Yoga | Katy Cryer Yoga

Katy Cryer, MS, ERYT500, is an author, yoga teacher, and recovery mentor breaking down barriers to a lifetime of sustainable practice.

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

Discover how yoga and the twelve steps can help you find freedom from addiction, exist peacefully in your body, and create a truly joyful life.

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While my gratitude toward 12-step work and the community is deep, my feelings about the dogma I've experienced, the centering of straight, cis, white men, and the over-identification with stigmatizing labels (including addiction) have all made the program increasingly difficult for me to participate in, much less endorse. I did address some of my thoughts in the blog post below, and plan to write more about it soon.

Humans are flawed. I still believe that the twelve steps are timeless suggestions for living more freely and that the synergy of twelve step work and yoga is incredibly powerful. I hope that you enjoy the book!

AA and the Patriarchy

Praise for Yoga for Addiction

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

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 Katy’s work with yoga and substance addiction. Her series of self-investigations and yoga-based exercises is an accessible, effective holistic treatment program for such addiction; but more, to some extent that depends on you, our sorrow.

Melanie Klein, MA, Cofounder of the Yoga and Body Image Coalition, and coauthor of Yoga and Body Image

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.

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

Walking into a recovery meeting or yoga class for the first time can feel scary and unfamiliar for most. Katy Cryer’s 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.

Judith Hanson Lasater, Ph.D., PT, author of ten books, including Relax and Renew

I applaud this book, and I recommend it for everyone: yoga students, those with addiction issues who do not practice yoga, those who live with and love those with addiction issues, and to yoga teachers who, perhaps unknowingly, have these people in their classes. Bravo, Ms. Cryer. With this book, you have transformed the difficulties and trauma of your life into a hopeful gift for the rest of us. We all thank you.

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

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.

Stephanie S. Covington, Ph.D., LCSW, Author of A Woman's Way through the Twelve Steps, Helping Women Recover, and Beyond Trauma

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 Twelve 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.