Judy Stein - On Addiction

Consider this, if you will: Maharishi says the mind is always looking for "more." This can mean two things, depending on what angle you pick: looking for more pleasure, or looking for less pain.

To the alcoholic, not drinking represents an intolerable level of pain. To be able to continue drinking is quite literally "more" (i.e., less pain) than it would be to stop.

To make the decision to stop drinking in this situation is far more than a matter of common sense; it's heroic.

Even after the alcoholic has been sober for years, it is still typically a struggle. Unless the recovering alcoholic's life is so fulfilling that the pleasure of being sober trumps the pain of continuing to resist the urge to drink, falling off the wagon is an ever-present threat.

Maharishi is absolutely right: the mind is incapable of choosing what it perceives to be "less" in preference to what it perceives to be "more." The trick with alcoholism (or with any addiction) is to find some way to change the perception that drinking is "more" and not drinking is "less."

Nobody has figured out just how to do that yet. Sometimes "hitting bottom" does it--when life with alcohol begins to be perceived as *equally* painful as life without.

Alcoholics Anonymous has been fairly successful at building on that circumstance. The alcoholic "surrenders" to a "higher power," admitting that s/he is incapable of extricating him/herself from that dilemma. The *relief* of making this admission is sometimes just enough "more" to change the balance, at least for the moment.

And AA very wisely insists that not drinking *remain* a moment-to-moment choice, to minimize the pain and make it possible to hang onto that tiny sliver of "more."

If the alcoholic is lucky, the surrender to a higher power may actually trigger an experience of not just relief but bliss, in which case the "more" may be substantial. But there's no way to engineer this. Either it happens, or it doesn't.

TM is useful in the treatment of alcoholism and other addictions because it facilitates many tiny surrenders a day on a regular, systematic basis as the addict transcends during meditation. These little bits of "more" accumulate over time and change the balance gradually.

But the role of the will in the process of making the initial decision to stop drinking is virtually nonexistent. The operative factor is the mind's perception of "more" versus "less."