'Dharma
Punx' Author Noah Levine Talks Addiction And His 12-Step Alternative
By Dr.Fourkan Ali
Noah
Levine spoke with Dopey about his teenage drug use, recovery, and navigating
recovery as an "anti-authority, non-theistic person."Podcast
The most recent episode of the Dopey podcast features bestselling author and
Buddhist teacher Noah Levine (pronounced “La-vyne”), who started getting high
at age seven and regularly ingested hallucinogenics before puberty.
Best known for his bookDharma Punx, Levine was able to connect the angry energy of punk with the
positivity of Buddhism. His other books include Refuge Recovery: A
Buddhist Path to Recovering from Addiction and Against the Stream: A
Buddhist Manual for Spiritual Revolutionaries.
Levine shared his background with the podcast:
“I was born into this perfect set-up of extreme suffering and
neglect and trauma and addiction, but also to a family who were spiritually
minded and practicing meditation. So, I had the perfect suffering and then also
solution right there in my own family. I grew up around people meditating and
practicing what we call The Dharma—spiritual Eastern, Hindu, Buddhist
practices.”
He described himself as a full-blown drug addict by the time he
was a teenager. “I got my ass kicked really fast by smoking crack and shooting
heroin as a teenager, which got me done early, and then I turned to
meditation.”
He also talked about his bottom and spiritual awakening: “I was
in juvie for the 10th time and [my father] said over the telephone, when I was
in a padded cell after a suicide attempt, ‘Maybe you want to try some
mindfulness mediation.’ And I said, ‘How about a fucking lawyer? Not your
hippie bullshit Buddhist meditation.’”
When Levine realized that his father was tired of bailing him
out and that tough love was all he was being offered, Levine went back to his
cell to meditate. “I was desperate enough,” he said. “For the first time in my
life I realized I didn’t have to pay attention to my brain, which was trying to
fucking kill me.”
Levine admitted he’d blamed others for his problems but finally
realized that nobody was making him commit felonies, drink, and take drugs. He
said it occurred to him that “If I got myself into this, maybe I can get myself
out.”
Levine who has been sober since '88, also talked about Refuge Recovery, an AA alternative he created a decade ago. It’s a Buddhist
path of addiction recovery that uses a mindfulness-based approach. Levine says
it is about "creating a reliable internal wisdom and compassion
refuge" through personal efforts.
According to Levine, there are about 200 meetings across the
country where participants "meditate, tell some dopey war stories"
and "focus on the solution, through your own efforts, training your mind
and supporting each other, and making amends."
Dopey co-host Chris told The Fix, “We are strong supporters of anything that
is helpful, widely available, and free. Many people have issues with 12-step
philosophy, and Refuge Recovery meetings offer a similar model without the
Judeo-Christian feel that sometimes turns people off."
Sources - The Fix
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