Yoga/Meditation and Sobriety

There were no DUIs, no interventions organized by loved ones, and I don’t have any tales of SWAT teams kicking down my door (sorry), it just stopped working for me.

I got sober 8 years ago today after realizing that I couldn't always control my drinking once I started. Another sign I had a bit of a “problem” is that I took down an entire bottle of wine after this realization as a “last hurrah”. Then I put it down and haven’t had a drink since. That also sounds simplistic and there were a lot of things that went into my healing from addiction over the past 8 years, but I like to keep my blog posts short and focused. This one is about how my yoga and meditation practice helped me get sober in the first place and how my spiritual practice is a major part of me remaining drug and alcohol free one day at a time for the past 2,920 days.

Before now, I always kept my sobriety pretty private. There are a few reasons for this. One is that there’s still a stigma attached to addiction, even though we’ve come such a long way with mental and emotional health awareness. Secondly, I never wanted to come across as preachy or superior because lord knows that’s annoying as hell. And if I’m being really honest with you, I didn’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable. This journey through my 40’s has been a spectacular and organic process of letting go of what other’s think, so the first and third reason have really slipped away. I no longer worry about the stigma and am far less concerned with making other people feel “put off” by my healing journey or growth.

I’m still very much not interested in sounding like a know-it-all preacher though, so let me get this out of the way before I continue: I originally quit alcohol and don’t use other drugs because I have what I believe to be a "special reaction” to these things that causes me to immediately want more as soon as they hit my system. In less fancy terms, I have addiction in my DNA. I didn’t quit so that I could be more spiritual. However, accelerated growth in this department since sobriety has absolutely been my experience.

I am 100% certain that if I hadn’t had a strong yoga practice, the ball would have rolled down the hill a lot faster and further than it did. I got a chance to quit before things got dicey and was able to avoid setting my life on fire, thank God. Because of practices like yoga and meditation, I was in the habit of being aware of what was going on with me emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually. This was definitely a learned thing, as awareness of how I was feeling was not something I had early on. Even before I drank, I looked for ways out of my feelings. Food, severe food restriction, constantly being on the go, relationships, etc. There were many ways over the years I fought being present with my feelings. The practice of yoga allowed me to process emotions and be in my body in a way that I never had before. Most importantly in this context, this awareness that came from my spiritual practice led me to the conclusion that using alcohol to cope was no longer an option for me. I knew intuitively with all of my heart that I needed to be as clear as possible to do whatever it was that I was here to do...and I was no longer ok with being hungover.

My yoga practice has changed over the years. I credit a really powerful physical practice for helping me get through some really difficult times. After that, more gentle practices like restorative became really appealing to me. Hot yoga has been greatly detoxifying at times when I’ve needed that and I fell in LOVE with kundalini yoga for the breath work, mantras and more traditional spiritual focus.

These days my passion is meditation and breath work with a concentration on short practices that work really effectively to relieve stress. This is why I put out my weekly “quick fixes”, which can all be found on my Youtube. I want people to know that there are really simple things they can do to completely change their energy in 1-3 minutes. You don’t have to reach for something outside of yourself to feel better. If you can just muster up the consciousness to catch yourself when you are in a tough spot and decide to do something different, you can start to re-wire your brain towards new and healthy coping mechanisms.

I put a new “quick fix” out weekly (or as close to weekly as possible), so this is a growing library of tools that can be used when you are in a rough place. My “daily breath” series are 5-7 minutes long. I started creating these after I heard about some new research that came out about 5 minutes of breath work being as effective as longer meditations. There will also be some longer practices coming too.

These days I’m committed to helping people whether they relate personally to addiction or not. Life can be totally overwhelming and feel like too much at times, but I’m here to help you create daily practices that provide relief. I share my story so that you know where I’m coming from with what I’m creating. The opportunity to help others is absolutely priceless because it helps me stay on my path. So, if you’re reading this, if you’ve done one of my meditations, taken one of my classes, are a friend or family, or just getting to know me, I want to thank you sincerely for your presence in my life and remind you that transformation and growth is not only possible, it’s what we’re here for.