Loving Kindness as a Path to Addiction Recovery -- Buddhist Recovery Academy with Mikey Livid

SUNDAY July 6, 2025 at 10AM PST

Join us Online with Mikey Livid

More About the Teaching

Loving Kindness as a Path to Addiction Recovery

There’s a saying you may have heard: “The opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety, it’s connection.” And if you’ve ever felt the deep loneliness that often comes with addiction, you know how true that statement is.

But reconnection isn’t always easy, especially when we carry shame, regret, or pain. One powerful tool offered by the Buddhist tradition is mettā, or loving kindness meditation. While mindfulness has become a mainstream resource in therapeutic and recovery spaces, mettā remains a quiet, often overlooked companion, one that may hold the key to healing the relational and emotional wounds at the core of addiction.

Loving kindness meditation invites us to meet our pain with gentleness, to relate to ourselves and others with care instead of judgment. It nurtures a heart that includes rather than excludes. This is a heart that recovers its natural capacity for connection, compassion, and belonging.

In this talk and guided meditation, we'll explore how loving kindness practice supports addiction recovery, not as a supplement to willpower or self-control, but as a radical path to reconnection with ourselves, our communities, and our innate caring nature. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t even have to feel ready. Just bring your heart.

More About Mikey

Mikey Livid (he/him) is a Buddhist teacher, author, and counselor. Mikey is the guiding teacher
at Wild Heart Meditation Center in Nashville, TN. He regularly bring Buddhist meditation
classes into addiction treatment centers, prisons, and a variety of settings. Mikey is the author of
Blood, Guts, & Buddhism: The Dharma of Horror Movies, Heartbreak, and The Nature of
Suffering which is set to be out in 2026. Mikey is the co-host of the punk rock, mental health
podcast Punks On Hope and is the singer for the punk band The Rip Taylors.

https://linktr.ee/MikeyLivid
https://www.wildheartmeditationcenter.org

More About the Academy

The Academy has invited some of the leading teachers in the field of Buddhist recovery. On the first Sunday of every month for an hour each teacher will explore the sharp edges of suffering through the lens of the Buddhist Teachings.

The Academy brings together teachers from different Buddhist lineages and approaches. Themes like addiction, alcoholism, depression, stinking thinking and compulsive behaviors will be explored.

During this event we will meditate, listen to the teaching, then have time for a Q & A at the end.

Dana

This event is offered freely, but signing up with any donation helps support the Buddhist Recovery Network mission to promote the use of Buddhist teachings and practices to help people recover from the suffering caused by addictive behaviors . Your support will also allow us to connect with you and send you a reminder, 24 hours and 1 hour before the event.

ZOOM LINK

Click to Join via this Zoom Link

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88942155730?pwd=Q3dBMkRCUTZKZ0NOUjY4ODk1Mnozdz09

Meeting ID: 889 4215 5730 and passcode: 110088

Recovering the Heart: Loving Kindness as a Path to Addiction Recovery -- Buddhist Recovery Academy with Mikey Livid

July 6, 2025