddha does not think in terms of “being compassionate”; it’s just the natural way for him to behave, which we, who are not Enlightened, experience as compassion.

We may not be Enlightened just yet, but we can make efforts to move beyond the grip of our sticky self-preoccupation. Stepping past our self-concerns can open our eyes to a bigger universe. It can help us to see and feel our interconnectedness with all life – or at least with something bigger than our small and narrow sense of self. The more we have this larger perspective, the easier it is to reach out to others. We create a positive reinforcing spiral, freeing up energy, causing ourselves less distress, and moving closer to being in harmony with life.

How we practice this step

Ways to help others

There are many ways in which we can help other people. Justin was lucky enough to find a way that used his skills and helped other people with addiction problems. This need not be the case. We don’t need to have special talents. But first, as we mentioned in Step Seven, we need to be able to ask for help for the sake of our own recovery. When we can accept help, we can help others from a gentle and compassionate place. The most important thing is to cultivate an attitude of wanting to be of help to others and then acting on that intention when we see the chance.

There are many small opportunities as we go about our daily lives. Being friendly and courteous to people we happen to come across, including strangers, can make a difference to someone’s day. An extra smile or a few friendly words to the shopkeeper, or helping a mother with her stroller down the stairs, doesn’t cost us much, but can be part of building larger patterns of helpfulness. We can be on the lookout for occasions to give small gifts. A bunch of flowers or some chocolates can provide delight to a suitably chosen recipient, especially when the gift was not expected. We might see a book that we feel someone would appreciate, or pass one on that we have found enjoyable or helpful.

If we have skills or talents like Justin, we may be able to make them available to other people. We might offer to help someone with some DIY or gardening, or provide some complementary therapy if that is our skill. Volunteering in a charity can be a good way of using our skills to benefit others.

In particular, we may want to find a way to help others who are not as far along in their recovery. This might be by befriending others. Extending the hand of friendship to someone more entrenched in their addiction can make a real difference. Just being around, we can act as the fourth sight for others. If we do this, we need to be confident in our own recovery, so that we don’t end up being talked back into our addictive behavior. A safer way might be to help out in an addiction service, perhaps with the administration where we won’t be directly exposed to others in full addiction, or in a situation where there are others around who are more confident in their recovery than we are.

If we have found that a spiritual approach, like the one described in this book, has helped us, we may wish to support that. This might mean making tea at a meditation class or encouraging a friend to try meditation or a retreat. Some people have set up their own groups where there has been nothing available locally, either teaching meditation themselves or inviting more experienced people to come and teach. Adopting the practice of anonymous random acts of kindness is another way some people have contributed to helping others.

Helping others

Take a moment now to pause and ask yourself:

•	How could I help other people?
•	What could I do or give – perhaps just something small – to a friend or a loved one?
•	How could I be a little more friendly to people I meet?
•	Is there an organization that I would like to support in some way that would help others?
•	What is one thing I can commit to doing to help another person?

Perhaps the best way we can help anyone living with addictions is to be an example. We can live our own lives without addictions.

The challenge of helping others

Valerie

When I worked with female alcoholics, who had been ordered by the courts to go to rehab and take part in an anger-management course or go to prison, I had to face my own relationship with alcohol. I didn’t identify as an alcoholic, but there I was, talking to women about never drinking again. Did I really believe it was possible to live a life without alcohol? This was a flash of insight. I decided to let go of alcohol and see if it was possible in my own life. I have not looked back, staying awake to the reality of my own relationship to addictions.

If you are reading this book because you have a relative, a friend, or even a client who is living with addiction, seeing things as they really are can begin with looking at your own life: looking at what you are dependent on, recognizing what you turn to when things get tough.

Winsome’s story

Winsome’s husband was an alcoholic; he had lost many jobs because of his dependence on alcohol. Winsome wanted him to stop. When she came to a support group for family members of people with addictions, she realized that she had her own addictions too. She was a compulsive overeater. When her husband drank, she would eat. None of her grown children ever said anything about her eating, because the focus was on their father. She realized that the best way to help her husband was to begin dealing with her own addictions. She wanted him to be well, but she was unhealthy herself, weighing almost 300 pounds.

Attending the Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention group was a turning point for Winsome; she could see clearly that her recovery would have an impact on the whole family. Our own recovery can be the best thing for someone living with addiction. We can be an example of what is possible.

If you are caring for a person with an addiction, then this could be a good moment to practice the three-minute breathing space, AGE.

Then ask yourself:

•	What am I dependent on?
•	What might be my addictions?

The dangers of being a helper

Helping others is the final step because, as we stressed earlier, our first need is to take care of ourselves and to free ourselves from addiction. Nevertheless, we don’t need to be too cautious and overprotective of ourselves. We don’t need to be a Buddha before we can start to help others. Once we have made some progress in our recovery, we can turn our attention to how we can also be of benefit to others.

