Meditation for Recovery

dose of calmness. Every weekday morning, I'll share a meditation story, offer a simple practical tip about how you or a loved one can stay a bit calmer in your life, and then we'll end each episode together with a moment of gratitude. My hope is that I can share what I know to anyone who needs it. Ready, sit comfortably,

take a few deep breaths, and let's begin today's journey. Today, I want to talk about Russell Brand, the outrageous comedian, award winning actor, best selling author, activist, and now a global advocate for helping people recover from addiction. And Russell knows of what he speaks. He became a heroin junkie at the age of sixteen and remained a junkie for

fourteen years. I met Russell in two thousand and seven, when he had been sober for five years, and Russell wanted to meet with me because he was working on a documentary film called Happiness and he was interested in learning to meditate to see if that could be a path to happiness. Well, when I told some of my friends I was going to be meeting Russell, and they said, be careful. He's a very funny man, but he probably is not going to take this seriously. So we met

in a hotel lobby in Manhattan. He walked up to me and he he stood about three inches from my face and he said, so, I understand you're going to teach me to meditate. And I said, well, maybe, are you interested? And he said yeah, I'd like to learn. But he was sort of casual, so I said, you know, there's a time commitment. He just looked at me directly into the eyes and he said, Bob, I've been searching for the timeless my whole life. I'll take as much time

as you'll give me. Well, a few days later I did teach him transcendental meditation, and he's been meditating now for twenty minutes twice a day for thirteen years, and it has become a cornerstone of this twelve step approach for maintaining his recovery, and Russell have been very generous with his time. He's helped to David Lynch Foundation bring the meditation to thousands of people who are battling substance

use disorder. But along the way, I've learned a lot about addiction, the brain and how meditation helps with addiction. Addiction is part of the dopamine system of the brain. Dopamine is the so called pleasure neurotransmitter. If you do something good, like exercise or eating properly, or study hard, and you get an A on the exam, then your brain releases dopamine to your reward center and you feel good from that, and it motivates you to want to

do that again. The problem with addictive drugs is it just floods the reward center in your brain with dopamine, and now you are craving that experience. The problem is the more drugs you take, the pleasure that comes from those drugs diminishes. So while you're craving gets stronger, you need more and more and more of to even come close to that high you had before. And this is why it's so difficult to break addiction. So where does

meditation come in? Transcendental meditation is part of the serotonin system in the brain. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that's associated with longer term happiness, sense of well being when the mind settles down and we access those deeper, quieter levels of our own self. In meditation, it creates a whole constellation of changes in the brain and the body. One of the most significant is an increase in serotonin. That's why when you're done meditating, you feel happy. You have

a sense of being settled at home with yourself. Now, what is the relevance to addiction. To break an addiction, the first step is you have to have a desire to recover from addiction, and the second step is you have to have the will power to sustain that desire and actually change the brain wiring. When you experience that increase of serotonin during meditation and afterwards, the contrast is so great you think, I feel good now, I want

to stop taking drugs. And as you continue to meditate regularly, you increase in your resilience and your will power to make that change in order to change. It's not a change over a horizontal level. I'm going to break my addiction to cocaine, but then I'm going to fulfill that craving with alcohol. It has to be an inner growth, an inner evolution. We have to outgrow that craving, and

that's why it's so important to have a regimen. Transcendental meditation alone is not enough to overcome addiction, but meditation along with a good diet exercise very important. My tip that I leave you with today is a point that Russell brings out all the time. We can be lonely to break an addiction. In order to sustain that will power, learn how to work with a mentor to keep you on track. That's a lesson I think we can all

take advantage of. In the ancient meditation text, they talk about how important it is to maintain the company of the wise. This means maintain the company of friends who share your vision of what life could be like and are not constantly pulling you down. All right, Let's end this time together doing something that I think should be a feature of our everyday life, and that's appreciation and gratitude. Let's take thirty seconds of quiet, thirty seconds to take

a break. Just take a moment. It turns out when we do that, it's good for our health as well. I'll be right back all right. Thank you for joining. This is Bob Roth. Keep calm. Thanks for listening today. I hope you heard something that inspires, that uplifts you and that you can incorporate into your own life. Until next time, remember, meditate, be kind, and be true to yourself. M Hey, all of you out there, I'd love to hear from you. You can send me your stories, your questions,

or anything else on your mind. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram at meditation Bob. You can also send me an email at meditation Bob Roth at gmail dot com. I look forward to hearing from you.