Recovery Stress and recovery

[Jabberwocky]

I think that anyone who struggles with stress (which is often the experience of one form or another of anger) should read Thich Nhat Hanh's wonderful little book entitled Anger. His thesis is basically that, when push comes to shove, difficult emotions can be effectively dealt with when we "welcome them with an open heart and invite them in for tea." Meaning that a lot of the damage is done not by stress itself but by how we relate to and deal with our experience of stress.

The general ideal of Buddhist psychology (a concept well documented now by neuroscience as, basically, the fight/flight/fuck/freeze response of the limbic system) is that humans have a natural tendency to turn away from and seek to avoid unpleasant experiences and stimuli and are naturally drawn towards and crave pleasant experience and stimuli. This is the clinging to pleasure and avoiding pain thing. There is nothing wrong with this basic parent of our brain's hard wiring (more accurately termed wet-wiring), it is how we evolved, nothing more. But given the fact we live in a world of human artifacts and many of the ways we have evolved are no longer as advantageous as they were at earlier points in human development (prior to civilization, agriculture, etc,), some of these hard wired coping mechanisms do not necessarily serve us very well in our modern context.

Normally, when presented with a stressful (unpleasant) stimuli, we turn away and seek to avoid it. This may or may not be appropriate. In the case of a baseball hurtling towards your face at 90mph, ducking to avoid getting hit in the face is obviously advantageous. But when we are driven to continue using drugs like opioids out of the fear of avoiding the unpleasantness of withdrawal, yet our drug use is causing us tremendous harm, our natural conditioning to driving us toward pleasure and away from pain obviously isn't as advantageous as it might otherwise be.

This is why understanding addiction as a learning disorder can be so useful. In addiction we use substances to condition ourselves, in effect learning how to manage stress and unpleasant stimuli through substance use. Removing the substance and we lose this incredibly potent, if also incredibly limited, tool of dealing with stress. In such a situation we are forced to learn new ways of managing - i.e. relating - to stress. Developing a tolerance for holding stress, learning how to let it come and go of its own accord, is a cornerstone of mindfulness practice. I could say so much more, and frankly I didn't nearly do most of this justice, but as a short overview of some secular Buddhist concepts it is, well, enough to wet your dhamma whistle

 

[F'Loki]

Absolutely

Another way i'd put it: We are hardwired with "aversion" to things our ego (that selfish part of us who doesn't realise we are just all ever-changing, impermanent entities) does not want or deems "unpleasant", and "desires" things it finds "pleasurable".
As you say, not all of this is bad: We have been biologically hardwired to avoid dangers that can harm or kill us (like snakes, spiders) and there is nothing wrong with the occasional ego driven indulgence.

The trouble is the "addiction" aspect: Our egos always want more, more more, and no matter how much we chase selfish-desires and material possessions, we will never satisfy ourselves. Indeed, this is part of the "aversion" process.

This is why Buddhist psychology/philosophy is so incredibly helpful for those in recovery: Drug addiction is just another addiction that our egos use to avert things it doesn't like. The trouble is, these "bad" things it doesn't like aren't always detrimental to us - the ego is very tricky and deceptive like that. Feelings of anxiety, depression and all manner of negative emotions are subject to the same laws of "impermanence" like everything else in the universe. We can actually choose what to do with them.

We can be unmindful and just choose "aversion" and that might well involve taking drugs that eventually become another addiction, it may be gambling addiction, it may be shopping addictions. Or we can just choose "acceptance" and mindfulness - once we learn that these 'negative' feelings always pass, we become less inclined to avert, and learn these feelings do not have control over us: This means we can find freedom and peace in almost any situation through our mindfulness and insights (unless we get shot in the legs or something lol).

Of course everyone has slip ups - and there is a common misconception that the goal of Buddhism is to eliminate ALL desires and emotions and attain some crazy notion of perfection. But that is not it at all: Really it's learning to accept all our imperfections with an open heart and brutal honesty, and realise we are all just impermanent and interconnected by the laws of cause and effect and observing that. That's when all that true compassion comes out, even towards former enemies if we practice with diligence and compassion. Once we start realising this on an observational level rather than a intellectual level, we see the change in ourselves (for the better) and others actions towards us, and we realise - to quote Noah Levine - Our future experiences will be coloured by the choices we make in the present.

But yes, I imagine we could discuss this all day. So i'll leave it here.