Natural Rest for Addiction A Radical Approach to Recovery

Through Mindfulness and Awareness

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 Contents
Foreword
—Jeff Foster
Preface: My Story
INTRODUCTION: FREEDOM FROM ADDICTION
Natural Rest: Don’t Think, Just Do
Presence: An End to Endless Seeking
How to Use This Book
Presence as a Way to Recover
Not a Substitute for Rehab
CHAPTER 1: NATURAL REST
Brief Moments of Rest
Noticing Words and Pictures
Bringing Attention to Bodily Energies
There’s Nothing to Chase
This Isn’t About the Future
Natural Rest Is Our Home
The Pond Metaphor
Key Points
CHAPTER 2: CRAVINGS
When a Craving Arises First as Bodily Energy
When a Craving Arises First as Words or Pictures
Don’t Wait for Cravings to Appear
Key Points
CHAPTER 3: OBSESSION
Persistent, Intense, and Unconscious
Energy in the Body
Continuous, Involuntary Preoccupation with Thought
Freedom from Obsession
Stop, Notice, and Repeat
”Stop, Notice, and Repeat” in Practice
Key Points
CHAPTER 4: SELF-CENTEREDNESS
The Endless Cycle of Seeking
 What Are You Seeking?
The Self-Center
The Problem with Temporary Fixes
Key Points
CHAPTER 5: RELATIONSHIP
Human Relationships
Bringing Natural Rest into Relationships
Resistance and Conflict
The Need to Be Right
Taking the Perspectives of Others
Key Points
CHAPTER 6: THE LIVING INQUIRIES
The Compulsion Inquiry
How the Compulsion Inquiry Works
An Example of the Compulsion Inquiry
Notes About the Compulsion Inquiry
The Unfindable Inquiry
How the Unfindable Inquiry Works
An Example of the Unfindable Inquiry
A Few Helpful Tips
Undo the Velcro Effect
Keep It Simple: Three Elements, One Question
Using the Unfindable Inquiry on Addictive Substances and Activities
The Boomerang
Relationship as Mirror
How the Boomerang Works
An Example of the Boomerang in Conjunction with the UI
The Anxiety Inquiry
Explanation of the Anxiety Inquiry
An Example of the Anxiety Inquiry
Weaving the CI and the AI Together
A Note About Trauma
Key Points
CHAPTER 7: DISSOLVING BODY CONTRACTIONS
Connecting Addictions to Certain Body Contractions
Holding Back the Dam
Mapping Out the Tools
Beginning Bodywork
The Exercises
 Metaphysical Hands
Making It Stay
Find the Pinpoint Within
Mining
The NOW Method
Key Points
CHAPTER 8: MISCONCEPTIONS AND TRAPS
Lack of Readiness
Measuring Progress
Mistaking Presence for Amnesia
Mistaking Presence for Escape
Substitution
Confusing Pleasure with Addiction and Compulsion
Turning Natural Rest into Busywork
Viewing Compatible Practices as Incompatible
Story Mind vs. Functional Mind
Unique Struggles
Misconceptions About Deep Rest
Mistaking Presence for Stagnancy
Making Presence into a Thing
Key Points
CHAPTER 9: FREEDOM
Acknowledgments
Resources
Scott Kiloby’s Websites
Appendix
Natural Rest Groups
Forming or Finding a Natural Rest Group
Servants
Anonymity and Confidentiality
 Foreword
What is spiritual awakening? And how is it relevant to recovery from
addiction?
There are so many books on the subjects of self-improvement, self-help,
spiritual awakening, and addiction recovery available these days. So many
methods, practices, programs, teachers, and teachings that often seem so
very different, even contradictory. So many people promising us so much,
and it can all be so confusing for people who are genuinely open to
discovering true peace and rest in their lives.
There are so many questions...
Which method works best?
Can I just stop using my drug of choice without support from others or
the help of a method?
How do I know when I’m recovering from addiction?
Is recovery just about being abstinent? Or is it something more than
that?
Is spiritual awakening what I need to overcome addiction?
Is spiritual awakening an “event” that happens to some people and not
to others?
Is awakening something that can be reached through methods at all?
It can get so exhausting, trying to figure all of this out with the poor
little mind! But Natural Rest for Addiction clears away this confusion. If
you are looking for a way to overcome addiction that is simple, accessible,
and practical, yet deeply penetrating, then this book stands out from the
crowd.
I have known Scott for many years now. He is a teacher who does not
simply regurgitate concepts that he has learned from others. His words have
been uniquely forged in the fire of his own pain. He speaks with
authenticity and integrity from his own deepest experience, and teaches not
by trying to be a teacher, but by being a living example of what he teaches.
He is a rare breed—a teacher who actually lives and breathes his own
message.
Scott speaks of recovery from addiction through spiritual awakening.
But he expresses his message in such a practical, down-to-earth way that at
first you may not even realize you’re reading a book about spiritual
awakening! His words carry deep wisdom, but he avoids all those heavy,
esoteric concepts found in the ancient scriptures and traditions. He also
doesn’t overload you with mountains of intellectual knowledge about the
science of addiction, but gently takes you by the proverbial hand and shows
you a way out of the insanity of the mind, and its endless seeking for
something more in the future. Through clear explanations and piercing
inquiries, he shows you that the present moment is always, always the key
to recovery. And he shows you how safe it is to dive headfirst into the
moment, and to stay there. His method is a truly living meditation that you
can take with you into every moment of your life.
Scott points you to the discovery of who you really are, beyond who
you think you are—a vast, quiet, non-dual ocean of present-moment
