Healing Addictions and Cravings - August 2010 Purna Yoga Lifestyle

I used to be an addict. I used to be addicted to chocolate. At the time I didn't know I was addicted. I just liked chocolate. I could eat a 2 lb bar of Swiss chocolate in one sitting. I had skin problems as a teen as a result of this, but I didn't know; I ate chocolate and I enjoyed it. I had Belgium and Swiss chocolate with me and I would eat chocolate galore!

Today, when somebody presents me with chocolate I eat a piece but don't want more. Many years ago, my wife said to me, "Honey, you haven't eaten any chocolate for 6 months." I hadn't even realized that I had given it up - that's how easy it was. What changed? I had brought my body and my spirit into balance, with high quality nutrition (with Sunrider foods) and high quality meditation! My body and spirit felt so loved they no longer needed the chocolate. Here is an example of what I mean:

My wife and I are having our home built, and there are always workers around, plumbers, electricians and carpenters all over the house. There are two workers in particular who are really nice people, excellent at their craft, but absolutely addicted to smoking. And since we don't allow any smoking inside the house, they would go outside to smoke. Now, when you pay someone by the hour, this can get to be a little bit of a problem...

So my wife and I agreed to try an experiment. We decided to see what would happen if we did all we could to made them feel absolutely loved and needed. We would say to them when ever we saw them, "We love your work. We thank you for the fine work you are doing. Look how carefully you are doing this; we so appreciate the fine job you are doing." We did this every day, every time we met them. For six days a week they came to work on our home and hearing: "Thank you! Oh my goodness, look at the magnificent work you are doing." And it was amazing work, because they are truly excellent craftsmen - we simply told them the truth of what we saw and felt from them.

It has been about a year and a half since we have been conducting our experiment, and do you know, today, both of them have quit smoking!

One day, I asked one of the workers, "Why did you quit smoking?" He said that he just didn't feel that he needed it anymore. He had been smoking since he was twelve, and in a year and a half, he quit, without forcing himself to do so.

It is important to note that our intention wasn't to make them quit smoking. Our intention was to give them enough of a feeling of love so that they did not need to smoke something to feel loved. We did not set out to change their behavior - we set out to express our love and appreciation for all that they did for us, and then to see what they would do with that expression.

It worked for our workers; it can work for us too! If we give ourselves enough love - by connecting with our Heart Center, by loving our body and feeding it highly nutritious foods, by moving the body, by thinking kind thoughts, and by caring for others as an extension of ourselves - then we no longer seek out that which takes us out of balance. This all has to be done without force, for when there is force, there is no love.

For the body to feel loved, it has to have high quality nutrition. There are many tips out there for healing addictions through nutrition. Here are some of my favorites:

Absolute number one: NuPlus® and VitaTaste®. Both by Sunrider, these give the body phenomenal nutrition. There are so many examples of addicts being able to quit sugar-based addictions (alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, cocaine, etc) by eating lots of NuPlus and VitaTaste® (for someone Aadil's size, 10 VitaTaste® 3 times a day and a scoop of NuPlus® every 2 hours).
Next, the modern approach advises lots of B vitamins and large quantity of protein (like lentils, nuts or lamb)
Third, my brother Jehangir recommends eating one small cucumber and 4 organic black dates every time before you smoke, drink or eat sugar. The mineral content of those foods is so high, that within a matter of a few days the person doesn't want the cigarette or drink.

A body that is in balance craves that which keeps it in balance. However, a body that is out of balance craves that which takes it further from balance. Therefore, the point is not to deal with the craving, but to deal with the balance. The craving is a symptom not the problem. The addiction is not the problem. The problem is that the body is not in balance. It needs high quality nutrition to bring the physical body into balance and it needs a loving environment to bring it into a psychological balance. It needs contextual healing not symptomatic healing. You heal the context and you heal the person. If you heal just the symptoms, by suppressing it, you create another symptom somewhere else.