Enhancing Recovery through Prayer, Meditation and Yoga
Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, Vicki J. was surrounded by addiction. Both of her parents were addicted to alcohol. Her mother was also addicted to prescription diet pills and “downers.” When her parents divorced, each re-married an alcoholic and the drinking continued, accompanied by chaotic, violent behavior between her stepfather and mother–behavior that left a lasting imprint on Vicki and her blended family of seven siblings.
Vicki recalls feeling so petrified that she would lie in her bed and wonder, “Will he beat her up? Will he hurt us?” She also remembers shaking uncontrollably. “My sisters couldn’t stop me. My mother couldn’t even stop me because I had such terrible anxiety.”
As Vicki watched the situation grow progressively worse between her mother and stepfather, she turned to alcohol to escape her own anxiety and fears.
“I took my first drink when I was between 8th and 9th grade, and got totally drunk.”
In the midst of the ongoing turmoil at home, Vicki grew up, graduated from college, got married, had three children and found a job. It was at this point that her mother received treatment for addiction, one more time! Vicki finally felt a sense of hope: “Maybe now things can change,” she thought.
After going through treatment, Vicki’s mom got a divorce and started a new life. “She was a very spiritual person – not religious – but she always prayed,” Vicki says. “She had prayer time every day whether she was drunk or sober. And I find it kind of interesting that, through research I did later in my life, I discovered that an alcoholic’s craving for alcohol is equivalent on a low level to the spiritual thirst for wholeness, and I know she was seeking wholeness.”
Throughout all of this, Vicki continued drinking as part of her life, and during one drinking episode she fell down and injured her head. A counselor recommended an addiction treatment program, which Vicki completed and then joined an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) support group.
“And guess what? I was in AA and I still had anxiety,” Vicki recalls. “I couldn’t sleep. I was nervous. I was agitated. I was angry. I was verbally abusive. And I wasn’t drinking. It’s like I was on a dry drunk.”
Vicki’s therapist recommended that she attend family week at a treatment facility because of her family of origin issues. She didn’t feel that she needed it but went anyway.
“I found out I was totally wrong,” Vicki recalls. “I had the most profound and significant experience when I recognized that not only was I an alcohol, but I needed Al-Anon too.”
The experience also opened Vicki’s eyes to getting help for her family of origin issues. She realized: “I can’t control them, and I can’t cure them–and I needed to go to Al-Anon.”
The AA and Al-Anon Twelve Step meetings were transformational for Vicki who, like her mother, called on her faith to help her through. “Admitting [powerlessness], coming to believe and turning your life over to God as you understand Him, those Steps carry us through.”
Then someone recommended yoga to Vicki. “And I did it, and that has been a major part of my recovery tools ever since,” she says. Nearly 20 years later, after obtaining a license in chemical dependency counseling, Vicki became a certified yoga instructor. She also offers specialized yoga training for professionals in the addiction and mental health fields, and an active recovery blogger.
As for her relationship with her mother, Vicki says, “I idolize her. She’s done it. She’s been through hell and back, and I love her dearly.”
Twelve Step recovery and yoga continue to be core to Vicki’s recovery. “One great reality is the divine spark within each of us. God does live within us, and that must be nurtured,” Vicki says. “It is a gift – through grace – that we have to recognize and use in the right ways.”
That is exactly what Vicki is striving for by sharing her story with many others and letting them know they can enhance their recovery through prayer, meditation and yoga.