awareness that deeply and unconditionally welcomes all thoughts,
sensations, and emotions, all energies of life, as they arise and dissolve in
you. When you cease identifying as a limited, deficient, and separate “self”
looking for freedom and peace in a future moment, you recognize the
freedom that exists here and now—the very last place you’d ever think to
look!
Make no mistake, this book will challenge your assumptions about
addiction and recovery. And it will also challenge many of your deeply held
beliefs about yourself and the world around you. Be prepared to let go of
some of your cherished concepts about life!
Despite what common sense and conventional wisdom tell us, it is
actually incredibly healing to stop running away from present-moment pain
and discomfort, and to just sit with those energies as they come up in you,
to welcome them as friends that are trying to help you or even awaken you,
rather than as enemies that are trying to destroy you. However strange it
may sound, much of our suffering comes not directly from our pain and
discomfort, but from our attempts to escape that pain and discomfort in the
moment.
 Most of us attempt to distract ourselves from pain, or numb ourselves to
it, or avoid, transcend, or even destroy it. We do this through thinking;
through ingesting drugs, alcohol, or other chemicals; through shopping,
working, gambling, or sex; through seeking external validation or love;
through seeking money, success, self-improvement, or enlightenment; or
even through seeking future recovery. As this cycle of seeking pleasure and
avoiding pain takes over, it begins to run our lives. We end up swinging
wildly between these polarities, caught in a continuous search for
something more, never finding an end to this cycle, often feeling far away
from true peace and contentment and love.
Scott painstakingly points out the futility of always seeking to escape
what is. Drawing from his own experience with addiction and years of
working with others, he points to resting in presence, allowing ourselves to
feel whatever we feel, even if what we feel is deeply uncomfortable,
intense, or even painful. He shows us how to allow all thoughts, all feelings,
all bodily energies—positive and negative, light and dark—to just be there,
as they are, and to relax into the wide-open space that holds them. He points
repetitively to this “resting” throughout the book, with good reason. We
don’t always hear or understand this approach the first time round, or even
the second or third time. It sometimes takes a degree of repetition for us to
see in our own experience the sheer futility of escaping, and how the
escaping is the problem, not the solution. To the mind, Scott’s approach
may seem upside-down or backward, even a little bit crazy. But then, as
Scott reminds us, you are not the mind at all.
Some religions and spiritual ideologies promise a future time, perhaps
after death, where all discomfort will be swept away. Our parents, out of
love, tried to protect us from feeling discomfort in the first place. The
entertainment industry turns our attention away from discomfort every day.
The advertising industry feeds on our discomfort and dissatisfaction with
the way things are. Some self-improvement methods just give us new ways
to escape dissatisfaction, thereby making an enemy out of it. Some
teachings or methods even tell us that there is something wrong with us if
we experience “negative” energies at all!
From all sides we receive the basic message that there is something
wrong with us, that we are not okay as we are unless we are feeling 100-
percent perfect and comfortable and secure and happy all the time. We are
led to believe that we are deficient or broken in some basic way, that we are
fallen sinners, that we are psychologically unsound, that we are even
beyond repair. We are conditioned to believe we are addicts and always will
be. From all sides we get the same message: you are not good enough. And
so addictive seeking becomes the constant companion of our lives.
Nobody has ever shown us how to be with discomfort, how to welcome
it in, how to say yes to the uncomfortable energies of life, how to stop
identifying with them, so they release naturally and effortlessly. But Scott
shows us how. He constantly reminds us that there is nothing wrong with
us, and never was. He shows us that, at the most fundamental level, we are
deeply okay as we are. At the very core of our being, there is a wholeness
that cannot be put into words, an inner silence, a deep stillness that just got
a little bit neglected over the years and needs some new friendship. Through
his teachings, we come to recognize ourselves as the perfect calm in the
midst of the storm of life, the natural rest that never, ever leaves, even when
things on the surface do not seem so restful.
I am amazed at Scott’s ability to bring the ancient teachings of spiritual
awakening down from the mountaintops, onto the streets, into the room that
you are in, into your heart and into the deepest, darkest recesses of your
intimate personal experience. He fearlessly shines light into addiction’s
darkest hiding places, and guides you toward an ever-present freedom the
likes of which you never imagined possible.
Above all else, this teaching frees you from something that is at the core
of all addictions—your addiction to self.
This is a truly wonderful book, and it’s likely to reach people who have
never before been reached by this kind of work. May you discover the rest
that you have always longed for—the rest that you already are. I leave you
in Scott’s capable, trustworthy, and experienced hands.

