Yoga and the Twelve-Step Path. Kyczy Hawk
twelve-step program leads us into and through the emotional and spiritual damages of addiction to a greater sense of well-being. As one develops an awareness of a Higher Power and gains the trust and faith to depend on it, healing takes on a deeper and more profound nature. With the dislodging of past wrongs and an awareness of personal traits, coping styles, and weaknesses, one can make better choices about future behavior and take actions so as to avoid repeating past errors and wrongs. This journey of emotional and spiritual healing includes development of, or reacquaintance with, certain ethical and moral values. The three basic values taught in the twelve-step programs are honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness. There are other principles such as service and working with others that are also crucial to recovery. These basic standards are expanded upon in the philosophy of yoga.
A study of the various yogas and the limbs of raja yoga enhances, endorses, and expands the ideals that are presented in recovery meetings. In raja yoga one learns of the restraints (yamas), the observances (niyamas), breath work, letting go, contemplation, meditation, and union with one’s Higher Power in addition to the hatha practices. The various classical, well-known yogas—karma, bhakti, mantra, jnana, and raja—each relate strongly to a piece of the twelve-step recovery programs. Karma yoga is the yoga of action and consequences (Steps Four through Seven and Step Ten). Bhakti yoga is the yoga of passionate devotion to a Higher Power (Steps Two and Twelve). Mantra yoga is a yoga of sound or phrase repetition to achieve union with one’s Higher Power (prayers and sayings). Jnana yoga is the yoga of reality and study (working all the steps with a sponsor). Raja yoga is the path leading to bliss and union with the divine (the steps and traditions augmented with physical recovery). The similarities between aspects of the twelve-step programs and each of the various types of yoga allow for the practice of yoga to support recovery, while deepening and expanding on the systems of belief one learns in the rooms of recovery.
Yoga gives us specific tools to find our true selves. Breath work is critical. It is the foundation of all yogic practices, including the asana. Breathing in a deep and sustained manner has beneficial neurological effects. It can change the physical responses to a situation from an instinctual “fight-or-flight” reaction to a more measured and thought-out response. This is a vital change for people who have poor impulse control or the inability to find a mature solution to an immediate problem. Further in meditation, investigating how the mind works, how one’s own mind works, is a step in the yoga path. Are you a person who ruminates obsessively on the past? Does your mind travel into the future, anticipating events, or fantasizing about life as it could have been?
Learning what your particular mind does—the ruts of past experiences it travels through, and the habits of future travel it may take—is useful to know. Self-reflection can offer some insight, and this insight can then offer choices on how to act or how to redirect thinking into healthier avenues. Getting bound up in guilt from past actions, or becoming mentally involved in some aspect of a future event that may or may not occur, can be habits that bring about wrong thinking (“stinking thinking,” as some in recovery call it). These mental states can lead to relapse. Breath work, practicing the yama of nonattachment, taking a physical inventory of the feeling tones in the body, and meditation are all tools that are compatible with programs of recovery, regardless of the manifestation—gambling, relationships, consumerism, or drugs. The mental gymnastics and delusions of addiction are very similar in every addict.
Many inpatient recovery centers offer yoga as part of their treatment plans. There are nonprofit organizations that bring yoga to the incarcerated, the institutionalized, and the disenfranchised. There are programs for at-risk youth and juvenile offenders. The benefits of yoga are being accepted in more and more mainstream locations. This book is for those who want to know a little more about how and why this philosophy is compatible with the goals of health and recovery. It is a guide for people who are in recovery or have left a recovery center and want to continue the practice on their own. Each chapter goes into a yoga practice in detail, drawing on the relationship between yoga and recovery programs. Exercises, breath practices, and hatha yoga postures are offered at the end of each section. By practicing these, the reader will gain a working knowledge of the tools and benefits of this ancient and amazing resource: yoga.
introduction notes
1 Birnberg, Robert. 2006. Yoga, Habit, and Freedom from Addiction [Online]. Available from www.longexhale.com (accessed October 2010).
2 Melemis, Steven M. Recovery Skills [Online]. Available from www.addictionsandrecovery.org (accessed February 2011).
My Story
San Francisco in the late 1960s. What a place and an era for an alienated, frightened, headstrong teenager. With the heart of a socially conscious rebel and the dependencies of an addict, I was let loose in a city that had the answer to my fears. As early as ninth grade, I got into pot and diet pills; the summer before high school I joined protest marches and drank red wine; high school added acid and other drugs to the mix, and it was off to the races.
Like many, but not all, addicted people, I came from an emotionally impaired home. We moved frequently during my preteen years. My parents were teachers, and we moved from country to country as they obtained contracts with various schools and universities. We children learned to adapt to different countries and languages, never forging close ties due to cultural differences, lack of skills, and the knowledge that we would be leaving in a short while. My mother was an active alcoholic in countries that permitted drinking, and a dry drunk in countries that did not. My father was an angry man who was deeply disenchanted with his career, his family, and his life. My parents were brilliant people, loved by their friends, but unskilled at being parents—part of their tender flaws. That made raising children a challenge for them. They often lived countries apart from each other, and this was the case when I entered my thirteenth year in northern California—the summer that I dove into the world of alcohol and drugs. My mother was searching for recovery herself—a painful journey she did not fully embrace until shortly before I left home. During those years my brother, nine years younger, and my sister, only eighteen months younger, were each as different from me as siblings could be, but I tried to play house and create a “normal” American family without adult supervision. We maintained the house and did the shopping, cooking, and cleaning. My mother tried to reengage as a parent from time to time, but those phases did not last long. When my father returned to the United States, it meant he was unemployed and was depressed and despondent, full of regrets and remorse, which came out as outbursts of anger.
My youthful “controlled drinking and using” meant that I had to be down from my high and semicoherent by late afternoon to cook dinner for the family and do my homework. At that point in my using career, I was still trying to be a good girl. It was a pattern that would follow me through my addiction years. I walked a tightrope between being a good and eager student, friend, and daughter and being a wild, politically active protestor, drinker, and drug user. While I believed strongly in the political protest against the Vietnam War and social change for both racial and gender equality, I was enchanted with drugs, including alcohol. I ended most weekend rallies by going home with some older guy to get high, rather than with a fellow demonstrator or activist to plan for another day’s activities.
My bad behavior carried over to my home, where I was an impossible child. On one hand, while managing our household and doing most of the chores, I also tried to parent my younger siblings and mediate the fights between my parents. On the other hand, I was frequently high or drunk, reckless with my health and safety, and truant from school whenever possible. As I said, with my father working out of the country much of the time and my mom suffering with her own demons, I was drawn to the freedom of the streets and the irresponsibility of the urchin life. I ran away from home a couple of times to avoid terrors, real or imagined. I threatened to drop out of high school, but instead I did an accelerated program and graduated early. I was that unsure of my ability to continue the duplicitous life of the good girl/bad girl. I couldn’t keep the two lives apart. The compliant student was no longer stronger than the full-blown addict. Soon after graduating from high school at seventeen, I left home.
In and out of junior college, in and out of