Recently we discussed the benefits of enjoying new activities for your addiction recovery process. Today, let’s turn our attention to a particular powerful activity.

The ancient practice of yoga.

There are many different schools of yoga from the slow-paced, calming practice of Hatha, to the more rigorous and energizing practice of Ashtanga. Each school has its own merits and each is suited for a particular time of day and mood.

But no matter which you choose to practice today, yoga’s greatest benefit, and it’s greatest lesson in recovery, is the practice of mindfulness.

Mindfulness is just that—the practice of being present and mindful in this very moment of your entire presence physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Without realizing it, most of us in and out of recovery live our lives totally outside of our bodies, virtually numb to everything that is happening. Rarely do we feel, both physically and emotionally, at every moment.

We numb ourselves with the Internet, television, text messages, smart phones, over-working, and the rigours of daily life. For those of us with addictions, we sought out extreme measures to keep ourselves numb from our pain, sadness, and anxiety, or to simply quiet our overwhelming thoughts.

Mindfulness brings us back into our bodies.

Through practicing mindfulness on the mat, we become aware of our minds, and its thoughts and feelings. By requiring us to align our breath with our movement, yoga does not allow us to numbly or blindly move through our practice. Instead, we must focus and concentrate to bring thoughts, movements, and breath into alignment.

By far, the greatest lesson of yoga is learning how to take our mindfulness off the mat and learning to live our daily lives mindful of our own selves—our thoughts, bodies, and emotions—and of others. 

Research has found a significant increase in the number of drunk driving incidents among young women from 1995 to 2007. 

Men, who characteristically are the culprits of drunk driving, still make up the vast majority of drunk drivers in the US.

However, researchers are seeing an alarming increase of both drunk driving and the number of fatal car crashes involving alcohol among young women. 

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Drug use is, for the most part, an attempt to escape daily life, and the stress, anxiety, and sometimes seemingly insurmountable problems that come along with it.

We all use different coping mechanisms to deal with these. Some of us were fortunate to learn early on healthy coping mechanisms on which to now rely on. The rest of us, on the other, did not. For those of us suffering from a drug or alcohol addiction, we rely on our substance of choice as the coping mechanism that we think works best.

But in reality, we are only fooling ourselves. Drugs and alcohol only dampen the negative feelings; they are merely temporarily blocking them out—the key word here being temporarily. Inevitably, when the effects wear off and we’re left sober, those feelings of stress, anxiety, sadness come rushing back.

Drugs and alcohol do not work to solve or resolve our problems. Sometimes, because of their negative effects on our emotional well-being and general outlook on life, they only make things worse. Never mind their familial, professional, financial, and sometimes judicial consequences.

The goal of addiction rehab, as part of your recovery from a drug or alcohol addiction, is to learn new, healthy and beneficial, coping mechanisms through professional psychotherapy and counselling. Activities like exercise, art, and even hobbies may also help to fill the void left by drugs or alcohol.

Without drugs or alcohol in your life, you will find a pretty large void in your life—probably bigger than you initially expected. Especially in the early stages of your recovery, there will be a void in your time. The time usually spent drinking or doing drugs will need to be filled with something else healthier and more constructive.

As well, you will need something to replace drugs or alcohol as a means to relax, to alleviate stress, anxiety, and even boredom; as something to do when you’re happy; as something to reward yourself with; and as something to comfort you.

Addiction treatment helps you to be mindful to not replace your old, unhealthy, habit with a new one. Working with an addiction counsellor while in treatment helps you to find a suitable, best-fitting way to deal with your negative feelings in a constructive way.

What are some of the other ways that you count on?