—Jeff Foster
Author of The Deepest Acceptance

http://www.lifewithoutacentre.com
 Preface: My Story
For over twenty years, I lived in addiction.
My addiction progressed from smoking marijuana as a teenager to
drinking lots of alcohol and using many drugs, including
methamphetamine, opiates, cocaine, and LSD later in life.
Near the end of this dark cycle of using, I was swallowing handfuls of
prescription painkillers several times a day. My health was failing. My skin
was yellow. The guilt and shame were overwhelming. I hid my addiction
from everyone, ashamed of what my life had become.
Through the help of wonderfully supportive friends and family
members, I was finally able to quit using drugs and alcohol. Yet, the
addictive cycle continued in other ways. I found myself caught in
subsequent addictive patterns related to money, food, caffeine, tobacco,
relationships, sex, attention or acknowledgment, and seeking self-
improvement and enlightenment. I realized, as so many do, that drugs and
alcohol were not the problem—“I” was the problem. There was something
about me that made life on earth synonymous with the need to escape and
avoid.
I searched through many self-help, positive thinking, religious, and
spiritual programs. I read tons of books, watched many videos, and
followed the works of a long list of teachers. I was hunting for healing but
nothing seemed to provide permanent release. I’d make a little progress
here and there, in terms of reducing the addictive seeking, but even my
desire to end my addiction became an addiction. Through the help of some
wise teachers and an intention to look more deeply into my experience, I
finally found the key…
Freedom from addiction is already contained in the one place an addict
refuses to look—the present moment.
This changed everything!
How did I find that freedom? Well…the short story is this: After reading
some books on mindfulness, I began to witness my thoughts rather than
indulging them, feel my emotions and sensations without any labels or
stories on them, and rest in the present moment as often as possible. This
resulted in a gradual but major shift in perception, such that the present
moment became the foundation of my life.
A few years before this book was born, I developed the Living Inquiries
—you can read about them later in this book. The Inquiries helped me
tremendously in finally putting to rest the more deeply held self-esteem
issues such as the sense of being unlovable and not good enough. The
Inquiries also helped resolve trauma I had experienced in childhood, and
carried into adulthood, as a result of being bullied repeatedly by classmates.
I eventually founded a mindfulness training program called the Living
Inquiries Community that trains people all over the world in how to use
natural rest and the Living Inquiries on all sorts of issues, including
addiction, depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and
trauma. The training program is for those who wish to help others—and
themselves also—to go deeper into this work.
Eventually, I began to develop the deeper bodywork that you will
encounter in chapter 7. This was the most profound stage of my journey, as
deeply held energetic blockages and repressed emotions began to dissolve
away, leaving my body feeling very light and transparent. When these
blockages dissolved, the last remaining addictions fell away.
During the process of learning, developing, and practicing the tools in
this book, I had many subtle and powerful transformational or spiritual
experiences, including a profound sense of the oneness of all of life. There
were also times when I encountered deep emotional pain, and periods of
time where I felt blocked. But all experiences come and go—good and bad.
What has remained, and endured, is a deep and abiding peace and
acceptance of life as it is. This has provided an amazing capacity to be and
love myself, no matter how I show up in any given moment.
For many years, I kept quiet about this treasure, unable to fully
articulate it in book form. Because natural rest has to be experienced rather
than only understood by the mind, it took me a while to find the right words
to share it with others. Finally, one day a few years ago, these words came.
Actually, they gushed out of me like a heavy downpour of rain in early
spring. The result is this book. This book is not a thesis on the science of
addiction. It is not the story of my addicted life. It is an instructional book.
I’ve mapped out these tools in great detail to help you with addiction.
Once the book was written, I opened the Kiloby Center for Recovery in
Rancho Mirage, California, and the Natural Rest House detox and
residential center in Palm Springs, California, with the help of many
gracious people. I also became a California Certified Addiction Specialist.
The Kiloby Center for Recovery has become a unique laboratory in which I,
along with a team of great counselors and facilitators, have taken the tools
in this book and expanded them into a very successful addiction treatment
program. I am in the process of helping to bring these tools into other
programs and facilities across the United States.
Please accept this gift! I invite you to take this book and the tools within
it as deeply as you can into your life and watch the transformation happen.
You will likely struggle along the way. I did. The struggle is part of the
process. But if you stick with it, I believe you will find the treasure I have
found and realize that this treasure is contained right here, right now in the
present moment—the one place the addicted mind refuses to look.
 Introduction

