Katy Cryer - Yoga for Addiction: Using Yoga and the Twelve Steps to Find Peace in Recovery

Walking into a recovery meeting or yoga class for the first time can feel scary and unfamiliar for most. Katy Cryers down-to-earth, straightforward, and compassionate book feels like someone encouraging you, helping you find your bravery, and holding your hand as you walk into the room. She offers a clear guide on how to approach your healing as a whole, embodied, very human being.

Suzannah Neufeld, MFT, C-IAYT , psychotherapist, and author of Awake at 3 a.m.

With equal parts care, tenderness, and bravery, Cryer takes readers on a journey inward, and offers them the opportunity to grow into wholeness with renewed intimacy and appreciation.

Melanie Klein, MA , empowerment coach, professor of sociology and gender/womens studies, cofounder of the Yoga and Body Image Coalition, and coauthor of Yoga and Body Image

For more than 2,000 years, yogis have known of our addiction; not to any pill or drink, but to our ego self. It blinds us to our true self and leads inevitably to alienation and deep-seated sorrow. How fitting then is Katys work with yoga and substance addiction. Her series of self-investigations and yoga-based exercises are an accessible, effective holistic treatment program for such addiction; but more, to some extent that depends on you, your sorrow.

Richard Rosen , yoga instructor with thirty-three years experience; and author of five books on yoga, including Yoga FAQ

Yoga for Addiction is a remarkably comprehensive book. Its great contribution is its insistence that our recovery be grounded in the body. This understanding and wisdom is badly needed in the 12-step world. With its wise exploration of the steps, its personal stories, and its highly accessible introduction to both yogic philosophy and practice, it will be a valuable resource for every person on the path of recovery.

Kevin Griffin , author of One Breath at a Time , and cofounder of the Buddhist Recovery Network

Katy, a superb yoga student and teacher, has written a book that will support countless people in recovery. By combining accessible practices that help people feel more physically comfortable and confident with the 12-step process, this book is an invaluable resource.

Jason Crandell , internationally recognized yoga teacher and teacher trainer

In this clear, thoughtful, and accessible book, Katy Cryer provides tools for creating connection, which is at the core of recovery. Addiction disconnects us from ourselves, others, and our bodies. The 12 steps provide us with connection to others while yoga connects us to our bodies. I recommend Yoga for Addiction as a course of action for deepening recovery and becoming whole.

Stephanie S. Covington, PhD, LCSW , codirector of the Center for Gender and Justice; and author of A Womans Way through the Twelve Steps , Helping Women Recover , and Beyond Trauma

Publishers Note

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books

Copyright 2020 by Katy Cryer New Harbinger Publications, Inc. 5674 Shattuck Avenue Oakland, CA 94609 www.newharbinger.com

Cover design by Amy Daniel

Acquired by Elizabeth Hollis Hansen

Edited by Marisa Sols

Illustrations by Lynn Shwadchuck

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Cryer, Katy, author.

Title: Yoga for addiction : using yoga and the twelve steps to find peace in recovery / Katy Cryer.

Description: Oakland, CA : New Harbinger Publications, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020019879 (print) | LCCN 2020019880 (ebook) | ISBN 9781684035953 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781684035960 (pdf) | ISBN 9781684035977 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Yoga--Therapeutic use. | Substance abuse--Alternative treatment. | Twelve-step programs.

Classification: LCC RM727.Y64 C79 2020 (print) | LCC RM727.Y64 (ebook) | DDC 613.7/046--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020019879

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020019880

To everyone who has drunk too much, snorted too much, shopped too much, eaten too much, or loved too much. In short, to all of us who never learned the meaning of enough.

This book is especially dedicated to those of us who have tried 12-step programs and found them wanting, and to those who came before and those still to come who have lost their lives, their livelihoods, and their loves to addiction.

May we all keep trudging, keep coming back, keep keeping the hope alive. The answers are inside us, ready to be revealed.

Contents

Foreword

This is not an academic book. It is not a superficial book. Rather it is a book that offers a revealing, reflective view of how our yoga-practice lives can be integrated into our wider ones in profound ways. We can sense this depth immediately because of the intimate and captivating style of the author, Katy Cryer.

Yoga for Addiction is first and foremost a story of Ms. Cryers life: her addiction, fears, hopes, and dreams. It is the story of her becoming a fully functioning, healthy adult who, inside, shelters the burnished soul of one who has finally come to know and love herself.

I first met Ms. Cryer at a yoga retreat I was leading. She had come, in part, I think, because the workshop, titled Living Your Yoga, was based on the theme of looking more deeply into the transforming potential of our yoga practice. Yoga, it should be remembered, is both a practice and a state of being. In the end, the practice of yoga is not something we do but rather a truth we become.

Ms. Cryer seemed to take to this work with me immediately. She impressed me with her maturity and with the embodied, grounded energy with which she practiced in class and interacted with me and other students. After reading her engrossing book, I learned that the qualities she had demonstrated then had been hard earned.

I like this book because we can trust the author. She has felt and tasted and seen and known what it is to be addicted. And she has created for herself a path toward self-reflection and knowledgewith the help of her yoga practicethat is not only inspiring but real, honest, and admirable. I am grateful and delighted that Ms. Cryer has had the courage and insight necessary to understand how much the sharing of her story could be of help to so many others. Reading through the manuscript, I felt a connection to her words, which I am confident will be your reaction.

This book guides us gently through the traditional limbs of yoga practice by the lens of addiction. It shares with us the nightmare of addiction and how yoga teachings can help us to wake up to our higher self. It offers concrete tools and suggestions we can all relate to.

My personal addiction was anorexia. For three years in my twenties, I was mesmerized by the words of praise I heard from others as I became thinner and thinner. Soon, as a full-grown woman, I weighed only what I had weighed in the sixth grade. Yoga helped me move beyond this trap, just as it helped Ms. Cryer move past hers.

I have no doubt this book will help you if you have addiction issues, be it with alcohol, drugs, eating too much, or starving yourself. It will also help with your attachment to any other of a myriad strategies for avoiding the deep unexpressed feelings and traumas that drive us to these addictions.