However, it is worth taking some care over timing and how much we do. If we are too enthusiastic and take on too much too soon, we may experience a kickback. Ideally, helping comes from a place of abundance: we feel that our lives are rich and, out of that bounty, we desire to benefit others. If we take on a lot and neglect ourselves and what we need for our own recovery, we may end up struggling. What may have started as a genuine impulse to help can become a drain or a weight on our shoulders if we are not sufficiently resourced. In the worst case it may lead us back to our addiction. Sadly, there are too many people working in the drug and alcohol field who are abusing substances in their personal life.

Be honest with yourself. When you are in the position of helping another being with their addictions, ask yourself: who needs help? We’re not saying that you can’t do good work if you are abusing substances, because, ironically, as the “wounded healer” we can help others. However, we have to admit if the only people who are recovering are our clients or the people we are working with, while we are still sick with our own compulsive behaviors and/or addictions. Is this what we really want? We don’t teach recovery, we exemplify recovery.

Paige’s story

When I was twenty-one, I began my working career on the front lines in the downtown of a large Canadian city. I did this for thirteen years. I can’t believe how I managed to do this. The only environment I understood from growing up was one of crisis and chaos and addiction. I grew up experiencing everyone around me drinking, everyone. I started blackout drinking when I was fifteen. As soon as I started drinking, I could not stop. This is how I drank. On the military bases where I grew up, this was normal. When I started social-service work, I was already an alcoholic but had no idea. I couldn’t even do a cleanse because it would require me to stop drinking for ten days. As a way to debrief the grief, loss, and injustice we faced in our work, my colleagues and I (including my mentors and supervisors) would regularly get together at the end of the day and drink and drink and drink and drink. It was built into the structure of the work culture; staff parties and meetings took place in bars. Now I can see the parallels with how all the dads in the military also used to get drunk at the “mess” hall after their work. This was normal, expected, and designed in these workplaces.

I was actively teaching courses and working one-on-one with people in their addiction, while completely unaware that I was deeply immersed in my own realm of alcoholism. It still shocks me to look back on that time, knowing I had no understanding, awareness, or control of my own alcoholism, even though I logically was well versed in and on a daily basis practicing harm reduction with others.

We may wish to ask ourselves, especially before taking on something fairly substantial like a regular commitment or working in the field of addiction:

•	Is this the right time for me?
•	Do I feel secure in my recovery?
•	What will I be doing as well to continue to look after myself and my recovery?

Marianne’s story

Not long after completing some treatment for her bulimia, which included MBRP, Marianne started helping out at an art group for people in recovery. She had a talent for teaching art and was popular in the group. Marianne felt pleased to be able to help out and enjoyed the appreciation she received. As time went on, people in the group began to open up more and more to her, telling her of the difficulties in their lives. Then the person who had been leading the group left and Marianne was asked if she would take over as leader and consider starting up a second group.

Outwardly appearing to be thriving, Marianne agreed to both proposals. She felt honored to be asked and convinced herself that she was doing well and that the teaching was helping her. However, she felt increasingly weighed down by the sense of responsibility for running the groups, and found it hard to bear the suffering of the participants. She felt that she was not helping people enough, with all their pain.

She started a relationship with a man who was attending one of the groups. Initially this helped her, as she felt she had an ally in the group and felt cared for. As the relationship developed, she experienced her boyfriend as increasingly critical of her. In addition, he pressured her to give him money to support his crack habit. Marianne felt more and more stressed and found herself bingeing and purging again.

Eventually it all came to a head, and Marianne gave up both groups and left her boyfriend. She felt wretched and that she was a complete failure. Marianne went back into therapy. She was then able to see how she had been driven by a desire to feel needed. Growing up with arguing parents who had often ignored her, she had developed a strategy of trying to be helpful and minimizing her own needs. Marianne felt guilty about looking after herself and the art group had been a way of walking back into that role of being a helper.

As well as having therapy, Marianne went back to meditation, especially loving-kindness meditation. She also started doing her own artwork again.

It is neither unusual nor surprising that our motivations to help others are mixed. Sometimes, like Marianne, we may not be aware of some of the driving forces behind our desire to help other people. While not waiting to have perfectly pure motivation, it may be prudent to watch out for our investment in helping others. We may have a habit of wanting to please or wanting, like Marianne, to feel that we are needed. Helping others may be a way of distracting ourselves from our addiction and not addressing our own problems.

We may get clues that all is not right if we feel that people are not appreciative enough of our help, or if they seem to resist our help. Also, we should be concerned if we start to notice that we are neglecting ourselves and feel ourselves being drawn back into addictive behavior.

