To get out of alcoholism one needs strong will power and breathing techniques
Alcoholism is a disease and I was afflicted by it for several years. The affliction impacted me immensely. In those trying moments, my wife and parents stood by me apart from a couple of other good Samaritans. My wife enrolled me on the Part 1 Course of the Art of Living while I was posted in Jaipur. Winter had arrived and the weather was chilly.
Yet my wife faithfully dropped me to the centre and picked me up from there for the seven days when I had undertaken the course. Addicts need to detoxify their minds and bodies to rediscover their mojo. It is paramount that they discard emotions of futility, guilt, and self-rejection. Such craftsmanship and techniques are encompassed in the Pragna programme of the Art of Living and are providing succour to addicts.
How does one conduct the course for hardened alcoholics and drug addicts, who are perpetually in a state of self-denial? They look at the teacher in the most disgusted manner possible, with disbelief writ large on their faces. The breathing technique begins to slowly unfold, which has a positive impact on the mind. Slowly an addict can upend the pyramid.
One recalls the gloomy but riveting movie, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest; how the inmates lodged in a mental asylum had reached a state where they were determined to break the bondage and run away. Similarly, an addict becomes determined to break the four walls of the rehab centre. After the initial treatment at the rehabilitation centre and subsequent exposure to the unique rhythmic breathing technique of Sudarshan Kriya, they began to believe in the efficacy of living in the present moment.
The concepts of the Power of Now or the Present Moment have been postulated by several masters of the past, in the Oriental and Occidental world. In India, Maharishi Patanjali, Gautama Buddha and the Advaita saint Adi Shankara have written and spoken about it extensively. In present times the rhythmic breathing technique of Sudarshan Kriya transmogrifier the human mind to the present. Every day is a new day, a harbinger of hope and the addicts realise their self-worth and begin giving themselves positive strokes.
Authors like Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra and Louise Hay have emphasised reengineering the human mind to remain in the present moment to combat various challenging situations in life. In Gorakhpur, there is a rehab centre run by a doughty lady whose husband was an alcoholic.
As a goodwill gesture, the couple inaugurated the centre and have made it their mission to provide shelter and comfort to those suffering from alcoholism.
The inmates of the centre could remain for half an hour without alcohol, could you? This is the question that resonates in my mind, the question I pose to any addict. The answer is simple; it is possible only through surrender to the supreme intelligence of the Universe.
(The writer is the CEO of Chhattisgarh East Railway Ltd. and Chhattisgarh East West Railway Ltd. and is faculty at Art of Living; views are personal)