Breathwork for Addiction Recovery – How It Works
- kevinconnelly82
- Aug 17
- 8 min read
Addiction has been misunderstood for decades. We’ve been taught to believe that it’s about the substance itself: the alcohol, the drugs, the phone, the porn, the gambling. But if that were true, everyone who picked up a drink or a vape would become addicted. Even leading psychologist and addiction expert Gabor Mate has stated this. Clearly, that’s not the case.
The truth is simple, but often overlooked: addiction isn’t about the substance. It’s about the state of being the substance helps us escape.
The Myths of Addiction
The old story is that addiction is a moral failing, a weakness, or a lack of discipline. The new, science-backed story is that addiction is an attempt to regulate emotions through something external.
As I wrote in Breathe Into It:
“People aren’t addicted to the thing. They’re addicted to the relief the thing gives them from an inner state they don’t want to feel.”
When we peel back the layers, we see that addiction is really about escape. Escape from stress. Escape from loneliness. Escape from boredom.
The Three Most Common Emotional Triggers of Addiction
Stress: Stress floods the body with adrenaline and cortisol, putting us in fight-or-flight mode. In this state, our breath becomes shallow and rapid. Our nervous system feels unsafe, and the brain craves quick relief. Substances or compulsive behaviors offer a false solution and a way to temporarily numb or override the stress response.
Loneliness: Humans are wired for connection. Loneliness isn’t just a mental state, it’s a physiological one. Studies show it can activate the same brain regions as physical pain. When someone feels disconnected, substances can mimic connection by releasing dopamine, serotonin, or oxytocin. But the relief is artificial, leaving the person emptier than before.
Boredom: Boredom is not the absence of things to do, it’s the absence of engagement and meaning. When we’re bored, the brain craves stimulation, and quick-fix habits (scrolling, drinking, smoking) provide instant novelty. But just like stress and loneliness, boredom is only masked, not resolved, by the addictive behavior.
What unites these three emotional triggers? They are states of the nervous system. And until we learn how to regulate those states, the cycle of addiction continues.
The Amygdala, Stress, and Addiction
When we're stressed or triggered, our breathing changes. It becomes shallow, erratic, and fast. This kind of stressed breathing stimulates the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for fear, aggression, and learned emotional responses. The amygdala plays a central role in addiction because it stores the associations between emotional discomfort and the addictive behavior that promises relief.
An overactive amygdala does not just make us feel anxious or on edge. It also decreases impulse control. When the amygdala is firing, the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain that regulates decision-making, long-term planning, and self-control) goes offline. In this state, even the strongest willpower struggles to override the urge to use or engage in addictive behavior.
The encouraging news is that controlled breathing directly influences this system. Research has shown that even short periods of slow, rhythmic breathing can reduce amygdala activity while strengthening the circuits involved in self-regulation. For example, a 2019 study published in Frontiers in Psychiatry found that just a short session of paced breathing significantly reduced drug cravings in individuals with substance use disorders by calming stress reactivity and improving emotional regulation.
This suggests that breathwork not only calms emotional reactivity but also enhances impulse control. For someone in recovery, this is a game changer. It means that in the space of a few minutes of intentional breathing, you can quiet the fear-driven part of your brain and strengthen the very circuits that allow you to pause, reflect, and make a different choice.
Brain Waves, Addiction, and Anxiety
One of the most fascinating discoveries in recent neuroscience is that people struggling with addiction and anxiety often show nearly identical brain wave patterns. Both groups tend to experience heightened beta waves (fast, high-frequency waves linked to stress, worry, and overthinking) and low alpha waves (the calmer, slower waves associated with relaxation, creativity, and presence).
This imbalance creates a nervous system that feels constantly “on edge.” When beta waves dominate, the brain is stuck in hypervigilance, scanning for threats and unable to drop into calm. When alpha waves are suppressed, it becomes almost impossible to feel grounded or at ease in the present moment.
Through my own research over the last year, scanning brains of more than 65 participants while they practiced various breath exercises, I found something remarkable: after just five minutes of controlled breathing, there was an 18.5% decrease in beta waves and a 23.8% increase in alpha waves.
What does this mean? In real terms, it shows that the brain can shift quickly from a state of agitation and craving into a state of relaxation and clarity. This shift is not theoretical. It is measurable. For someone dealing with addiction, it means the difference between being hijacked by an urge and having enough space to choose a different response. For someone struggling with anxiety, it means relief from the relentless loop of overthinking and the ability to feel grounded in their body rather than feeling scared shitless every second..
Breathwork provides a direct pathway to rebalance the brain. By lowering beta activity and raising alpha activity, it restores the natural rhythm of calm alertness. This is the state where healing, focus, and genuine recovery can take place.
Why Willpower and Habit Switching Don’t Work
Most people try to fight addiction with willpower or habit switching. The logic is simple: just stop doing the thing. Replace drinking with running. Replace scrolling with reading. Replace smoking with chewing gum.
The problem? These approaches don’t decondition the brain. They don’t actually address the nervous system state that caused the urge in the first place.
To understand why, let’s revisit a classic experiment: Pavlov’s dogs.
