9 ways yoga helped me recover from addiction
The first time I ever practiced yoga was 2000. I had just returned from a trip to Santa Cruz where a dude in flowing peach robes handed me some literature on it, and it called to me like a long lost lover. I lived in Fresno and at the time, there was only one yoga class. It happened once a week, and it was taught in a church by an older white guy that reminded me of the leader of the Heaven's Gate cult.
I walked out of those classes feeling new, grounded, balanced, alive, and more than anything, feeling like I was going to be okay. I loved it, LOVED it, but I wasn't ready for it at the time, and after two months I lost touch with it for a few years. Then in 2003, in my last quarter of school at UC Santa Cruz, I started to have severe panic attacks, and returned to the mat, this time practicing Bikram Yoga (the very hot, militaristic style of yoga create…