My Story: Where It All Began
I didn’t walk into physiotherapy expecting a lesson on addiction.
I went because my gait was off, something subtle, something I couldn’t see. My legs had been carrying a deep, silent tension for years. I didn’t feel it until the physiotherapist’s trained hands pressed into the knots, working slowly and deliberately. The moment she touched the first one, my body flinched. My instinct was to resist, to escape.
The pain was sharp and overwhelming, my breath catching in my throat. My body wanted to flee.
But something inside me knew to stay.
I let my breath come in gently through my nose and leave twice as slowly, like a soft wave pulling away from the shore. I began to find a rhythm with her movements. The pain didn’t disappear, but it shifted — from chaos to something patterned, structured, even meaningful.
That moment became a doorway.
I realised this is precisely what happens with addiction: tension we don’t know is there, pain we spend our lives avoiding, until something — or someone — touches it directly.
Addiction as Hidden Tension
Addiction is often described as a brain disease or a moral weakness. But as Ram Dass once said, addiction is really the misplaced search for peace and love in something that can never give it. It’s not about the substance or the behaviour — it’s about the separation from the deeper Self.
Gabor Maté puts it bluntly: “Don’t ask why the addiction, ask why the pain.” In his view, addiction is not the pursuit of pleasure, but the adaptation to unresolved emotional wounds. It’s a way of walking around an injury without touching it — like my altered gait around the tension in my legs.
Initially, these patterns seem protective. They shield us from sensations, memories, and emotions we believe we can’t survive. But over time, they constrict our lives, just as chronic muscle tightness distorts our posture. We start living in a workaround — never quite free, never quite at ease.
The Recovery Breathing Method
The method I now teach emerged from that physiotherapy table. It’s a simple, structured way to use the breath as a companion in meeting pain, physical, emotional, or the craving of addiction, without fleeing or fighting it.
Step 1: The 1:2 Breath Ratio
- Inhale gently through the nose for a chosen count (e.g., 3–5 seconds)
- Exhale slowly for twice as long (e.g., 6–10 seconds)
- Continue for 1–3 minutes, without strain or forced breath-holding
This ratio activates the parasympathetic nervous system (Porges, 2011), shifting the body from a fight-or-flight state into a rest-and-digest mode. In this state, we can approach discomfort with less reactivity and more presence.
Step 2: Discovering the Pauses
When the 1:2 rhythm feels natural, the next step is to notice the stillness at the end of each inhale and exhale. This is not a deliberate hold (kumbhaka in yoga), but rather an awareness of the silent gap that naturally appears. Over time, these pauses reveal a deeper presence — the space in which both pain and craving arise and dissolve.
Facing Pain Without Violence
Ram Dass spoke of “being with what is” without judgment. In somatic therapy, this looks like meeting tension with steady, non-invasive contact. Gabor Maté echoes this: healing comes not from suppressing pain, but from facing it with compassion.
In physiotherapy, that meant enough pressure to engage the knot without causing damage. In recovery, it means staying with the discomfort — through breath — until the nervous system learns it is safe to release.
The Observer Within
As this practice deepens, a shift happens: you realise you are not the pain, nor the craving — you are the one who observes them.
This insight, rooted in mindfulness traditions, loosens the grip of addiction. The breath becomes your tether to the observer state, preventing you from being swept entirely into sensation or thought.
The Science of Stored Pain
Modern research supports what this experience revealed:
- Trauma storage – Unresolved experiences are encoded in muscle tension and posture (van der Kolk, 2014)
- Polyvagal theory – Extended exhalation increases vagal tone, improving emotional regulation and resilience (Porges, 2011)
- Somatic experiencing- Staying with sensation allows incomplete stress cycles to finish, leading to release (Levine, 1997)
A Roadmap to Healing
- Awareness- Recognising the knot (tension, craving, avoidance)
- Confrontation- Touching it without fleeing
- Breath- Creating safety, rhythm, and space
- Release- Allowing tension to unwind naturally
- Embodiment- Living with restored fluidity, presence, and choice
Closing
As Ram Dass said, “We are all just walking each other home.” Sometimes, that walk begins in stillness — with a long, gentle exhale.
Pain is not the enemy; unconscious pain is. Addiction, like chronic muscular tension, thrives in the shadows of avoidance. The Recovery Breathing Method provides a safe way to manage pain, transforming chaos into rhythm and fear into presence.
References
Levine, P. A. (1997). Waking the tiger: Healing trauma. North Atlantic Books
Maté, G. (2008). In the realm of hungry ghosts: Close encounters with addiction. Knopf Canada
Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W.W. Norton & Company
van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking
