Dr. Cathryn Jacob previously wrote about a new approach to addiction recovery using the key concepts of secular Buddhism in an article on this website. In this article she further develops this approach, with explicit reference to Stephen Batchelor's cartography of care, which is composed of 32 virtues and skills for human flourishing. Dr. Jacob has been partnering with Vince Cullen, a dharma teacher who has focused on Buddhist recovery programs, to develop ELSA Recovery.
For further information on ELSA Recovery, please visit elsarecovery.org or email ask@elsarecovery.org
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About ELSA Recovery
ELSA Recovery is a community in which we explore the principles of Stephen Batchelor’s ELSA module, as a framework through which we can recognise and develop skills and attitudes that can help us to recover from addiction. Known for his secular and agnostic approach to Buddhism, Batchelor reinterprets the ancestral teachings in a way that makes them accessible and relevant to contemporary life.
Within a year-long programme, we aim to explore and cultivate the 32 skills and attitudes of ELSA, alongside other secular interpretations of traditional Buddhist teachings, to assist us in our addiction recovery and personal growth.
Central to the program of recovery are the ‘Brahma Viharas’, the four mental states or attitudes in Buddhism that are considered to be the Buddha's primary teachings:
- Friendliness —unbounded friendliness to ourselves and to others.
- Compassion — for the human experience for ourselves and for others.
- Joy — self joy and enjoyment of others' success and happiness.
- Equanimity — being in balance with life as it really is.
This format is particularly suitable for people who are looking for a non - theistic spiritual framework that emphasises practical skills, alongside ethical and mindful living, as tools for overcoming addiction. By focusing on developing understanding, skills and care, participants work towards developing a deep understanding of their habitual thought patterns, emotions, addictive behaviours, reactivity, craving and compulsions — with a view to a healthy and sustainable recovery.
Overall, ELSA Recovery offers a holistic, structured path in which ancient wisdom is integrated into a modern, secular format, helping people not only to recover from addiction but also to live meaningfully and contribute positively to their communities. Using this approach, participants are empowered to free themselves from the grips of addiction and cultivate a life filled with purpose and care for themselves and others.
What is ELSA?
This approach is adapted from Stephen Batchelor’s four tasks model of ELSA. In ELSA Recovery, we find it helpful to think of these four tasks as four goals.
Goal 1 — Embrace life
Goal 2 — Let craving and reactivity be and go.
Goal 3 — See and savour the stopping of craving and reactivity
Goal 4 — Actualise the path of freedom
Each element represents a step in a process that can be tailored to address the challenges faced by each individual in recovery. It offers a contemplative, practical, ethical, and secular approach to overcoming addiction.
In an adaptation to Stephen’s teachings, we look at each task as a wise response to the Buddhist ‘true realities of life’, that:
- Everything naturally changes
- Life is naturally painful and
- It’s not personal
The ELSA framework applied in the context of addiction recovery
Embrace life — Including embracing our cravings and compulsions, our pain and our natural habitual reactivity to it
The first goal, we fully investigate and acknowledge our current reality, which includes our addiction and its impacts. We come to see clearly that life is painful, difficult and disappointing and that this is not personal to us.
In a very real sense, this is surrendering to reality rather than conflicting with it. This does not mean approval or resignation, but it is recognising and accepting all our emotions, thoughts, and physical sensations without denial.
As an adaptation from the ELSA model, in the first goal, we start to develop the first ‘Foundation of Mindfulness’—Mindfulness of Body or Existential Mindfulness. This helps us see our cravings clearly and notice that they are dependent on causes and conditions and are a natural part of being human.
To embrace life as it is, we also need to cultivate motivation and resolve. The Buddha summarised this as the four resolves:
- For craving and reactivity not to arise
- For letting craving and reactivity be and go
- For skills and attitudes to arise
- For sustaining and increasing skills and attitudes
But resolve by itself is not really enough, we can be mindful of our cravings and reactivity, and we can resolve to create conditions to reduce these, but we require something else to drive changes in the way we react, and here we can employ the Buddha’s four bases of creativity:
- Desire
- Courage
- Soul
- Experimentation.
Understanding and acceptance helps us build a foundation for genuine change and recovery as they allow us to face our challenges with openness and honesty. When we embrace the pain, reactivity, cravings and compulsions, we come to realise that we actually suffer less.
In the first goal, we cultivate metta — unbounded friendliness not only for ourselves and for those around us, but also towards the difficulties, disappointments, and natural pain of life. Many of us in active addiction have deep shame and self-loathing. We learn to replace this self-loathing with self-love, and we befriend ourselves.
Let cravings and reactivity be /go— letting our pain, cravings and compulsions go
When we let go, and let be, we free ourselves from the habitual reactions that perpetuate our pain, cravings, compulsions and cycles of addiction.
As an adaptation from Stephen Batchelor’s ELSA model, it’s in this second goal that we develop the second of the ‘Four Foundations of Mindfulness’ - Mindfulness of Feeling Tones. We learn to notice whether we perceive things to be pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Understanding feeling tones, helps us to see that our reactivity, cravings and compulsions are natural human reactions to the situation we are experiencing at that moment. By developing our mindfulness, we can actively engage with and respond to these feeling tones to change our perspective of our present-moment experience.
Learning to be mindful of our reactivity, craving and compulsions as they arise, is supported by developing the five powers or strengths of Buddhism:
- Confidence
- Courage
- Therapeutic mindfulness
- Collectedness
- Discernment.
These five powers, also known as the five strengths, enable us to no longer feed and perpetuate unhelpful patterns. Letting go of our cravings, compulsions and addictive behaviours.
This includes letting go of negative behaviours, toxic relationships, and self-destructive mindsets. It emphasises the importance of discontinuing the patterns that feed our addictions and reactivity, whether they are mental, emotional, or physical actions.