Freedom from Addiction

Are you constantly looking for the next fix, the next high? Are you always
looking for something else, something more?
Does life feel as though it’s missing something?
Does it feel like you can’t find the complete satisfaction you’re seeking,
no matter how much you look for it?

…No matter how many drugs you take or drinks you drink?

…No matter how much stuff you buy?

…No matter how much you work?

…No matter how many experiences you have?

…No matter how much love or sex you get?

…No matter how much you gamble or eat?

If you answered yes to any of these, you may be suffering from

addiction.
Addiction is the gaping hole in our lives that can never be filled.
Whether it’s a full-blown heroin addiction or an inability to stop
scarfing down cookies, addiction has a way of controlling our lives. It sets
us on a course of constant, uncontrollable seeking toward the next moment.
When addiction is present in our lives, we crave the next moment, and
the next, because we seek to avoid any unpleasant, painful feelings and
thoughts appearing now. These thoughts and feelings are remnants of the
past. We unconsciously carry them with us and erroneously believe that the
future will somehow set us free. We keep searching for a release from our
past emotional and psychological pain as well as any feelings of lack,
restlessness, or boredom. In our addiction, there’s no such thing as
“enough.” We just keep seeking, and seeking, and seeking. Yet, never
finding…
No matter how much we keep seeking a future free of pain and lack, we
never find the end of the seeking thread. In our addiction, we may find
moments of release or brief periods of satisfaction because we’ve
temporarily quenched our urges, but we never find an ongoing, permanent
release from the cycle of avoiding and seeking.
These brief moments inevitably fade because all experiences are
temporary.
In not finding the lasting freedom we crave, we suffer further, which
only causes us to seek into the future more and more. It’s a never-ending
cycle.
But there is a way you can find unlimited freedom from addiction.
It is called natural rest, and you will encounter it in this book.
 Natural Rest: Don’t Think, Just Do
When we are addicted, we’re constantly thinking that the future will give us
satisfaction—thinking itself fuels our addiction, and becomes part of it. But
the problem is, addiction to thinking can never be released through more
thinking. Instead, it only perpetuates the cycle of addiction.
So you won’t be able to rely on thinking to find your way into natural
rest. Instead, this book will take you on a journey where you can actually
experience natural rest for yourself.
Natural rest is found in the present moment—a place where we’re not
emphasizing or obsessing on our thoughts as much, not carrying around so
much pain and fear. This rest is “natural” because it’s already here for us.
It’s the felt sense of presence.
This book starts with one simple practice: the practice of resting in the
present moment.
Let’s take a moment and experience natural rest.
As you place this book down for a moment, begin to notice your breath.
Take a few long, deep breaths. Stay aware of your breath the whole
time. This helps to slow down your thinking for a moment.
As thinking begins to slow down, begin feeling into the aliveness of
your inner body. Notice sensations. Feel them without placing labels on
them.
Then begin to notice other aspects of your present-moment experience
—including sounds, shapes, colors, and smells.
Notice those elements of your experience without placing labels on
them.
Rest in that present-moment space for a few seconds.
You have now taken a moment of rest. It may have lasted only a couple
of seconds, maybe more. That’s perfectly fine. The key is that you tasted it.
Experiencing this practice is important before you dig deeper into this book.
And continuing to experience natural rest throughout the day, as often as
possible, helps you to experience present-moment awareness on a more
ongoing and stable basis. This book is all about cultivating the experience
of present-moment awareness and letting it infuse every aspect of your life.

