{"id":30,"date":"2014-01-15T00:08:25","date_gmt":"2014-01-15T00:08:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nashvillerecovers.org\/wordpress\/?p=30"},"modified":"2014-01-15T00:08:25","modified_gmt":"2014-01-15T00:08:25","slug":"staying-clean-and-sober-with-yoga-fer-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/2014\/01\/15\/staying-clean-and-sober-with-yoga-fer-real\/","title":{"rendered":"Staying clean and sober with yoga? Fer real?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Do what?? Is that even a thing? Apparently so.<\/p>\n

There are many folks in recovery \u2013 or at least clean and sober \u2013 who don\u2019t go to 12-step fellowships. They\u2019ll use meditation, or yoga or religion \u2013 not faith-based recovery programs like Celebrate Recovery or the YMCA\u2019s Restore Ministries \u2013 but going to church\/synagogue\/temple and being active there as a way to stay centered, connected and away from drugs.<\/p>\n

\"Yoga\"<\/a>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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t claim to have the only way to sobriety. I definitely don\u2019t discount what they\u2019re doing,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it works for them, great.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut,\u201d Brett adds, \u201cthe vast majority of people I\u2019ve seen who go church-only path, or the meditation-only path \u2013 those are the ones I see the most \u2013 my experience is they get some time in and the vast majority relapse.\u201d<\/p>\n

I reconnected with my friend Laura to ask about her yoga plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cPracticing yoga was, for me, a natural evolution of the life that I became free to develop once I was able to stop using,\u201d Laura said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYoga 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,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oh, and Laura adds one more thing: \u201cHeadstands are fun!\u201d<\/p>\n

Greg, of Madison, has been clean and sober for 17 years, but he hasn\u2019t regularly gone to meetings for the last 15 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I got to a spot that told me I could not go to meetings and be OK,\u201d Greg said.<\/p>\n

So what happened?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m grateful for the meetings, and for me, it was too much of a religious experience. I\u2019m not a big fan of the blood and the cross,\u201d Greg said. \u201cAnd it was a little too similar to the church experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

So how does Greg stay sober and clean?<\/p>\n

\u201cTrying to live in the moment,\u201d he said. \u201cI made a decision to live a different way. I\u2019m constantly learning and digging and living the spiritual path.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brett G. says going alone is a scary idea for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re all by yourself, you forget where you are,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Plus, Brett says, he has to be around other alcoholics.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn alcoholic understands what my mind is doing. We\u2019re able to share mental quirks that are different from normal people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Miles H. of East Nashville, who has one year clean, agrees that he needs regular 12-step meetings, not only to feel \u201cnormal\u201d but to be better connected to God.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany times, when I\u2019m looking for an answer that I\u2019ve prayed about, I\u2019ll get the answers in the rooms,\u201d Miles says.<\/p>\n

But Miles doesn\u2019t turn up his nose at the idea that yoga can keep someone clean.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never done yoga before,\u201d he says, \u201cbut I do think anything that\u2019s keeping you connected to a power or energy greater than yourself can definitely help you stay clean.\u201d<\/p>\n

To critics, Laura says this:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m healthy. I\u2019m happy. I\u2019m connected to a group of people who know I\u2019m sober and they like me that way. I have sober friendships with open lines of communication.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy 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\u2019m ok with that. I would never prescribe my particular road of recovery to anyone else but myself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t 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?\u201d<\/p>\n

Thanks to Laura and Brett and Miles and Greg for sharing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashvilleprevention.org\/nashville_recovers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}