In the second goal, we cultivate compassion. Many in active addiction have little self-care and self-compassion. During the second goal, we develop the skills and attitudes to actively support and take care of ourselves.
See cravings/reactivity stop — savour the stopping
This step involves recognising those brief moments when our pain, cravings and compulsions cease. Moments within which we can find a deep inner peace which naturally gives rise to contentment, happiness and even joy.
This gives us insight into what true freedom from addiction and reactivity actually feels like. Observing these moments of cessation helps reinforce the possibility of recovery, highlighting the peace and clarity that come from not engaging in our addictive and compulsive behaviours.
As we become aware and familiarise ourselves with these moments of freedom from ill will, cravings and confusion, we might linger and savour over these experiences of nirvana, however brief they might initially be. We can personally experience and personally verify that such moments are possible, generating confidence that these practices have life-changing benefits.
These experiences, once noticed, enable us to choose how to respond to life within a caring, contemplative and ethical framework — rather than to blindly reacting within our old habitual patterns.
As an adaptation from Stephen Batchelor’s ELSA model, it’s in this third goal that we develop the third of the ‘Four Foundations of Mindfulness’ — Mindfulness of Mind.
Becoming aware of the presence or absence of thought patterns and mental states, enables us to notice the moments when these thoughts and mental states lessen or even stop. We can learn to ‘savour the stopping’ and in time, to dwell for longer and longer periods of time in this still, quiet, calm, non-reactive space.
This third goal is supported by cultivating the seven steps of being awake:
- Contemplative Mindfulness
- Wonder
- Courage
- Joy
- Stillness
- Collectedness
- Equanimity
The third goal naturally gives rise to Joy, but we also deliberately cultivate this liberating attitude in all aspects of our life.
In the third goal, we cultivate the ‘Brahma Vihara’ of joy. Many of us in active addiction suffer from low mood, depression and even suicidal tendencies. We actively encourage anyone who feels this way, to see urgent medical help.
But when we cultivate the third goal, we begin to see beyond our previous, often unhelpful perspectives — to appreciate the awe and wonder of being here at all. This naturally increases our sense of well-being and elevates our mood.
Actualise a path — the path of freedom, a middle way
The final goal, we actively engage with and follow a new path that supports our sustained recovery, as we wake up to the ‘true realities’ of life as it really is. Here we draw on Batchelor’s re-interpretation of the eightfold path as a middle way between austerity and indulgence. In ELSA recovery we explore the path as a middle way between self-harm and addiction, which includes a middle way between the lack of self-care and often self-destruction we experienced in active addiction and self-centred, self-indulgence.
The Buddha called this path the eightfold path. In ELSA, this contemplative, wise and ethical path is utilised as an ongoing program of recovery.
As we step along this eightfold path, we develop new, healthy habits and relationships, and engage in supportive activities with supportive communities. We continually apply the insights we gain through the recovery process, and take steps to build a life that aligns with our values and aspirations, free from ill will, cravings and confusion.
An interpretation of the eightfold path in the context of recovery from addictions focuses on applying Buddhist principles in a simple, accessible, and secular way. This adaptation emphasises personal and ethical development through mindfulness, mental discipline, clear seeing, creativity, practical application, diligent effort, honest communication, and making life-supporting choices.
As an adaptation from Stephen Batchelor’s ELSA model, it’s in this fourth goal that we develop the fourth of the ‘Four Foundations of Mindfulness’ — Mindfulness of Ideas. This involves remembering to remember many Buddhist ideas and concepts that can be helpful to enable us to lead an integrated, ethical life, free from our addictions, while also reducing our potential for relapse.
To achieve the fourth goal, we explore and practice Stephen Batchelor’s, ELSA interpretation of the eightfold path, alongside more traditional interpretations, focusing on the aspects that enable us to flourish and help others to do the same.
The eightfold path involves the cultivation of:
- Ethical Mindfulness
- Collectedness
- Perspective
- Imagination
- Application
- Survival
- Work
- Voice
In the fourth goal the ‘Brahma Vihara’ of equanimity is cultivated. Many of us in active addiction, live our lives in chaos and confusion, helplessly pulled by our cravings and compulsions, while numbing our pain with addictive substances and behaviours.
Although we may still occasionally find ourselves pushed and pulled by our cravings, longings, pain and disappointments —we notice that this happens much less often and we more quickly return to a more stable and less disturbed mental state. We develop and maintain a skill and an attitude of self-balance, as we understand and accept the ‘true realities’ of human existence.
In Practice
Please bear with us, as ELSA Recovery and the workbook is currently a work in progress and continues to evolve and adapt as we go along.
We hold weekly Zoom meetings for people who are suffering from or in recovery from addiction, and who are interested in exploring addiction recovery through a secular dharma lens. We encourage participants to attend alongside their usual recovery meetings and attendance at the meetings is entirely free.
Each session starts with a 10 minute serenity of breathing meditation followed by a 5 minute reflection on a phrase or topic, chosen by that week's host, related to the week of the workbook we are presently studying. After reflection, members of the group are encouraged to share on the topic as it pertains to their experience, through the lens of addiction recovery. Sharing is not compulsory, and members’ shares are treated with confidentiality and supportive care.
At the end of sharing, the meeting closes with a 5-minute Heart Practice meditation, related to the ‘Brama Vihara’ linked to the goal we have been discussing.
While this is a community of equals who help and support each other, wise friends with solid sobriety are available to help those who are struggling. A system of safeguarding and a code of conduct is in place.
For further information, please visit elsarecovery.org or email ask@elsarecovery.org
Please note that ideas and concepts may evolve over time as the project develops.