If we notice any of these warning signs, we can take it as a cue to pause and take a three-minute breathing space, AGE. We could be curious about what is happening. If we are feeling stressed, we could ask ourselves what expectation is not being met. If we see that we have stopped doing the things that supported our recovery, we should make reintroducing them a priority. It can be helpful to remind ourselves that we can only give to others if we have something to give. By ensuring that we take our own needs into account, we will be in a better place to give to others, and what we can give is more likely to be of a higher quality.

It is likely that sometimes we will err on the side of trying to give too much, just as at other times we may veer toward being overcautious and self-focused. If we keep up a practice of daily mindfulness, even just doing a regular breathing space to check in with ourselves, we can observe as we head toward either extreme. We may be surprised at times by how much we are able to give, just as at other times we may be caught out by discovering unhelpful hidden motivations. By continuing to explore the edges of self-care and of benefiting others, we will gradually purify our motivations and learn to find the right balance in our lives.

In time Marianne was able to go back to helping others, especially through teaching art. She found a way to do it from a different place, which wasn’t so fueled by being needed. She made sure that she kept up her own artwork and meditation practice. This gave her the inner resources from which she was able to give more freely. With this balance, Marianne did not return to her addiction.

The journey of recovery

It is sometimes said that people who have recovered from an addiction have happier lives than those who never had that problem. Whether or not this is true, to recover is a remarkable thing to do with your life.

As we progress in our recovery, we may find patterns of addiction at more and more subtle levels. Sometimes people give up class-A drugs only to get dependent on alcohol or remain addicted to smoking. Perhaps we give up alcohol, but then find we have a dependent obsessive quality in our intimate relationships. Some of us will find we are addicted to fantasizing and to our stinking thinking. More subtly we are hooked on a fixed sense of self.

Although we are born with a tendency for addiction, we also have the capacity to find true freedom and happiness. Recovery is like a journey on which we gradually free ourselves from more and more limitations.

In terms of the eight steps presented in this book, we could think of our journey as like a path ascending a mountain. However, the path would not be straight up one side of the mountain, but more like a spiraling path that gradually ascends while going round and round the mountain. This is a journey of faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom. We need all five of these spiritual faculties for this arduous and rewarding journey.

Faith

The journey may take you around and around the mountain with the feeling that you have made little progress and that you have got nowhere in your recovery. Have faith and trust in the process. We are moving, and never end up in exactly the same place. And if it feels like the same place, just trust and believe that you are not mentally in the same place and that you are a different person from when you began your journey of recovery. When you have faith, you go beyond what you have been told and try new things for yourself. When we step onto the path of recovery we have faith. We need to remember this before we tell ourselves we are not a faith type.

Energy

This journey may be one where we fall down to the bottom of the mountain and, when we look back up, it feels all too overwhelming to pick ourselves up and begin the journey again. We need energy if we want to achieve recovery. Picking ourselves up, being kind to ourselves, and continuing with the journey is all part of the process. We need persistence if we are to keep going on the ascent of the mountain to recovery. Recovery is strenuous and it takes great effort and perseverance. We may tumble down the mountain many times, but, each time we pick ourselves up and make the ascent, we are making new habits in our lives.

Mindfulness

We need to recollect and remember that we have committed to a life of abstinence and sobriety. We may meet people on our journey as we spiral up the mountain and they may be our downfall. Before we know it, we are sitting on the mountain enjoying the view, and thinking about how a drink, or a joint or some food, will make this the perfect day. And five minutes later we are indulging with the friend we have met on our journey. We need mindfulness in every aspect of our journey of recovery so we are not taken by surprise. And if we are caught out, we need the energy to be kind to ourselves, and know that the present moment is always an opportunity to do something different.

Concentration

We can become complacent on our journey. We have been spiraling up the mountain for many months or even years, and we stumble and the honeymoon is over. We can also become bored because our recovery seems to be taking too long. Our boredom and lack of concentration can be a trigger for desire and craving to erupt with full force. Desire and craving become stronger, we lose all concentration and focus, and before we know it we are relapsing. So we need every bit of concentration not to pick up our addiction again. Recovery must come first. We have to narrow our focus for those first few years in recovery. We need to continually sharpen our concentration through practicing the three-minute breathing space, AGE, meditating, and chanting mantras. It may take shouting out aloud to our demons of desire and craving: “Stop! I want my recovery!”

