Addicts Overcome Holiday Stress with Meditation

Meditation Can Make the World Seem a Less Threatening Place


It's going to be a difficult holiday season for a man named Demitrius, who didn't want to use his full name to protect his privacy.

Demitrius, now 28, won't be able to open gifts or ring in the new year with his family. Instead, he'll spend the holidays and the next several months serving out a court-mandated sentence at New York's Phoenix House, a residential and outpatient drug rehabilitation center. After he was arrested for selling drugs this past spring, his punishment was set at 15 months in residential treatment.

He's coping with his sadness in a way he never dreamed he would growing up in the tough neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn: through meditation.

"I was skeptical. I never thought I would do it. Where I'm from, people don't do a lot of meditation classes," said Demitrius.

Now, he can't imagine making it through rehab -- and the stress of the holiday season -- without it. (MORE)

Source: ABC News