How can mindfulness mediate addiction?

Video Transcription 

Speaking from my own experience with mindfulness, it is really interesting, we've classified some of these addictions, and usually, we're focusing on the ones that are the most detrimental to our life, for example, drugs and alcohol, gambling, and such. When you begin to really examine your life, especially the inner workings of your thoughts and your emotions, and this is mindfulness.

I was quite shocked at how it seems very natural for the brain to create these reactive patterns internally, and they're mostly unconscious. Something may end up turning into alcoholism, but really you can just be slightly irritated somewhere, and the mind has a whole pattern of how to cope with that internally that you can be totally unaware of. And suddenly you're angry at your loved ones, or the world and you're not really understanding why, but as you watch it's just scientifically the way our bodies cope with stress. It creates these automated coping mechanisms that say “Oh that works, let's keep doing that, let's keep doing that.”

With mindfulness, you can begin watching. You have the tip of the iceberg you can begin to come way down to the sublevel and say “Oh that certain situation that I'm in I feel it creating a little stress down here” and then “Oh, now it's triggering that thought, and that thought is giving me the impulse for that behavior.” You can sit and watch the whole thing, and it creates this distance, this observational bubble that you can put around. It gives you another option, rather than becoming almost option-less, or becoming enslaved to the reaction of these internal reactionary patterns.