Refraining from consuming intoxicants may be the most controversial of the five Buddhist Precepts. Indeed, there is debate as to whether the precept means restraining entirely from all alcohol and drug use, or just restraining from getting out-of-your-face drunk (or high). Others debate whether the precept applies to laypeople, or only to monastics. And even then, many disagree as to whether it is acceptable for a monastic to indulge in a glass of wine here and there. Despite the myriad opinions on the matter, I think most would agree that having an addiction to intoxicants will inevitably cause a great barrier to one’s practice. And yet. . .

According to Theravada Buddhist monk and scholar Bhikkhu Bodhi, the Buddha was very clear about his reason for prescribing the fifth precept: indulging in alcohol and drugs will lead to heedlessness (pamada), which inevitably shadows a person’s ability to see things as they are. In his essay entitled A Discipline of Sobriety, Bhikkhu Bodhi observed with sadness that alcoholism was gaining a hold on the Sri Lankan population and outlined the significant impact of these unwholesome habits:

My instinct tells me to investigate this a little further. After all, our paths towards liberation are colorful, unique, and—more often than not—a little bonkers. Which leads me to wonder: does an addict absolutely have to kick the addiction before embarking on the Buddhist path?

“When the use of intoxicants eats away at even the most basic moral scruples, little need be said about its corrosive influence on the two higher stages of the path. A mind besotted by drink will lack the alertness required for meditative training and certainly won't be able to make the fine distinctions between good and bad mental qualities needed to develop wisdom. The Buddhist path in its entirety is a discipline of sobriety, a discipline which demands the courage and honesty to take a long, hard, utterly sober look at the sobering truths about existence. Such courage and honesty will hardly be possible for one who must escape from truth into the glittering but fragile fantasyland opened up by drink and drugs.” (Access to Insight)

As Bhikkhu Bodhi highlights in the above passage, the Buddhist practice demands the courage and honesty to take a long, hard, utterly sober look at the sobering truths about existence. Personally, I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. Having tried sitting on the meditation cushion feeling “tipsy” (let’s leave it at that), I must admit that my monkey mind is all the more dynamic when I am intoxicated. On a deeper level, I believe that many of us turn to drugs and alcohol to do exactly the opposite of what the Buddhist practice demands. That is, to have a distraction from what is currently going on with us—internally and externally—right now. And yet, as I deepen into my own practice, I cannot help but draw similarities between the journey of the Buddhist and that of the addict. After all, the root cause of addiction is craving (tanha) which, in the Second Noble Truth, is pinpointed as the root cause for all suffering. In this sense, I believe that addiction can in fact serve as a foundation upon which the Buddhist path may flourish.



From theguardian.com

When talking about addiction I will refer to the definition used by Buddhist psychiatrist and author Judson Brewer in The Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smartphones to Love—Why We Get Hooked and How We Can Break Bad Habits: “Addiction is continued use, despite adverse consequences.” (Brewer 2017, 45) This definition of addiction does not only apply to alcohol and drugs, but also refers to our addictions to technology, food, love, etc. We can consider ourselves addicted when we perpetuate actions even when the negative consequences clearly outnumber the positive ones.

As an outpatient psychiatrist for the Veterans Administration Hospital in West Haven, Connecticut, Brewer worked closely with Veterans and noted that his patients generally engaged in substance abuse to escape unpleasant memories, thoughts and feelings. He refers to this process as reward-based learning, whereby patients experience a trigger, such as recalling a traumatic event, and turn to a substance (behavior) in order to avoid reliving the experience (reward). This creates a loop of trigger-behavior-reward which feeds itself and therefore feeds the addiction.