Pavlov rang a bell every time he fed his dogs. Eventually, the dogs began salivating at the sound of the bell, even when no food was present. The bell had become a conditioned trigger.
Addiction works the same way. Stress, loneliness, and boredom become “bells.” They trigger cravings, regardless of whether the substance is actually present.
So how do you break the cycle? In Pavlov’s case, the dogs were eventually deconditioned by hearing the bell without being fed. Over time, their brains learned a new association: the bell no longer means food.
This is where neuroplasticity comes in — the brain’s ability to retrain itself, rewire old patterns, and create new ones. Addiction recovery requires a similar process. But instead of just removing the substance, we need a new tool that works directly with the nervous system to recondition the response. That tool is breathwork.
Why Breathwork for Addiction Recovery Works
The breath is the most direct access point to the nervous system. Unlike heart rate or digestion, which happen automatically, the breath is both autonomic and voluntary. You don’t have to think about breathing, but you can also consciously change it at any moment.
This dual control makes breathwork uniquely powerful for addiction recovery. By consciously shifting the breath, you can shift your state of being — from stress to calm, from loneliness to connection, from boredom to presence.
In Breathe Into It, I describe it this way:
“Thought follows state. When you change your breathing, you change your state. When you change your state, the urge loses its grip.”
Breathwork helps interrupt the old conditioned pattern. Stress no longer automatically leads to a drink. Loneliness no longer automatically leads to a smoke. Boredom no longer automatically leads to a binge. Instead, the breath becomes the new bell — a new conditioned response that retrains the brain toward calm, clarity, and resilience.
The D.A.L.I. Method
In my work with thousands of people and through my own journey of recovery, I developed the D.A.L.I. Method. This is a structured approach to using breathwork for addiction recovery. And not just substance addiction. But addiction to behaviors, actions, or people. While I won’t give the entire method away here (that’s what my book and programs are for), here’s the general flow of how it works:
Dial In The first step is dropping into your body. Using a simple rhythmic breath (often five seconds in, five seconds out), you bring your attention out of your racing mind and into your physiology. This rhythm balances the nervous system and creates enough calm to face what’s really happening beneath the urge.
Allow Instead of running from the craving or fighting the emotion, you learn to allow it. This means noticing what’s coming up and giving yourself permission to feel it. Most emotions that drive addiction manifest as sensations in the body: tightness in the chest, a pit in the stomach, restlessness in the limbs. By allowing these sensations without judgment, you begin to dissolve their power.
Learn Each time you go through this process, you record what you notice. In my trainings, we use specific worksheets to track patterns of emotion, triggers, and responses. This stage is about building awareness and connecting the dots between your internal state and your external behaviors.
Improve With enough practice and recorded patterns, something powerful happens: addiction stops being an invisible, overwhelming force. You can see it for what it really is...a pattern you’ve repeated. And if it’s just a pattern, it can be broken. This stage is about stepping back, reviewing what you’ve learned, and making intentional changes that steadily weaken the old cycle.
The D.A.L.I. Method is not about resisting urges with willpower. It’s about using breath and awareness to change the very patterns that drive addiction. By dialing in, allowing, learning, and improving, you rewire your brain through neuroplasticity and make freedom from addiction not just possible but sustainable.
This process uses the science of neuroplasticity by retraining the brain through repeated, intentional practice. And because the breath is always with you, it becomes a tool you can access anywhere, anytime.
The Bigger Picture: Breathwork as a Path to Healing
Addiction is not a life sentence. It’s not a genetic destiny or a permanent defect. It’s a conditioned pattern and one that can be rewired. When you practice breathwork for addiction recovery, you’re not just stopping a habit. You’re learning how to:
Transform stress, loneliness, and boredom without escape.
Rewire your brain toward resilience and calm.
Rebuild trust in yourself by experiencing control over your inner state.
The old methods of addiction recovery often stop short. They tell people to rely on willpower, avoid triggers, or swap one habit for another. But these approaches don’t rewire the brain. They don’t decondition the old bells. Breathwork for addiction recovery offers something different. It works directly with the nervous system, retrains the brain through neuroplasticity, and gives people a lifelong tool for emotional regulation.
The D.A.L.I. Method is one way to put this into practice and create a structured path that uses breath to detect, anchor, liberate, and integrate. But even without a formal method, the principle remains: every conscious breath is a chance to step out of the old cycle and into a new way of being.
If you’re struggling with addiction, or if you’ve tried willpower and failed, know this: there is another way. The breath can carry you through it. Because addiction isn’t about the substance. It’s about the state.
And when you change your state, you change your life.
To get the full method and read about my journey through (and out of) addiction, make sure to grab Breathe Into It on Amazon. If you're looking to deepen your understanding of breathwork, become a certified Reconnect Breathwork Instructor.
Kevin Connelly
Kevin is the founder of Reconnect Breath and has led thousands of wellness enthusiasts through breathwork and ice bath experiences in Mexico and around the world. He is one of the leaders in breathwork-related research and conducts studies on the effects of breath on the heart and brain. Kevin delivers breathwork and cold exposure trainings for retreats, corporate events, and anyone looking to improve their physical and mental wellness.
