Yoga for recovering addicts.

Hi Pam,
I used to teach at 2 residential centres for people recovering from addition. One was for people coming straight from prison and they were encouraged to come but it wasn't mandatory. At the other place the people had to attend for 4 sessions and then they could choose. I preferred where people had the choice.

Response was very varied, slightly better in the mixed (men and women) group rather than the men only post-prison group. (but then quite a lot of the other clients had been in prison at some time or other).

Basically it's like any other group in that you have some people who want to follow a more meditative practice and others who go for the full-on physical stuff. Either way, something to grab the attention/a little challenge then the breathing/meditative aspects can be brought in.

My feeling was to work with practices to centre and ground with a small sequence that people could try themselves. I don't think anyone ever did but they would try the odd bit that they found helpful. These included; laying down, knees bent raising and lowering arms; Apanasana; 'caring breath' ; sitali breathing.

Some people did just treat it like a workout/gym session so squats and sun salutation worked for those. Other sessions were with a rest breath in between each repeat. That's the beauty of viniyoga!

Sometimes concentration/co-ordination can be a problem if there has been damage , especially from glue/alcohol as well. Laying down for any length of time in savasana didn't work so well. Cat and downward dog were great but can be tricky if there has been any abuse. I just used to move between kneeling forward bend with cat, or/and work from cat to dog with upward dog sometimes so people didn't feel vulnerable in cat for too long.

In a group situation, especially the men-only group, yoga was seen to be 'woman's stuff'/soft or that there was a resisitance to do it. Individually, and after the group sessions people seemed much more positive and we even got to have interesting discussion around the effects of postures/breath and "what it does to your head".

The (last) thing to mention is that there is quite a quick turnover so you never know who is going to be there , and usually they wouldn't have done much yoga previously. Keeps you on your toes but very rewarding.

Bit of a long post but hope it's been helpful.
Hope your classes are going well.
Kay

PS you might want to explore an enhanced disclosure (old police check) as these groups are seen as vulnerable adults.

I can't help directly with your question but have you tried putting "Yoga to recovering addicts" into google?