Recovery Yoga program offers step toward sobriety

Natasha Combs needed the support of other people to stay sober.

And while she attended 12-step programs and other groups in Sioux Falls, she still felt like some piece was missing. While she tried to figure that out, her therapist recommended trying yoga to support her sobriety.

First, the 24-year-old went to yoga sporadically. But then, she started going every day. And in the process, she realized she could connect the practice of yoga and the experience of community to her goal of sobriety.

“It was something consistent I could do, and I didn’t have to talk to anybody, and nobody knew who I was,” Combs said. As she kept attending, she got to know instructors, and they thanked her for coming. Still, she wasn’t sure she felt like she belonged.

“People think about yoga and think about hot yoga, or crazy poses, or being super flexible. But through some of the more gentle classes, I realized I was really missing that connection between my mind and my body,” Combs said. “When you’re addicted, your body isn’t connected to your mind, and that’s why people talk about that ‘going numb’ feeling.”

She said just as substance abuse separates those two things, yoga brings them together. She realized that feeling was what she wanted to share with other people in the recovery community.

Combs began exploring what that could look like, and she tried some of the Y-12 classes, or yoga combined with the 12 steps traditionally associated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Half of the class is yoga practice, and half is a recovery meeting. But Combs wanted a yoga practice that supported recovery but wasn’t a 12-step program.

“All I knew is that it was working for me, I was feeling better, and I could help others feel better,” Combs said.

Sometimes, you have to build what you want, and Recovery Yoga was born in late 2022.

Instructors Jamie Sterk with Wounded Healer Recovery and Shannon Ward agreed to teach the recovery classes.

Sterk, who teaches classes at Recovery Yoga on Sundays, also teaches 12-step recovery classes through her business, Wounded Healer Recovery. She saw some of Combs’ posts and knew they could work together to reach the sober community.

“Our main goal is to show people you can find your spirituality and sustainability for your recovery through yoga,” Sterk said.

 Classes began in Combs’ garage while she looked for a studio. She didn’t want hot yoga, and she didn’t want one with big mirrors, typical of most fitness studios.

“When you are doing things that remind you of your addiction, the last thing you want to be doing is staring at yourself,” Combs said.

She found the perfect spot at The Wellness Collective, and they began offering Recovery Yoga in December. The classes are restorative, or yin, yoga. That means it’s slow, supported poses, using blocks and bolsters to support you.

“When people think of yoga, they think of the power workout, but that wasn’t what I needed,” Combs said. “The whole purpose is to slow down.”

“With restorative yoga, the maximum amount of poses you do is about five, and they are relaxing poses, and you get into them and sink into them for five to 10 minutes,” Sterk said. “It helps you calm your mind and get in touch with your mind and your body’s limitations and connect with your breathing.”

The classes are held in the evening, and the yin practice allows participants to relax at the end of their day, Combs said. “I can go home and go to bed and start fresh tomorrow.”

Plus, they’re accessible.

“I’ve never gone to a yin class and not been able to do everything,” she said.

The classes are donation-based and average six to eight people. Participants are asked to sign a confidentiality agreement, typical of recovery support groups, that allows them a safe space to share their experiences.

“Recovery is not biased and does not discriminate,” Sterk said. “We have destroyed our bodies in a lot of ways, and this allows us to stop and calm our minds to help incorporate that with our bodies.”

There’s science to back this up, said Dr. Anna Lembke, professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine and chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic, in a recent U.S. News & World Report article.

“Exercise sets in motion the body and brain’s own healing and restorative mechanisms to increase endogenous dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, opioids, endocannabinoids, so that it’s actually a way to get dopamine, but indirectly,” Lembke said in the article. “Which means that it’s more enduring.”

The author of “Dopamine Nation” goes on to say exercise is helpful as a treatment for withdrawal and to maintain recovery.

Sterk said helping others sustain their recovery drives her.

“If we (those in recovery) aren’t finding ways to enrich our spiritual life and enrich our recovery, we are going to go back out,” said Sterk, who has 11 years of sobriety. “Yoga is something you can take with you. When all the traditional things like meetings or going through the Big Book (AA book) aren’t helping you, if you can find time to connect with your breath, it helps you get into meditation, into that state and connect with whatever your higher power is.”

The Recovery Yoga website features information about these classes as well as other offerings in the area.

“For some people, yoga is just what they need, but they don’t want a recovery meeting,” Combs said. She also mentions AA and NA meetings, as well as what inpatient options are available in the community.

“You can do all these things. There are so many options to build your recovery journey,” Sterk said.

Combs agrees.

“I want to meet people where they are,” she said. “I know what it’s like to be a person in recovery, and I struggled with that lonely feeling. You have all these people who go to the bar with you, and if they aren’t sober when you’re sober, you can’t be friends anymore.”

She sees her program – as well as others in the community – as a place to connect and support one another.

“Everyone who comes in is a person in recovery,” Combs said. “You are truly surrounded by like-minded people. Everyone in the room has been where you are.”

Recovery Yoga classes

Where: The Wellness Collective, 2333 W. 57th St.

When: 4:30 p.m. Sundays, 7 p.m. Wednesday and Thursdays,  and 3 p.m. Fridays