How “Xanax Breath” Cured My Alcoholism
If the plan you’re using to control your addictions was going to work, it already would have. Xanax breath might be a better choice.
If the plan you’re using to control your addictions was going to work, it already would have. Xanax breath might be a better choice.
Maybe you aren’t addicted to molly or smack or coke. Nothing hard, for you; you’re afraid of needles. Maybe you’re not even an alcoholic, like I recently admitted I must be. But unless you’re very unusual, you probably have some kind of hole that you’re used to unsuccessfully attempting to fill.
Do you try to stuff it with money? With television? With peanut m&ms? Do you jam a partner or a friend or a parent in there and hope that they can plug it? Do you shop, exercise, or work religiously and treat amazon packages, six pack abs or a promotion like answered prayers?
That metaphor is apropos: God is dead and our addictions boil down to poor substitutes for the transcendent experience spirituality promises.
I’m not going to pitch that you “find a higher power to give yourself over to,” though. The solve that works for me is simpler and more straightforward. It is a way to experience the emotional rush and subsequent calm that addictions yield—a connection to Something Big—but it’s practical, sustainable and healthy in exactly the way that addictions aren’t.
Duncan Trussell referred to this technique as “Xanax breath.”
The sensation of losing time doing this meditation is intoxicating. I am barely able to move, like I’m swaddled in a soothing weighted blanket. I feel relaxed, equanimous and peaceful and although the immediate high fades, the peace lasts at least a day.
I recently used it to endure my first sober Fourth of July in a decade. That’s really saying something since I spent that holiday with my in-laws.
Instructions
Download the “Insight Timer” app.
Navigate to the timer and configure a preset
The preset should have nine bells: the first five use the “wood block” sound, repeat every five seconds and are offset from the beginning by one, two, three, four and five seconds respectively (this creates a metronome). The other four are a 5 minute bell, a 10 minute bell, a 15 minute bell, and a 30 min bell (your choice on sound).
Start a session
Hold the fingers of your right hand in a “reverse shocker” with your ring finger and thumb extended, then breathe one nostril at a time, covering the other with your finger or thumb.
In left, cover right with thumb
Cover both
Out right, cover left with ring finger
In right, cover left
Cover both
Out left
In left, etc.
Now, do the following counts in your head, following along with your metronome:
4 in, 4 hold, 4 out until the first bell rings at the five minute mark.
6x6x6 until the next bell at ten minutes in.
8x8x8 until the fifteen-minute bell.
Finally, fold your hands on your lap and breathe at a pace of four seconds inhaling, four seconds holding your breath in, four seconds exhaling, and four seconds holding with empty lungs. Do this for the remaining 15 minutes with both nostrils
So worth!
If you can’t quite make it up to 8x8x8, it’s okay to start with 4x4x4 for all three of the single-nostril segments as you build up your lung capacity.
This is my gift to you.
Profoundly Sick Society
Metamodernism suggests the defining metaphors of our time are the network, the spectrum and addiction. If nothing else, technology is society’s all-consuming addiction.
Innovation doesn’t solve problems, it just externalizes them or pushes the consequences down the road. The hubris that we can control nature without unintended side effects is baseless.
Heroine addicts can fall into a devastating trap: the only solution to their problems must be more heroin. I can’t help being reminded of that when I hear about some new invention that promises to mitigate climate change. As Douglas Rushkoff frequently says, it’s like the mega-wealthy want to “build a car that can drive fast enough to escape their own exhaust.”
In the case of the heroin addict, this singular focus on only one solution remains all-consuming until they overdose. In technology’s case, we are almost at that point: we are creating pandemics, climate change, mass mental illness… the list goes on.
The heroin addict will either die—technology is angling to destroy the planet’s ability to harbor life—or have a moment of clarity and connect with a higher power. We still have time to regress technologically while reviving spirituality.
I realize this is an ironic conclusion, when I told you to download a meditation app in the instructions. Yes, a metronome will work just as well. You could even simply count to yourself in a quiet room.
But regardless of the technology that assists you, give the technique a shot. The more people who break out of an addictive mindset, the better our chances of curbing consumption and preserving the habitability of our planet.
At the very least, you can enjoy true equanimity while the world burns.