My sobriety journey began in earnest in June of 2022 when I discovered meditation and RAIN. I was drinking 5 nights a week and smoking pot nearly everyday. I considered getting professional help (should you need that kind of help you can find resources here), but didn’t feel I had truly gone over the edge. At least not yet. Why? I could skip drinking and marijuana if I needed to and didn’t drink myself stupid most of the time (though increasing frequency of that condition concerning).
While I felt alcoholism likely lying in wait if I didn’t change my ways, I considered my use disorder to be more akin to what’s commonly known as “gray area drinking“. This is a broad murky area that lies somewhere between rock bottom and drinking every now and then. And I was heading toward the wrong end of that spectrum.
Thus, I began my sobriety journey. For me, sobriety is less about total abstinence and more focused on drinking far less often. And, when I drink, not drinking to get drunk. I figured that if I could recast my relationship with alcohol, I might be able to accomplish this. But how?
Enter meditation & RAIN. I started daily meditation practice exactly 157 days ago (as of the publication of this blog). And it’s been quite a journey. At day 35, I completely stopped smoking pot after being a near daily smoker for over two decades. By day 90 I had gone from drinking 5 nights a week to twice a month, and drinking half as much in a sitting (from 7-10 beers to 2-4). By day 140, I had lost 26 pounds.
That’s a lot of positive progress! And while this approach is not for everyone, I’m pleased with how my daily meditation practice has redefined my relationship with alcohol. Here are five ways I use RAIN to deal with my alcohol use disorder, binge drinking, gray area drinking, or whatever you choose to call it.
1. Let it R.A.I.N.
Nothing can harm you as much as your own thoughts unguarded.
– Buddha
You’ll read a lot about RAIN in this blog. So far, it’s been the most effective mindfulness technique I’ve found for working through a wide range of thoughts and emotions. I was first introduced to RAIN through a series of guided meditations in the Lojong App. So what is RAIN?
R.A.I.N. is an acronym that stands for Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Non-Attachment. The four steps that comprise RAIN give you the necessary tools to stop a thought, memory, or emotion in its tracks and deal with it in a productive way.
There’s no more burying emotions or being swept away by them. You don’t allow things to get their hooks in you. You deal with them right then and there. Then you let them go.
RAIN is all about working through emotional baggage so it can exit your life gracefully rather than by brute force. As I work through my own baggage, I’m finding that I think about drinking less and less as time goes on. And, as a result, I need to numb myself less and less. Perhaps this is why I stopped smoking weed cold turkey at day 35 and have rarely thought about it in the 119 days (nearly 4 months) since.
2. Recognize
First you must recognize that you are thinking a thought or feeling an emotion. For example: I’d really like to have a beer right now. You think it. You feel it. But have you stopped to Recognize it? When we Recognize a thought, we label it: it’s a memory, a desire, a future event, happy, sad, etc.
Whenever Drinkie raises his voice, I first recognize that it’s Drinkie. Drinkie is the name I’ve given my alcoholic desires. It’s how I’ve labeled them. You see, I used to think Drinkie’s voice was mine. I thought I was talking myself into buying a 12 pack of beer, but now I know better. It’s just Drinkie passing through. So whenever I hear Drinkie plotting and planning for ‘us’ to enjoy a few beers, I say, “Hey, Drinkie. How are you?”
3. Allow
Now that Drinkie is here with me, I don’t fight him. I don’t suppress him or push him away. I allow him to spend some time with me. After all, I have some questions I’d like to ask him.
This is where I believe most people may be challenged. It’s not in our nature to allow addiction, negativity, or other covetous thoughts and emotions to spend time with us on our terms. Usually, they are running the show. And when they are allowed to do so, bad things happen. Not to them, but to you and me. We get too drunk, we eat too much, we have affairs, gamble away our life savings, are envious of others’ successes, become depressed, and seek numbness in mind altering substances.
So rather than fight these thoughts and try to push them away, we allow them to visit with us for a few moments.
4. Investigate
Now comes the time for questions. Time to investigate that thought or feeling. Is it a recurring thought? Is it a bad or embarrassing memory? How does it make you feel? Does it cause you anxiety, sadness, anger? Can you find where these emotions manifest in your body? How long has this been going on? What are the repercussions of allowing this thought to direct your actions?
It took me awhile to Recognize Drinkie for what it was – an unhealthy, obsessive desire. Once I did, I struggled to Allow Drinkie to hang out with me. He is no so pleasant to be around because the only thing he wants to talk about is drinking, and I am attempting to do a lot less of that.
But once I worked through these struggles, I had questions I needed answered.
Why are you here today?
You had a tough day at work and you deserve to enjoy a relaxing evening.
Aren’t there other ways to relax?
I suppose, but wouldn’t any of those be better with a little buzz on?
Perhaps, but I just had some beer a few nights ago.
Seems like a lifetime ago doesn’t it?
Not really, well kinda, but no matter, it ain’t happening tonight.
Why not?
Because I don’t want to step on the scale tomorrow morning and have gained four pounds. I also don’t want a sh*tty night’s sleep, headache, or hangover.
And that usually does it. Drinkie has few comebacks to counter the daily weigh-in. It’s worth mentioning that the Investigative portion (of which the above is just one example), happens in 10-20 seconds or less. Often it’s while I’m in the car driving past the liquor store and by the time we’ve had our little conversation, the store is in my rear view mirror.
“Oh, well, Drinkie. Looks like you missed you chance!”
5. Non-Association
Finally, it comes time to say goodbye to Drinkie. Drinkie is just a thought. It is not me. It doesn’t define me. So I allow it to pass through my mind like a cloud in the sky.
As they like to say in Lojong, when you bang your elbow, you don’t say, “I’m a sore elbow.” But when you are experiencing anger, you say, “I’m angry!” No you’re not. You are you. You are simply feeling and experiencing anger in this moment. And it’s temporary. It too shall pass. So there’s no need to associate anger with some permanent condition. If you do, we call that hatred, and you definitely don’t want to go there.
Similarly, there’s no need for me to associate the urge, desire, or habit of drinking with any permanent mental state. It’s a visitor passing through. I Recognize it for what it is. I Allow it to visit with me. And I Investigate its reasons for dropping by. Then I Non-Associate and let it go on its way.
I don’t want to make this sound easy, because it isn’t. That’s why we call it practice. We practice meditation and we practice RAIN. And hopefully if we are consistent in our practice we make progress. But don’t expect it to work 100% of the time, especially at first. After five months of daily practice, I’m only now starting to reap the true benefits of RAIN, and I remain far from perfect. But I’m getting a little better each day, and they say compounding is the most powerful force in the universe.
The right choices you make today, compounded over time, will take you higher and higher up the success curve of the real-time movie called “you’re life.”
– Jeff Olson, The Slight Edge
