The way I understand meditation is that it is a way of stepping out of "worlds of becoming" that the mind is constantly entering and wandering around in. (Until things go bad, and then it jumps to another world.) The way I try to deal with this is through the ongoing practice of calming the mind and giving it good mental food. A good source of this food is the blameless pleasure that comes from the ability to settle on a single range of awareness such as the body or the breath, and then to stay there for long periods of time, which is actually more satisfying than it sounds at first. It's inevitable that the mind will keep pulling itself away to harmful yet tempting subjects, so learning how to return peacefully, yet firmly and repeatedly is a skill that I've been trying to develop.
It becomes somewhat obvious as one begins to meditate that this wandering, and the repetition of unskillful mental qualities, is connected with what stress and suffering there is in life. The accompanying insight into these thought worlds and how they keep originating and pulling stress and suffering with them can supposedly allow one to grow dispassionate for those addictions and give them up to at least a greater or lesser extent. It's interesting to see what repeated mental habits the mind thinks are good ideas, simply because it hasn't taken a good look at them since before the age of two. Giving those habits up, even if only temporarily, can be a great relief for the mind.
The tough part about all this is putting in the effort on a regular/continual basis when the initial results can come and go without your really seeing why. Looking at my own practice, I can say it's worth the effort so far, despite the difficulties. When I'm in a tough spot, remembering the moments that I have been at greater ease in the meditation give me reason to keep working in that direction.
It becomes somewhat obvious as one begins to meditate that this wandering, and the repetition of unskillful mental qualities, is connected with what stress and suffering there is in life. The accompanying insight into these thought worlds and how they keep originating and pulling stress and suffering with them can supposedly allow one to grow dispassionate for those addictions and give them up to at least a greater or lesser extent. It's interesting to see what repeated mental habits the mind thinks are good ideas, simply because it hasn't taken a good look at them since before the age of two. Giving those habits up, even if only temporarily, can be a great relief for the mind.
The tough part about all this is putting in the effort on a regular/continual basis when the initial results can come and go without your really seeing why. Looking at my own practice, I can say it's worth the effort so far, despite the difficulties. When I'm in a tough spot, remembering the moments that I have been at greater ease in the meditation give me reason to keep working in that direction.
If you're interested, here are some talks by my favorite meditation teacher: http://dhammatalks.org/Archive/BasicsCollection/BasicsCollec...
I hope this helps your practice. ;-)