De-Addiction: Returning to Balance
When we hear “addiction,” most of us picture substances — alcohol, nicotine, drugs. But addiction is really any pattern we’ve become dependent on to feel okay, even when that pattern pulls us further from balance. A habit doesn’t need a needle or a bottle to be an addiction — it just needs to be something we reach for automatically, something the body and mind have learned to crave regardless of whether it serves us.
This talk explores addiction through that wider lens: as any habituated response that creates vikriti (imbalance) in the body and mind. We’ll look at how our daily routines — our dinacharya — either reinforce that imbalance or gently correct it. Small, repeated choices compound over time into either dis-ease or swastha, true health.
Rather than treating de-addiction as a battle of willpower against a single bad habit, we’ll talk about it as a practice of awareness — noticing the patterns we’ve stopped questioning, and rebuilding a rhythm of living that naturally supports balance instead of working against it.
Key themes:
• Redefining addiction beyond substances — any habituated imbalance counts
• The role of dinacharya (daily routine) in shaping long-term health
• Swastha vs. vikriti: understanding balance and imbalance as living states, not fixed conditions
• Practical ways to bring awareness into daily choices as the real foundation of de-addiction
Come join us on Saturday, September 5th at 2:30pm at the BIPOC Yoga Conference for a deep dive into this topic.
