Addiction Recovery – Be Quiet and Listen

In addiction recovery, clients are taught how to be quiet and listen. This doesn’t mean we tell clients to not talk. The “quiet” I’m talking about is all the brain-chatter that keeps a person distracted, confused or too busy thinking to really listen to themselves and others.

The art of being quiet and listening is usually something a person has to learn. Getting caught up in the commotion, hustle-bustle and noise of daily life, most people don’t learn how to slow down their brains so they can find their center that’s deeper than the usual semi-conscious level of every day life. It takes effort, planning and practice to stop and look inward. How many people are really practiced at true contemplation? How many think of it as wasteful navel-gazing? We’re supposed to get things done, right? What things? Get them done in what way? To what purpose? Yes, that’s the problem.

A life unexamined is usually a life that’s automatic and lacking in purpose. The person suffering from addiction will usually come to treatment not knowing why they do most of what they’re doing — they’re controlled by impulses and old, unexamined ideas that no longer fit in reality, if they ever did. The addicted person’s brain has been rewired to make their drug of choice a prominent part of life. In addiction recovery, the person has to learn to be quiet, to listen to their deeper core and to listen to others — it’s time to turn off the noise machine, the rationalizations, the minimalizing, the old excuses that keep the person from seeing the truth. It’s time to create the life they want to live.

Scheduled times for meditation is a good way to get in the practice of quieting the mind, but it doesn’t have to be just at those times. A person can learn to slow the mind in general. When a person’s reacting semi-consciously to daily stimulus rather than gaining some control and power over their reactions, they’re always at risk of doing things they don’t really want to do.

Victor Frankl wrote:

Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our responses. In our response lies our growth and freedom.

Learning to be quiet and listen allows the time and insight to choose our responses. Addiction treatment is a time for self-examination, empowerment and freedom.