Ayurveda and Addiction Recovery

Nice article on the Ayurveda Holistic Center website about Ayurveda and how it can help in recovery from addictions by Swami Sadashiva Tirtha.

The uniqueness of Ayurveda is that it not only helps one remove the cause of addiction (i.e.,. anxiety can cause smoking), but it helps evaporate the toxins in the body so there is little to no discomfort from withdrawal symptoms. Ayurveda does not say, `stop the addicting activity', it says, `lets replace it with another- more constructive activity'. If a young child is holding our most precious glass vase, and we ask them to give it to us, they usually don't.

But if we trade them for a doll or a piece of candy they will do so. Taking from a person leaves them empty. Trading allows the person to still have something to hold onto.The main therapies that Ayurveda employs are, herbs, nutrition and spiritual counseling. Secondary approaches include aromatherapy,gem therapy, yoga, massage, and color therapy. Herbs produce the most dramatic effect.Simultaneously, spiritual life-counseling is employed to help the recoverer to find their inner self-worth.

Additionally, by revealing to the person their inner Divine nature, Ayurveda offers a method to overcome co-dependency. Co-dependency is having the mistaken idea that we need to rely on another person, drug or food for our support. Rediscovering one's inner Divine nature gives the recovering person a sense of inner quality, grace and fulfillment. As they begin to experience a sense of self-love, a habit of self or inner reliance develops.

We are all addicted on some level...
it is best to become addicted to God

Actually, everyone is addicted on some level, even if it is being dependent on the relative world instead of the eternal, Divine, non-changing world. The trick is to become addicted to the non-changing world or God. This is the only thing which remains constant because it is eternal.So it is better to see addiction and dependency more as a matter of refining or redirecting our addictive tendencies rather than stopping them.

Link to article.

The article which led me to the above is here.