Along with the health benefits from the physical exercise, there are the other aspects of yoga that can contribute to recovery and ongoing well-being. When I first got into recovery, I was at a loss for ways to take care of myself. I did not realize what a toll my irregular hours, uneven eating habits, poor sleep, and poor healthcare had taken on my body. I heard in the recovery rooms that one should not become too “hungry, angry, lonely, or tired,” or HALT, as we refer to it. It makes good practical sense, but I was unskilled at noticing the signs of distress. I overate or forgot to eat; I was plagued with insomnia and indigestion. I had children, and while I understood healthy cooking and nutrition for them, I was unable to apply these principles to myself. When I first came into recovery, I was unable to walk the distance of a city block and was bankrupt in all areas of my life. I did not understand self-care at all. Addiction provided a distraction from daily life, until it had become my daily life. It had become a substitute for all manner of genuine human interaction and a replacement for authentic feelings. Over the course of time, healthy ways of addressing life’s issues and desires were lost. Recovering from addiction can leave a tremendous hole in one’s abilities to respond to the vicissitudes of life.
Yoga can offer tools to address feelings, thoughts, and actions. These yogic solutions are very similar to those found in recovery programs. They expand upon existing models of recovery that involve intellectual, emotional, and spiritual self-exploration. Yoga provides additional tools that are congruent with the principles of the twelve-step philosophy and include body and breath awareness. Becoming aware of body tones or feelings can lead to greater awareness of the physical conditions that lead to stress, tension, and possibly eventual relapse. Trauma and pain memories stored in the body can ignite unconscious thought patterns and reactions. These feelings can influence perceived choices and impair decision making. The somatic training of yoga postures and the skills of quieting the mind can lead one into a more refined perception of these negative states of being. Becoming aware of how the body feels in the postures can expand to a greater knowledge of how the body and mind are feeling off the mat, when out in life. Not only can yoga release the impact of stored memories, but a regular practice can enhance positive neurological patterns that can sustain us in health.
One must learn to eat when hungry—good food in a wise manner. Be aware of approaching anger, and calm your body (posture and breathing) to calm your mind. Discover the issues and find the patience and wisdom to deal with them effectively. Do not isolate—find peers in all areas of your life who are healthful and wise. When you are tired, sleep. Each of these conditions had an answer in addictive behavior. Finding the answer in a healthful manner for mind, spirit, and body can be achieved when practicing yoga.
Developing a reverential attitude toward self and a sense of being able to establish boundaries is important. Listening to music that inspires rather than agitates, being aware of the impacts of colors and smells, finding rest rather than stimulation when one is tired—these are all skills that must be practiced in order to be useful and at the ready when needed. Yoga teaches and reinforces the importance of each. Addicts practice total disregard of self for years before gaining recovery. A codependent person will ignore symptoms of illness and disease while carefully attending to the needs of others. People with food addictions will not know the symptoms of hunger or indigestion as they focus on other cues (such as lightness of being for anorexics or the habits of eating and purging for bulimics, for example). They have not learned yet to listen to the senses built into a healthy body. Yoga can begin to make one more aware of these learned shortcomings, and can offer a new way of approaching hunger and eating, caring for others, or filling an unconscious internal void.
Stress is also a major source of relapse. The tools of the twelve-step recovery program, along with the physicality of a regular yoga practice included in hatha classes, can prevent stress from accumulating and release stress once it builds. To quote Dr. Steven Melemis, PhD, MD, an authority on addiction and relapse prevention, “There are only a few reasons why people use drugs and alcohol. They use to escape, relax, and reward themselves. In other words, people use drugs and alcohol to relieve tension.” Later he states, “Your mind and body relax as a unit because they are in constant communication. Since it’s hard to relax your mind, relax your body first, and your mind will follow.”2 This reinforces the definition of addiction outlined in “The Doctor’s Opinion” chapter in Alcoholics Anonymous, which describes alcoholism as “a manifestation of an allergy” and says that “alcoholism is an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer.”
Developing strategies to deal with negative feelings as they arise is critical to long-term recovery. Yoga teaches us self-awareness and provides the practical tools to identify and relieve tension caused by stress—to relax. The practice of yoga itself can become a reward.
Initially, the goal of recovery is to cease the destructive habit or behavior. As we continue our journey to wellness, we utilize the tools of recovery to identify actions and attitudes that are no longer serving us. The same is true in the practice of yoga, where first we learn the poses, then we learn our bodies. The feelings stored in the body will lead us to a deeper understanding of our reactions and remembrances. Your body lets you in—meaning that you cannot force yourself into right awareness; you move into it. At a certain point your breath will guide you as you become more physically attuned to your own stress level. You are able to sense tension or stress as the result of having experienced relaxation. In recovery programs you learn to note when you are behaving in a dangerous fashion (such as holding on to resentments or developing expectations, identifying when you are feeling fearful or insecure), and then find an appropriate action to take to ameliorate these feelings. This may include calling your sponsor, going to a meeting, or turning to your spiritual guide; so, too, in yoga, you become more mindful at feeling the tensions in the body—the stored anxieties or anger. You can then employ your yoga tools to address them. Moving toward the discomforts and dealing with them are keys to maintaining a recovered life. Avoiding the signs and symptoms of stress and distress can signify the slippery slope into relapse. Having more and healthier choices to employ in these situations can help prevent relapse from happening.
I had searched classes, workshops, retreats, and bookstores in my quest for a process, a method, or an approach to combining hatha yoga, yoga philosophy, and the twelve-step recovery path. This combination felt so natural that I was sure others must have already trodden this path and made those discoveries public. While there were a few books and several programs, all of which helped me in my recovery, I felt that they were mostly too esoteric to help others new to the subject. I then took all that I had read and learned and incorporated it into a more basic approach in my yoga classes and workshops. Over the past several years I have brought yoga classes into halfway houses, detention facilities, and church basements as well as yoga studios. Combining the two philosophies with the physical postures and breath work, I have developed a teaching style that brings them all together.
This book will discuss and detail the yogic concepts of the gunas (emotional qualities) and the doshas (physical and mental qualities). It will explain them in sufficient detail so the reader can use them to begin to evaluate his or her own state of being. This understanding will contribute to helpful identification of the optimum soothing techniques for each unique person. Evaluation questionnaires are included. I have found that knowing myself better, having tools to interpret the patterns of my thoughts and to distinguish what I was feeling, was a key to self-care. Using these tools, I was able to move from the thoughts in my head into the feelings in my heart through compassionate self-love. I was finding a way to both know myself and accept myself the way I am. I was better able to focus on my self-care by using these tools and making these skills and habits more effective and enjoyable, while developing a sustainable system for my personal, unique being.