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How Meditation Prevents Relapse Into Hell
The pain that comes upon the alcoholic out of guilty conscience is relentless. Naturally he seeks relief.
As we drank, and as alcohol 'worked' we eventually learned that our relief-seeking had to be at least as unrelenting and as potent as the pain which pursues us, less we experience the deficit.
We alcoholics find relief through our own private apothecary, located inside the brain – specifically, the Nucleus Accumbens which houses the human apparatus we call the Pleasure Center. Here are the reward pathways that comprise a neuro-circuitry that the alcoholic can access. The potential for abuse is enormous as the neurotransmitter chemicals that provide pleasure can easily be used beyond their naturally intended purpose.
Pleasurable neuro-transmission within the food and sex reward pathways are necessary for the continuation of the species and are most often the first and most abused. Eating is usually more accessible than sex and therefore is the first activity to be abused.
The foods most often abused are sugar and alcohol. Both are very effective dopamine boosters. (In addition to their drinking problems, most alcoholics also suffer from grave eating disorders.)
The foods most often abused are sugar and alcohol. Both are very effective dopamine boosters. (In addition to their drinking problems, most alcoholics also suffer from grave eating disorders.)
The more pain there is the greater the need for pleasure. It does not remove the pain.
During these abusive pursuits, the feeling of pleasure overwhelms feelings of pain.
In sound masking, undesirable noise can be neutralized by “opposite” sounds where frequencies cover-up but do not eliminate an objectionable sound. Likewise, pain stemming from god-separation can be swept under the rug through the issue of pain’s counterpart: Pleasure.
The concealing of pain through the ‘white noise’ of pleasure generated through neurotransmitter brain processes, most notably dopamine seems to be an antidote, but like this example, guilt is merely being overridden - pain and its source still remain unaffected and as vital as ever.
Imagine a dark room where someone is turning a flashlight on and off. The light is very obvious and distracting. Now imagine that the room lights are suddenly turned on. The flashlight is still being turned on and off, but now is easier to ignore - even invisible - because it has been ‘”masked". The utter simplicity of this process is easy to see.
It is the interminable force of guilt, that pain of conscience, which compels the alcoholic out of his natural consciousness state and into his brain hell where he becomes trapped.
The crack addict who is ‘stuck’ sitting on the floor of a crack house for days at a time, while his family frantically searches for him, until his bank account has been depleted, his jewelry and car gone - parallels what goes on in the alcoholic in just this way. Once he is locked into this behavior he must continue until conscience ceases its pursuit. It does not.
In the absence of alcohol and if left to their own devices, all alcoholics will eventually find some say to avoid conscience from catching up with them. That includes killing themselves.
If death does not come accidentally then they will do it themselves intentionally.
Just short of suicide, the final solution, there are yet other solutions which the alcoholic has not yet exhausted and the next chapter explores the mechanics of how he manages to not kill himself – for a while at least.
Meditation of the kind that awakens us to the things that bring us the pain of guilty conscience saves us from this dying process. Those ‘things’ are all the names we have applied to resentment: Anger, irritation, annoyance, frustration even fear – all of these cause us to play God and trigger the need for relief of the resulting pain.
Peace and Love,
Danny S – RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic
http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com
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