Wisdom

We may make it to the top of the mountain, sit down and think: “Yay. I’ve made it, I’m cured.” And before we know it, we are tumbling down the mountain. Recovery does not stop when we reach the top of the mountain. When we make it to the top, we can catch our breath and pause, but if we look out we will see there are more mountains, hills, and humps to journey over. A new life is about to unfold, if we can accept that recovery is a lifelong journey. It is the beginning of something new. We need to practice faith, energy, mindfulness, and concentration at the top of the mountain if we are to stay up there and discover wisdom, if we are to discover the true meaning of our lives.

The cultivation of wisdom is realizing that our craving will be transformed, but this does not mean it will be entirely removed. There is craving and desire before recovery. And craving and desire during recovery. And craving and desire after recovery. When we are sitting at the top of the mountain, we may well feel waves of craving and desire, but they will not have the same gravitational pull on us. We will not feel compelled to act on the energy or be overwhelmed by it. There will be more mountains to climb and they will become smaller, but know that a wave of craving can arise in us after one year or twenty years of recovery. With time, we will have the tools to sit and be calm, to give ourselves that three-minute breathing space, AGE, or meet the four basic needs of the heart. If we practice these tools regularly, we will be prepared for that unexpected wave of craving and desire.

These five spiritual faculties are what the Buddha said we need to help shape everything that we do. They are like five new senses that we need to begin developing and using. We cannot do recovery for you, we can only give you pointers. But know that, if you are able to embrace some of the Buddhist teachings in your journey, it will be one with less suffering. The path of recovery does not have to be continually grueling, or one where you have to white-knuckle it all the way up the mountain. It can be a bittersweet journey with much joy on the way. However, in the spirit of the Buddha’s words, perhaps if we really want recovery this is how we should go about it:

Just as one whose clothes or head had caught fire would put forth extraordinary desire, effort, zeal, enthusiasm, indefatigability, mindfulness, and clear comprehension to extinguish [the fire on] his clothes or head, so that bhikkhu [monk] should put forth extraordinary desire, effort, zeal, enthusiasm, indefatigability, mindfulness, and clear comprehension to abandon those bad unwholesome qualities.²

So we have a glimpse of how our addiction is causing us to suffer and the possibility of a different life (Steps One to Three) and this may affect our willingness to make changes in our life (Step Four). As we work on cultivating more kindness and compassion, this will change how we speak and act (Step Five). Then, as we transform our speech, actions, and livelihood, we may feel the need to explore our values and consider what refuges can support our recovery (Step Six). This will make it easier to keep applying the effort that we need to make to stay in recovery (Step Seven) and to be attentive to our experience and reality. As we practice all this, our lives will have more of a focus and we will increasingly embody a state of recovery and may feel the urge to help others (Step Eight). The more we embody this state and the more fully we have contact with others who are caught up in their addictions, the more we will see the unnecessary suffering we cause in our lives and will know more directly that our lives can be different (Steps One to Three again). And so we go on with ever deeper or fuller understanding and transformation of our lives.

The important thing is not so much where we are on the journey; rather, that we accept the challenge and take to the road. We hope that this book helps you to take some steps on the road of recovery and we hope that you enjoy the journey!

Recap

In Step Eight, we learn to help others from a place of kindness and share our recovery with others. We continue to cultivate our five new senses of faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom. We don’t teach recovery: we radiate recovery. We live our lives as people who have stepped onto the path of recovery and freedom from their addictions.

We are almost at the end of the book, and endings can be bumpy affairs. A whole host of sad feelings and thoughts can emerge. “I’m still using, it hasn’t worked.” In this moment you are reading this book, in this moment you have turned your life over to recovery. Allow yourself to face the pain of where you are right now in your recovery. It is a journey, not a test of willpower. Trust that, if recovery is what you really want, it will emerge in your life. Maybe not as fast as you would like. Have compassionate patience, keep on picking yourself up and give yourself a hug of loving-kindness. If the three-minute breathing space, AGE, responding to the basic needs of the heart – attention, affection, appreciation, and acceptance – and the practice of loving-kindness have not benefited you, then keep on seeking. If living a more ethical life, transforming your speech, actions, and livelihood does not inspire, you, then seek something else that will motivate you and inspire you.

In the spirit of the Buddha’s words:

Do not go by oral tradition, by lineage of teaching, by hearsay, by a collection of texts, by logic, by inferential thinking, by reasoned cogitation, by the acceptance of a view after pondering it, by the seeming competence of a speaker, or because you think, “The ascetic is our teacher.” But when you know for yourselves, “These things are wholesome; these things are blameless; these things are praised by the wise; these things, if undertaken and practiced, lead to welfare and happiness,” then you should engage in them.³

This is a gentle reminder for us to pause at the end of Step Eight, and take a three-minute breathing space.

Three-minute breathing space, AGE

Awareness of thoughts, feelings, and body.

Gather the breath, notice the breath, become aware of the breath.

Expand the breath throughout the whole body – connect to the whole body.