7 Ways Mindfulness Can Help You Overcome Drug Addiction

Drug addiction is a terrible thing and a bad habit that is difficult to break. It is however doable and this article outlines how to overcome a drug addiction using mindfulness.

Mindfulness is often described as an awareness of the present moment. Many people use mindfulness to help decrease stress and anxiety levels in everyday life. It can help you live more consciously and with a deepened sense of purpose. With mindfulness, your wellbeing is the priority, not substances or behaviors that get in their way! Mindfulness is an important part of breaking free from the cycle of addiction because it helps combat impulsiveness.

It works on replacing autopilot thinking with intentionality by teaching you that there’s no rush when taking responsibility while acknowledging feelings before acting upon those impulses and thoughts. This also applies in other areas such as being overly critical towards ourselves.

How To Overcome A Drug Addiction: 7 Ways Mindfulness Can Help

Let’s take a look at a few ways mindfulness can help combat drug addiction.

1. Helps Control Emotions

Mindfulness teaches us that all our emotions are important messages from ourselves, not just for how we’re feeling now, but also revealing clues about something deeper going on inside of us. When you become more self-aware during mindfulness practices, you can start to understand what your needs are without overreacting to unpleasant feelings. And when you can manage your responses, what was once an overwhelming emotion can turn into a signal for change that will no longer necessitate substance abuse as a coping mechanism.

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2. Provides A Safe Space

One of the main issues with drug addiction is feeling like you don’t have any control over your life, and that’s where mindfulness comes in.

Through meditation and simple exercises like breathing deeply, focusing on the moment, and emptying your mind (even for just a second or two), you can find a safe space within yourself from which to deal with challenging emotions from childhood traumas.

It has also been proven that mindfulness has similar effects as antidepressants, so it can help take care of your mental health as well as your body.

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3. How Mindfulness Helps Overcome Drug Addiction: Increases Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is perhaps the most common trait of people who can be successful in overcoming addiction. Mindfulness meditation helps you find focus and clarity, which can help give you the insight you need to realize when your addictive behaviors are taking over again, leading you back toward using drugs.

It builds off of that self-awareness by providing a safe space for dealing with your emotions.

4. Helps Treat Depression

When you talk about how to overcome a drug addiction, treating depression is key.

Depression is one of the most common co-occurring disorders with drug addiction, so it’s very important not only in recovery but even in treatment for addicts to work on their mental health. When they do this via mindfulness training, research shows that it can restore proper serotonin levels in the brain, similarly to what antidepressants do—over time diminishing depressive symptoms.

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5. Helps Identify Triggers

Another way mindfulness helps in overcoming drug addiction is identifying triggers.

Mindfulness allows us to see our thoughts, feelings, and sensations without being caught up in them. This helps identify the triggers that may cause us to use drugs, which is important if you are trying to stay clean.

When triggers are identified, the addict can begin making plans for how to deal with these triggers healthily rather than using drugs as an unhealthy coping skill.

6. Reduces Anxiety And Stress

This one seems like a no-brainer: Would we rather feel anxious or stressed out after we take substances? Of course, we wouldn’t! But since the root of addiction lies in our inability to cope with difficult emotions, it’s even more important that addicts learn to manage their stress and anxiety via other methods besides resorting back to drug use.

Mindfulness has been found not only to reduce these issues with mental health but also physically, which leads us to our next point.

Managing stress is one of the key ways mindfulness when it comes to how to overcome a drug addiction. Below is an article on proven and effective ways to manage and overcome stress.

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7. Reduces Physical Pain

Many people suffering from addiction say that their need to take drugs stems from the desire to cover up or numb themselves from physical pain. 

Alcohol, opioids, and heroin are often taken in an attempt to self-medicate stress, anxiety, depression, chronic illnesses, and other health problems. But when we use these substances in excess (as many addicts tend to do), they lead us down a dark path of even more mental and physical suffering. 

Mindfulness can be used as an alternative way of coping with this suffering by bringing our awareness back into the present moment where it’s safe rather than relying on using drugs which will only make us feel worse in the long run.

Conclusion On How To Overcome Drug Addiction

Mindfulness is a simple and accessible way to increase your awareness. No matter what stage you are at in the process, practicing will help you overcome your drug addiction. It’s never too late to start! I have seen drug addiction ravage addicts and their families and it is not pleasant experience.

If you are suffering from drug addiction, these tips on how mindfulness can help you to overcome drug addiction is a great way to start the healing process.

So there you have it. How to overcome a drug addiction: 7 Ways mindfulness helps. I hope you find it helpful and share with people you think might need this. Let me know your thoughts in the comment section.

Kinging Queen