Presence: An End to Endless Seeking

Presence is not a belief system.
It’s not a program in which you have to convince yourself of certain
mental viewpoints. It’s not a complicated manual about how to live your
life. It’s not a code of conduct that you memorize and take with you
everywhere you go. It’s not a set of affirmations that you have to frequently
repeat. It’s not dependent on positive thinking strategies.
Presence is much simpler and more immediate than any of this.
Presence is our natural way of being in the here and now without
emphasizing our stories as completely true and real. Stories may still arise,
but they begin to feel lighter and more transparent once the present moment
becomes more predominant for us. This way of being is always and already
available in each moment. Once we recognize this, the cycle of addiction
can finally begin to relax!
Typically, recovery programs provide only temporary thinking strategies
to keep addicts from relapse. Some programs involve taking medications or
use other methods and technologies that deal mainly with the symptoms of
addiction, such as cravings and compulsions, or focus only on certain areas
in an addict’s life rather than looking at the whole. Those programs have
their place. Some people benefit from them.
Other programs speak of a need for spiritual awakening in order to
overcome addiction, and in my belief they are right: that’s what it takes. But
then these same programs may tend to keep us searching addictively toward
the future for our awakening, constantly focused on ourselves in a self-
centered way. Other programs are based solely on belief systems: “Believe
this and your life will change!” But if we don’t believe in the tenets of that
system or if we begin to seriously question the ideas of that belief system,
we may find ourselves at odds with that program. This can place us at risk
of continued addiction or relapse. We may then lose the opportunity to find
true and lasting recovery from addiction.
 The difference with natural rest is that it is based in experience, not in
medication, thinking strategies, or belief systems. In natural rest, you are no
longer holding back the dam. In some other programs, you get a sense that
the individuals involved are holding back the dam of their addictions, as if
—at any given moment—the dam could break and they could spiral right
back down into the full-blown addictive cycle. I once took my partner to a
recovery meeting containing about 150 people. When we left, he said, “The
energy in that room was unbearable, as if almost everyone there was right
on the brink of relapse.” Holding back the dam, or “white-knuckling it,” is
no way to live. It is not freedom.
As you experience natural rest in your life, you begin to no longer feel
as if you are holding back the dam. This is because you have allowed
everything to come and go—every sensation, craving, emotion, and
thought. You have allowed the dam to break each day, in each moment,
while remaining stably present and aware through the whole process.
You’ve allowed the blockages of energy in your body to gradually release,
so that they no longer scream for relief through addictive substances and
activities.
Presence provides the stability for a deep transformation in how you
relate to all experience. It strips away your ability to avoid and escape, and
opens the door to facing everything, rather than running from it.
Most addiction-recovery programs are well intentioned, and in
aggregate they’ve helped many people. It is also true that many people do
not find long-term recovery in some of the existing programs. The national
success rate for alcohol and drug addiction recovery in the United States is
approximately 10 to 20 percent. That is very low. It’s alarming! Even if
people do not relapse using their drug of choice, they often find themselves
caught in subsequent addictive patterns, substituting one addiction for
another. Instead of booze it’s food. Instead of heroin it’s alcohol. Instead of
gambling it’s sex.
Why all this substitution?
Substitution happens because there are facets of the addiction cycle that
recovery programs often don’t fully or effectively address. These facets
include issues like depression, anxiety, and trauma. But perhaps more
importantly, these programs don’t address the seeker identity itself. The
addict is an insatiable seeker—one who addictively looks for satisfaction in