Laura practically bounced into our home group a few years ago, much cheerier than your average newcomer. She brought a light and energy that brightened our meetings.
After a year or so, Laura slipped away, which is not uncommon in recovery. Some folks start going to different meetings; some folks relapse; others physically move away.
After another year passed, a mutual friend ran into Laura, who seemed happy and content. Laura reported she was no longer going to 12-step recovery meetings; she said she had been using yoga to stay clean and sober.
Do what?? Is that even a thing? Apparently so.
There are many folks in recovery – or at least clean and sober – who don’t go to 12-step fellowships. They’ll use meditation, or yoga or religion – not faith-based recovery programs like Celebrate Recovery or the YMCA’s Restore Ministries – but going to church/synagogue/temple and being active there as a way to stay centered, connected and away from drugs.
Many folks in 12-step fellowships are dubious to say the least, including Bellevue business owner Brett G., who has 19 years clean and sober.
“We don’t claim to have the only way to sobriety. I definitely don’t discount what they’re doing,” he said. “If it works for them, great.
“But,” Brett adds, “the vast majority of people I’ve seen who go church-only path, or the meditation-only path – those are the ones I see the most – my experience is they get some time in and the vast majority relapse.”
I reconnected with my friend Laura to ask about her yoga plan.
“Practicing yoga was, for me, a natural evolution of the life that I became free to develop once I was able to stop using,” Laura said.
“Yoga helps to keep me sober in ways that continue to unfold through each day of my life. It connects me to circles of people who are positive, caring influences, who have good energy and make me feel valued and accepted as part of a community,” she said.
“My disease of addiction affected me on mental, spiritual and physical levels, and yoga benefits me in all those areas; the physical practice relaxes and strengthens my body, which contributes to a calm and focused mind that helps me stay connected to a spiritual center.”
Oh, and Laura adds one more thing: “Headstands are fun!”
Greg, of Madison, has been clean and sober for 17 years, but he hasn’t regularly gone to meetings for the last 15 years.
“In the beginning, the meetings gave me a place to go. They helped me a lot. I could relate to people who wanted to get to the same place I wanted to,” he said.
“Then I got to a spot that told me I could not go to meetings and be OK,” Greg said.
So what happened?
“I’m grateful for the meetings, and for me, it was too much of a religious experience. I’m not a big fan of the blood and the cross,” Greg said. “And it was a little too similar to the church experience.”
So how does Greg stay sober and clean?
“Trying to live in the moment,” he said. “I made a decision to live a different way. I’m constantly learning and digging and living the spiritual path.”
Brett G. says going alone is a scary idea for him.
“When you’re all by yourself, you forget where you are,” he says.
Plus, Brett says, he has to be around other alcoholics.
“An alcoholic understands what my mind is doing. We’re able to share mental quirks that are different from normal people,” he said.
Miles H. of East Nashville, who has one year clean, agrees that he needs regular 12-step meetings, not only to feel “normal” but to be better connected to God.
“Many times, when I’m looking for an answer that I’ve prayed about, I’ll get the answers in the rooms,” Miles says.
But Miles doesn’t turn up his nose at the idea that yoga can keep someone clean.
“I’ve never done yoga before,” he says, “but I do think anything that’s keeping you connected to a power or energy greater than yourself can definitely help you stay clean.”
To critics, Laura says this:
“I’m healthy. I’m happy. I’m connected to a group of people who know I’m sober and they like me that way. I have sober friendships with open lines of communication.
“My sobriety is so important to me, but it seems to play out a little differently now, at two and half years clean, than it did in the very beginning. I’m ok with that. I would never prescribe my particular road of recovery to anyone else but myself.
“I would never trade any of what I learned in the rooms or at treatment or in the books that I read or the speakers I listened to; I carry all that with me wherever I go. I would hope that I can be of service and help my fellow sick and suffering addicts the way that people helped me.
“I don’t go to meetings every day, but I do live a life of gratitude. Spiritual principles, I think, have many different expressions. Why limit what being sober looks like?”
Thanks to Laura and Brett and Miles and Greg for sharing.
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