Drug Test Anxiety

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rucontent
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:59 am

Drug Test Anxiety

Post by rucontent »

Good afternoon,

Yes. Drugs are not good for the mind. They clutter etc. Having said that I have smoked in the last 3-4 weeks but not sooner. I have taken some over the counter tests and i pass them. i.e they return a negative result for the presence of THC.

Even though my test is still next week. I still find myself worried about it a little. Incessant research, buying drug tests, etc..... Even though I am continuously getting a passing test result.

I was recently working on antidotes to the hindrances. And I am curious what issues I am dealing with. I want help with this. Specifically it seems like their is attachment to the result? but then again my wife mentioned that there could be some self-centered/pride involved as well due to the shame i might feel at not passing etc. I want some help about what antidotes or things to focus on so that i can just let things play out as they will. In some ways also i feel as if there is a false (or real) sense of karma going on to. Can anyone help with this?

thanks
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Ben
Posts: 18438
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:49 am
Location: kanamaluka

Re: Drug Test Anxiety

Post by Ben »

The only antidote is to abstain completely from all intoxicants. Until then you'll continue to be a slave to your desires.
Sila conditions samadhi and both condition panna.
Wishing you all the best,

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

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Cittasanto
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Location: Ellan Vannin
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Re: Drug Test Anxiety

Post by Cittasanto »

Sila is for peace of mind, if you didn't do anything wrong, would you be worried... if you had not taken them?
Blog, Suttas, Aj Chah, Facebook.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion …
...
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
John Stuart Mill
rucontent
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:59 am

Re: Drug Test Anxiety

Post by rucontent »

i understand about the points being made. But my question has to do with the resultant worry. Of course if I hadn't indulged, this would not be a problem. But that isnt really what I am asking. I am asking about the emotional turmoil and their antidotes. Or ways to work with it. What I have heard so far is dont do it next time or that that is why you should abstain. But I am talking about something else. Obviously there is something there to sit with. Sila. But beyond that, take the drug out of the equation.

I have issues with letting things go in general. It is as if I dont feel right if I am not worrying about something. Intellectually I can see that i cannot really control the consequences of the test. I know that i have abstained for some time, I have taken tests that I pass. But it's the what if's that get me. I want to learn how to deal with that.
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LonesomeYogurt
Posts: 900
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2012 4:24 pm
Location: America

Re: Drug Test Anxiety

Post by LonesomeYogurt »

rucontent wrote:I have issues with letting things go in general. It is as if I dont feel right if I am not worrying about something. Intellectually I can see that i cannot really control the consequences of the test. I know that i have abstained for some time, I have taken tests that I pass. But it's the what if's that get me. I want to learn how to deal with that.
When the fear or anxiety occurs, first mindfully note that it is there and view it without judgment. Try and separate yourself from the emotion; think, "I am not nervous. Nervousness has simply arisen within me." With these steps - recognition, acceptance, investigation and non-identification - you can rob the emotion of its power.

It's of course a lot harder than it sounds but I really would recommend it as a healthy way to deal with feelings that, when unwatched, are likely to cause suffering.
Gain and loss, status and disgrace,
censure and praise, pleasure and pain:
these conditions among human beings are inconstant,
impermanent, subject to change.

Knowing this, the wise person, mindful,
ponders these changing conditions.
Desirable things don’t charm the mind,
undesirable ones bring no resistance.

His welcoming and rebelling are scattered,
gone to their end,
do not exist.
- Lokavipatti Sutta

Stuff I write about things.
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