The rehab where I teach charges nearly a thousand dollars per day, with a minimum stay of sixty days. Insurance is not accepted. No street-level, TV-boosting junkies here, the clients are mothers, fathers, sons and daughters of our nation's finest families. Here, in beautifully appointed treatment rooms, America's rich and possibly famous spend two to four months fidgeting through group therapy, unraveling tangled lives, de-toxing, and doing Yoga.

One word which often comes up in groups is 'enviable'; as in "I don't know how I became an addict, I had such an 'enviable' life." This particular choice of words

belongs to the next level on Yoga's Five Mayas Model of the human being, the vijnana, or personality maya, the dimension of personal values.

(For detailed explanation of the Five Mayas, see previous articles in the series or download the PDF)

NOT MY BEAUTIFUL HOUSE

These well-heeled (not well healed) addicts were living 'enviable lives'. Unfortunately, these were not lives which they actually loved, but lives they felt they 'ought to' love. Conditions that 'should' make someone happy. Surely, they were good lives, but according to someone else's values.

In the field of addiction, 'characterological conflict', refers to the gap between an individual's core beliefs and their actual behavior. Twelve-step meetings are filled with people who drank or used because, in their own words, they were 'uncomfortable in their own skin', or 'disconnected from my friends, family, and careers'. Many felt like 'outsiders, living other people's lives'.

The need to create a life aligned with our core values is addressed both in the Yoga Sutras' description of meditation, the definition of Yoga itself.

MORE THAN A SIDE STRETCH

Sutra 1:2 defines Yoga as the ability to direct attention on a chosen object and sustain that without wavering. This single-minded focus quiets the mind and allows us to experience samadhi, or absorption, an emotionally rich connection between our innermost self and the chosen object of attention.

Clearly, this suggests something far beyond staring at a candle. For, whatever object we choose to focus on, grow closer to, and absorb, will, ultimately, define our values, shape our character and determine the quality of our lives. Someone who claims to value helping the poor should actually be giving sustained attention, on a daily basis, to see that those in need get help. This action will, in turn, influence the personality of the person giving the attention.

Claiming to value something but not giving it full attention, and, in fact, giving attention to another, or many other, things is the exact opposite of Yoga. According to the Sutras, this divided attention often reflects a superficial, unstable mind and cloudy or conflicting values. Sadly, this condition is increasingly common in a world offering more and more shiny objects, easy promises, and a particularly toxic cocktail of unlimited freedom and diminishing accountability.

WHAT MAKES ME

From the moment we are born, we are exposed to different, often opposing conditions. According to Yoga, our core consciousness, or Cit, always knows what's best for us. This unbiased observer manifests as the ability to make wise choices among various options. Using emotions as the gage, this innate intelligence guides us toward preferences which will lead to more joy and positive emotions, and steers us from choices which would result in suffering and negative emotions.

Exposed to both kindness and cruelty, we choose kindness, between honesty and dishonesty, we prefer honesty, between working a difficult job for little money or doing something we love which pays well, we will probably choose the latter. Eventually these interconnecting preferences coalesce, forming the vijnana maya, home to our personality and our values system.

CHOOSING DELIGHT

Once this system is established, whenever our choices and behaviors are aligned with our core values, we experience more joy, and when behaviors conflict with our values, or our values conflict with themselves (I want money, but I don't think I should. I love sex, but I think it's wrong) we experience suffering.

The Twelve-step Programs describe this discomfort as being, 'restless, irritable, and discontent'. Yoga uses the sanskrit word, 'duhkha' meaning 'feelings of constraint or limitation'. By any name, the state of conflicted values is a precondition for the development of full-blown addiction.

The greatest potential for addictive behavior exists whenever we are living a lie, conforming to another's expectations, or struggling with the maddening notion that it's not okay to want what we want (a notion instilled by hypocritical parents, religious figures, politicians and other liars).


MOMENTARY RELIEF

These deeply uncomfortable feelings demand the kind of release easily obtained (at least initially) by indulging in our addiction of choice. That the obsessive seeking of such relief eventually leads to desperate behaviors even more at odds with our core values, explains the cyclic, progressive nature of the disease of addiction.

Both the Yoga Sutras, and the Big book agree that samyama, or long-term sobriety (not mere abstinence, but actually thriving) is contingent on clarifying values (through meditation or the twelve steps), and living a life of integrity and rigorous honesty. For it is only when we are consistently able to choose, focus, and sustain our attention on those things which fill our lives with lasting joy that we can fully flourish, finally free of unhealthy patterns, habits and addiction. Now, that's enviable.

The addiction series resumes in two months. Next Month: Yoga, Visualization, and Meditating on the Life of your Dreams