Letting Go of Substance Abuse

Friday, 24 September 2021 Written by Matt Kahn

Having been raised in a family of co-dependent-addictive patterning, where I had to face the deep imprinting it left within me to resolve, I humbly offer these words as what I have learned from this incredible journey. May it help you in leaping across the threshold, no matter how uncertain or unprepared the ego may feel:

True sobriety is a willingness to face how deeply we’ve harmed ourselves and avoided ourselves through substance abuse. We do so by enduring the detoxification process.

Detoxing from substance abuse may initially seem like an entry point into the very struggle and weakness such patterns pretended to help us escape, but it’s in facing each layer of feeling that help us discover how truly powerful we are — underneath it all.

When choosing to truly let go, there is no longer “how can I make my experiences exactly the way I want it to be?” That type of question or desire is what dies along with attachments to substances as ways we have attempted to avoid the fury of our own relentless pain. A pain only made more relentless due to how long or often we have avoided facing it.

In the absence of negotiation or the micro-management of emotional states, there is only one question: “What’s the healthiest choice I can make for the well-being and evolution of my body?”

Knowing that each choice made to further our alignment into health equally sends out waves of healing energy to awaken others from the grip of addiction.

This becomes the exact mindset for addiction recovery: to focus more on helping to free others from addiction by making healthier choices than thinking of how differently we wish we could be in any given moment.

As you detox from using substances, there will also be an emotional purging. It is a grief cycle where you grieve the loss of attachment, as if the substance was a friend you leaned on when life become too overwhelming.

This is another reason why we unite in conscious community. It exists so we can all die and be reborn together — no matter how many deaths and rebirths anyone needs in order to resonate with healthy choices by treating each body, mind, heart, and soul as vessels of divinity.

It’s helpful to remember, this may not be an easy journey, nor should it have to be. It is where we learn the insightful skillset of having boundaries with ourselves, no matter how seductive of an experience comes our way.

Also, for those releasing attachments to marijuana or smoking in general, please know, two-thirds of the relief you find in smoking is not the psychoactive ingredients being inhaled, but the slow pace in which each inhale and exhale is experienced.

In yoga, this breathing practice is called pranayama. It can help you realize, perhaps each time you’ve craved smoking of any degree, you’ve actually been craving time to be one with your breath. Since we breathe as we consume food or drink beverages, the same truth can apply to emotional eating as well as addictions to alcohol.

Because the breath deepens during moments of orgasm, the same truth applies to sex addiction and pornography.

As this pure desire of alignment with breath filters through the ego, it translates into searching for substances or toxic ways to inhale that pollute the body to the equal degree anyone feels polluted by their past, punished by current circumstances, and overwhelmed by the low self-esteem and unworthiness attempting to hold it all together and struggle through life.

This is why even after the high comes and goes, many are left either craving another thrill ride of avoidance or coming into greater contact with how miserable or lost they feel within themselves.

When you are truly ready to take this leap, I invite you to lean on breathwork each and every time a craving or moment or negotiation arises. Because, underneath it all, it’s the power of your breath you truly seek. You only seek it to discover the light of Source always living within you — as the very breath you breathe.

We are all in this together. Together as One.

As always, may we all be gentle, patient, and compassionate with ourselves. Loving ourselves more, not less, without making that an excuse to abuse our bodies or avoid our highest path of salvation.

Sending so much love to all who struggle or read this.

All For Love,

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