NAPLES, Fla. — A Certified Peer Recovery Specialist at the David Lawrence Centers for Behavioral Health in Naples said yoga and meditation are good for mental health, especially for people in substance use recovery.
Cory Webster says the word "Yoga" translates to "union" or "connection," and connection is the opposite of addiction. So incorporating the practice of yoga can teach someone who's in recovery how to connect with themselves. She said yoga creates a connection between your mind and body, and can ease anxiety by bringing you to the present moment and focusing on your breath.
Webster also said addiction centers in your mind, so meditation helps you pay attention to your mind and helps you clear those thoughts. She said it eases anxiety because it links your breath to present-time awareness. It slows everything down and gets you comfortable just being instead of constantly thinking.
Webster herself is in recovery from substance use disorder, was a client at the David Lawrence Centers, and now works there. She's also a yoga instructor after she discovered yoga during her time in a treatment program.
“I’m a hope dealer,” Webster said.
Her path to get to where she is today required a lot of hope, which she now passes on to every person she works with in her yoga classes at Yoga Lab in Naples and at the David Lawrence Centers for Behavioral Health.
"My sobriety date is December 16, 2017," she said. “My parents got a divorce when I was about 18. And I thought it was a normal part of growing up, drinking and partying. And I just started experimenting with substance and then I never stopped."
She said after being arrested for DUI for the third time in 2016, she was tired of fighting.
"My whole life, I felt like I was taking two steps forward and three steps backward. And I was just tired of living that way. And that's when I found David Lawrence Centers and pled into the Drug Court program," she said.
Webster said the Drug Court program is run between the State Attorney's office, the Probation Office, and David Lawrence Centers, which handles the clinical aspect. The three work together to help give people with substance use disorder another chance at a better life.
"Show them that recovery is possible instead of just sending them to jail or prison," she said.
It's an outpatient program that takes a year and a half to complete.
"I remember in the beginning, thinking, 'OK, well, I can't get away with anything while I'm in this program.' So I made that commitment with myself. I'm going to go all in. I'm going to do everything they tell me to do for a year. If at the end of that year, I want to go back to my old life, I'll just do that," Webster said.
But by the time she got to the end of the program, she said she'd changed so much, she didn't want to go back to her old life. With a year of sobriety under her belt, she was about to move on from the program when a friend introduced her to yoga.
"And I loved it," she said. "I feel like I was resisting life, and recovery, as well as yoga, is teaching you how to stop resisting life and how to start embracing it and working with it," Webster said.
She wanted to pursue it as a career, but the training was expensive. She said the David Lawrence Centers agreed to pay for half of her scholarship to get her certification. When she went to Yoga Lab with her story, they offered to pick up the rest.
"Now I work for both of the organizations that have helped me," Webster said.
For the last year, Webster has worked as a Certified Peer Recovery Specialist at the David Lawrence Centers. She can relate to people who are in the substance use recovery there and show them there is more to life on the other side of addiction.
"So in a way, it's kind of come full circle, and it's really special to me,” she said. "I mean, what an awesome life I get to live."
And she has a message for anyone who is struggling with substance use disorder:
"There's an easier softer way. And it gets a lot better when you just ask for help, surrender, and take that leap of faith," she said.
For more information on the David Lawrence Centers, click here.
