The Tenures of Mindfulness Based Relapse Prevention

The Tenures of Mindfulness Based Relapse Prevention

During his “Mindfulness, Meditation, Drug, and Alcohol Use” lecture, Dr. Lyons of Loyola University Chicago offered many great insights into the world of addiction, and of the concept of mindfulness based relapse prevention. The key concept here is linking the link between stress and addiction, and how stress can raise the likelihood that matters such as alcohol, drug, gambling abuse, etc. come into play in an individual’s life. With regards to mindfulness based relapse prevention, a practice that finds its origins in the Buddhist teachings of Vipassana meditation, got showcased by Dr. Lyons as a tool of personality inventories that can be used to measure personality traits and dispositions over a given period of time.  Lyons was quick to cite much research that supported mindfulness based relapse prevention by showing how these techniques introduced to prisoners yielded significant results with regards to lowering depression and anxiety levels. Other studies referenced showed how this technique better managed individuals’ gambling habits, or diabetes treatment, or drinking issues.

Up to this point, you’re reading this and might still have the spiritual guidance of Vipassana in mind, and while that can be valid to ones’ beliefs, there is measured evidence in this as well. Such practices/meditations have been found by other research to be significant with regards to brain imagine. Significant amounts of activity or changes in the dynamics of activity were noticed in areas of the right hippo-campus, the insulae (specifically the right anterior insulae), and the frontal cortex. Such studies include one done by Zgierska and her colleagues at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, whom notices brain activity in these areas when composing, “Mindfulness Meditation for Substance Use Disorders: A Systematic Review”, that focused on multiple therapies and clinical studies in which mindfulness mediation was used in severe addiction cases with successful results. Another study by Dr. Bowen and her team focused on mindfulness based relapse prevention with regards to 168 adults that were drug abusers, that used this therapy over a four-month period and saw significant declines in drug usage among the adults, with noticed alternated activity in the brain regions mentioned prior. Another more interesting study by Dr. Brewer and his colleagues, compared the effectiveness of mindfulness based relapse prevention with cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and in laboratory comparisons, saw that that the mindfulness based relapse prevention was ominously more effective with a large group with stress-related indices. It’s clear with this evidence and the much more that exists in academia that mindfulness based relapse prevention is a highly effective method with aiding with addiction and stress-related issues of many kind; especially ones that are costing public health services millions each years and are yielding poor results. It’s time mindfulness based relapse prevention gets a second chance, not only as a Buddhist mindset, but also as an effective therapeutic method backed by empirical evidence.

Works Referenced:

1.       Brewer JA, Sinha R, Chen JA, Michalsen RN, Babuscio TA, Nich C, Grier A, Bergquist KL, Reis DL, Potenza MN, Carroll KM, Rounsaville BJ. Mindfulness training and stress reactivity in substance abuse: Results from a randomized, controlled stage 1 pilot study. Subst Abus. 2009;30(4):306–317.

2.      Zgierska, A., Rabago, D., Chawla, N., Kushner, K., Kohler, R., Marlatt, A. (2009). Mindfulness Meditation for Substance Use Disorders: A Systematic Review.Journal of Substance Abuse, 30, 266-294.

3.      Sarah Bowen, PhD; Katie Witkiewitz, PhD; Seema L. Clifasefi, PhD. Mindfulness Training and Stress Reactivity in Substance Abuse: Results from a Randomized, Controlled Stage 1 Pilot Study. JAMA Psychiatry. Published online March 19, 2014.