Yoga Cocaine

Yoga Cocaine

Within the mind of many there is a feeling of hopelessness and despair and the only way that can focus on life is to escape using drugs and alcohol. Life hands everyone stressful times and manycan deal with it with the support of friends and family but when you hear the voice of Jess and listen to her story you will understand the true meaning of addiction, excuses, fear, unhappiness and yet she at times exhibits her own type of euphoria as she lives in a world filled with highs, lows, drunken stupors, men that she uses for her own amusement or pleasure and the opposite too, as we take the journey from start to finish learning whether she can fulfill her goal and get straight. The AA meetings we are privileged to attend with her, the bars she visits and the lack of faith she has in herself, as she professes to want to go straight and uses the age old adage: just one won’t hurt until its lots more.

Friendships, alliances, and connections that will set her free are limited. Lies, personal betrayals and the hope that centering herself doing Yoga will help her meditate and get herself in a better place the author includes the 12 steps at the start of the novel that set the stage for what is to come as we get some graphic and vivid descriptions of her many encounter while we read Yoga Cocaine.

Jessica cannot seem to decide whether to become free of her addition or take the easy road and continue until she cannot find her way anyone. This book takes us inside the mind of a young girl that is so hooked on drugs that she cannot see the sun from the clouds. The road to freedom is long and hard but will she make it as we hear her thoughts, meet the many men that she uses and uses her and the downward spiral that does not seem to be going up.

There are 12 sections each one focusing on one of the 12 steps to recovery. Will she suffer the path of addiction or will mindfulness and yoga set her free?

As Jessica attends a night out, she’s so strung out she literal thinks she can fly and spends time in the hospital with serious injuries. But will this be a permanent wakeup call? April is her sponsors helps her as much as she can but as you enter her world you realize it’s still filled with drugs, alcohol and the wrong men . One died of an overdose while she was with him, others strung out and Jessica hardly able to function. Yoga is supposed to center her, and the different positions described serve different purposes in her recovery, but she has a long way to go and it’s up to Jessica .

You hear the frustration, the excuses and justification for backsliding and then her determination to move ahead. This is a story that many might identify with, but will it help others too?

This is a journey that many have taken, and some have fallen prey to the whims and wants of others in order to feel accepted or part of a group. Jessica uses Yoga to center her and create a better balance and calmness free of chemicals. But remembrances haunt her, times with family hope to make her realize she is loved but first she must love and respect herself.

April tries to be there for her as her sponsor but at times she lies to her and then feels guilty but goes ahead down the wrong path any. Men come and go, and she thinks they care but they really have one goal in mind same as hers. Gratification short lived.

After her flight off the roof she explains how she is now drug free and  go back to work at the cafe.

Change is hard for her and those in her Yoga class as Rhonda is no longer there, another takes her place and a new friendship is born but Jessica flashes to the death of her father which still plays on her mind, controls her thoughts about God and how she and her mother’s husband did things behind her back. Loyalties to herself and no one else and self-gratification was what made her feel alive until it doesn’t.

Each chapter brings a change in Jessica or someone in the group that has a story shared. Told in Jessica’s voice we learn why at times she regrets her actions in the past, is afraid of new relationships and often makes excuses for her behavior and yet at some point we realize that her only way to escape her stress, feelings of non-acceptance and longing to feel high and no pain , is to drink or take drugs. Sometimes life hands you a deck of darks that is filled with black aces and you wonder why yours is on a downward spiral. Hearing Paul’s story should have brought many to their senses but each person has to deal with addiction in their own way as the third and fourth steps and the second as you read them and relate them to the Higher Power of God will help guide you along her journey in a powerful way. Author: Daralyse Lyons’s research has to be intense and the focus on Jessica and hearing her words, her ghosts and demons that haunt her and escaping through drugs, sex and alcohol finally brought her to use Yoga as her salvation and guide to inner and outer peace.

As Jessica attends a night out, she’s so strung out she literal thinks she can fly and spends time in the hospital with serious injuries. But will this be a permanent wakeup call? April is her sponsor helps her as much as she can but as you enter her world you realize it’s still filled with drugs, alcohol and the wrong men . One died of an overdose while she was with him, others strung out and Jessica hardly able to function. Yoga is supposed to center her, and the different positions described serve different purposes in her recovery, but she has a long way to go and it’s up to Jessica .

You hear the frustration, the excuses and justification for backsliding and then her determination to move ahead. This is a story that many might identify with, but will it help others too?

This is a journey that many have taken, and some have fallen prey to the whims and wants of others in order to feel accepted or part of a group. Jessica uses Yoga to center her and create a better balance and calmness free of chemicals. But remembrances haunt her, times with family hope to make her realize she is loved but first she must love and respect herself.

April tries to be there for her as her sponsor but at times she lies to her and then feels guilty but goes ahead down the wrong path any. Men come and go, and she thinks they care but they really have one goal in mind same as hers. Gratification short lived.

After her flight off the roof she explains how she is now drug free and go back to work at the cafe.

Change is hard for her and those in her Yoga class as Rhonda is no longer there, another takes her place and a new friendship is born but Jessica flashes to the death of her father which still plays on her mind, controls her thoughts about God and how she and her mother’s husband did things behind her back. Loyalties to herself and no one else and self-gratification was what made her feel alive until it doesn’t.

Jessica seems bent on taking herself down a path back to where she was before staying sober. Abused by her stepfather and her mother distraught because he wanted out of their marriage, she is placed in a tenuous position and the result of her conversation with him is negative when staying with her mother driving her to drink. The third step prayer was the center of the meeting that had to be recited to begin the healing. With her sponsor next to her she recounts the harms she perpetuated both on and out of addiction. Finally admitting who she is and defines herself in detail as a user, having sex with men for money, using drugs and smoking weed. Treating people like objects.

The remainder of the chapter expands on her mother, her own miscarriage and the chasm that divides her from the rest of the world and becoming close to anyone for a long time. Guilt is pouring out as she relates what happens when her father dies and blames herself for wishing him gone. Anger sometimes causes even adults to say things they don’t mean as she begins Yoga class and the memories overtake her.

Her sister has never really been close to her and each one takes a short encounter to try and bridge their gap but things take time and she’s invited only to her sister’s wedding ceremony and then Jessica and her best friend Carla are at a crossroad she has to stay sober and Carla has to deal with her husband Lea her for a man.

Some endings are new beginning and Jessica and Carla embark on a path that they hope will set them free from the past and more unburdened in the present.

What she decides to do will be revealed in steps 11 and 12 and like all mysteries some things you need to unravel yourself when you read the final chapters and take the last part of her journey along with her . A powerful story with real life situations and an issue that is in the headlines too often as so many escape reality and stress by using drugs, alcohol and prescription meds to take away their pain and escape to another place. Self judgement, Peer and family conflicts and Jessica who must decide at the end Yoga or Cocaine! Powerful, dad, tragic at times and yet at some points uplifting, Yoga Cocaine is a great resource for drug counselors, sponsors, addicts to understand what addiction can do and young teens to learn the perils that Jessica hoped to overcome. Self-reflection and an awakening and a realization that might change it all for her and an ending filled with twists and surprises. As Jessica takes a step in a direction that might even surprise her.

Fran Lewis just reviews