Here, we simply are.

This group was started by a handful of alumni from the WellBridge Addiction Treatment Facility in Calverton, NY who’s recovery greatly benefited from the patient-led Dharma group at WellBridge. In an effort to sustain the momentum of healing they began together, the core group of alumni responsible for creating EVO Recovery Dharma needed a place to continue their recovery journeys where they could explore the root causes of their addiction in an inclusive, empathetic and most importantly, safe environment.

We currently gather together online weekly on Monday evenings from 7 - 8:30pm (EST) to explore and learn from a Buddhist-inspired approach to addiction recovery that is centered on a set of principles and practices designed to break the cycle of suffering caused by addiction. Our group meetings consist of a 5-15 minute guided meditation, brief member check-ins where we share and explore our daily struggles in an effort to cultivate and maintain connectivity as a group and we end with a group discussion of the evening’s topic.

We recognize there are many pathways to recovery, but we find this path to recovery to be a personal journey where one learns to cultivate, maintain and ultimately master mindfulness over our emotions, our thoughts and our bodies. Along this path we learn to accept responsibility for our actions and gain a clear understanding of the consequences of each choice we make and how those consequences affect not only our lives but the lives of those around us. We also begin to recognize that every thought, feeling and sensation is temporary, impermanent, and if we allow it, they will all pass. 

Trusting this knowledge to be capable of providing a safe harbor in moments of craving or pain, we then realize we are instead defined by the choices and actions of the present.

With clear understanding, we can start choosing more appropriate actions and responses to the events and circumstances of our lives. It is within those choices that relief from the suffering and destruction of addiction can be found. When we act with a more complete awareness of each choice we make, regardless of how big or small, the reasons why we do everything become more and more clear.

By using the tools practiced and learned here, we can overcome any craving caused by negative sensations like confusion, feeling lost, uncertainty or despair and remain steadfastly in the present moment. We cultivate this level of mindfulness to face, and sit with our discomfort without fear or resistance and accept that suffering is part of the human condition. Through this practice, we learn that efforts to avoid or deny this truth lead to more unhappiness and more suffering.

We also cultivate our understanding that our true desires cannot be satisfied by chasing pleasure and that every pleasant sensation will end. We strive to remember that the more we try to hold onto pleasure and transform true desire into need or craving, the more we suffer.

We come to understand that by tracing the origins of our dissatisfaction, unhappiness or pain, we can weed out their root causes from our mind using the Eight-fold Path.

It is this path we commit to following in order to develop our understanding of life and of ourselves so as to learn and practice the karmic advantage of compassion, lovingkindness, appreciative joy & equanimity so we may live a more ethical and mindful life.

  • The Eightfold Path helps us find our way in recovery and consists of the following:

    1. WISE UNDERSTANDING

    2. WISE INTENTION

    3. WISE SPEECH

    4. WISE ACTION

    5. WISE LIVELIHOOD

    6. WISE EFFORT

    7. WISE MINDFULNESS

    8. WISE CONCENTRATION

  • Buddha taught that by living ethically, practicing meditation, and developing wisdom and compassion, we can end the suffering that is created by resisting, running from and misunderstanding reality. These practices and principles have been proven to end the suffering of addiction.

    There is suffering.
    We commit to understanding the truth of suffering.

    There is cause of suffering.
    We commit to understanding that craving leads to suffering.

    There is an end to suffering.
    We commit to understanding and experiencing that less craving leads to less suffering.

    There is a path to the end of suffering.
    We commit to cultivating the path.

  • As people who have struggled with addiction, we are already intimately familiar with the reality of suffering. Even if we have never heard of the Buddha, we already know the foundation of his teachings on some level, which we call the Dharma: that in this life, there is suffering. The Buddha also taught the way to free ourselves from this suffering by understanding the commitments of the Four Noble Truths, which are the foundation of our program.