The program is yours. The body is yours.
If you're in AA, NA, CA, HA, SLAA, Al-Anon, ACA, or any other 12-step program — this practice doesn't replace what you're doing. It doesn't conflict with it. It gives your body its own daily work alongside the program.
I worked the steps in early sobriety. AA helped save my life. I'm not currently a daily 12-step practitioner, but my respect for the program is real. The body practice I teach isn't trying to replace what the rooms gave me — and what they're giving you. It runs in a different place.
This page is for the person who is working a program and looking for an additional body-based practice. Or for the person who is curious about how yoga and the steps fit together. Both are valid reasons to be here.
Movement is medicine. Stillness opens pathways. That's the work.
Where the practice and the program meet
Four principles I hold when I work with people in 12-step programs. The boundaries are real, and the overlap is honest.
Yoga is not a step
It's a body practice. The steps are spiritual and cognitive work. They live in different places. Yoga can support the steps — it doesn't replace them, and it isn't one of them.
The body is one path to the eleventh step
Prayer, meditation, conscious contact — the body has its own way in. For many people, breath and stillness are how the eleventh step actually shows up in daily life.
Outside issues belong outside meetings
What we do here doesn't belong in your meetings. The program protects its primary purpose for good reason. The body work is yours to do where the body work is done.
Your program is yours
I won't preach the steps. I won't preach against them. Whatever framework is keeping you well — 12-step, SMART, Refuge Recovery, secular, religious, your own thing — is the right one for you.
Where they don't overlap
Yoga can't be a meeting. AA can't be a body practice. The honest list of what each offers — and what the other can't.
What the program gives you that yoga doesn't
A sponsor. A sober community. A literature. A framework for moral inventory. The people who will pick up at 2am. A shared language for what's happened to you. The shape of a daily program. None of that is on the mat.
What yoga gives you that the program doesn't ask for
A body practice. Nervous system regulation. Somatic processing. A non-cognitive way into the work. Time when you don't have to share, account, or take inventory of anything. Stillness that doesn't require words.
Where they support each other
The steps work in the mind and spirit; yoga works in the body. The program asks for honesty; the body practice gives the nervous system the capacity to be honest. The program asks for surrender; the body learns surrender through breath and stillness. The two practices, run alongside each other, often deepen each other.
Sliding scale
If you're in recovery, the standard rate may not be what's right for you right now. Email me. We'll find a number that works. No applications, no proof, no questions asked.
hello@renude.usCommon questions
Does AA approve of yoga?
AA doesn't approve or disapprove of yoga, or of anything outside the program. The Twelve Traditions keep AA focused on its primary purpose. What you do outside the rooms is between you and your higher power, your sponsor, and your own conscience. Yoga is one of many things people do alongside the program.
Is yoga an "outside issue"?
Yes — in the AA sense that it's outside the scope of what happens in meetings. That doesn't mean it's incompatible with recovery. It means it lives elsewhere. The body practice belongs in your life. The program belongs in the rooms. Both can be working at once.
Can yoga help me work the third step?
The third step is about turning your will and life over to a higher power as you understand it. Many people find that the body — slow, undefended, breath-led — is one of the places that turning over actually happens. Yoga doesn't replace the third-step work. For some, it makes it more accessible.
What about the eleventh step?
The eleventh step asks for prayer and meditation as practiced. Yoga, breath, and stillness are forms of meditation. Many people use the practice as their eleventh-step daily — alongside or instead of seated meditation. There's no requirement that meditation look one particular way.
Can yoga replace meetings?
No. Yoga doesn't give you a sponsor. Yoga doesn't give you a sober community. Yoga doesn't give you the people who will pick up your call at 2am. The program offers what yoga can't, and yoga offers what the program doesn't ask for. They are not interchangeable.
What if I'm in NA, CA, SLAA, or another 12-step program?
Same answer. The practice works the same regardless of which 12-step program you work. The body doesn't care which substance or behavior is in question — it asks for the same kind of attention either way.
What if I've left AA but still want recovery support?
Welcome. The practice is program-neutral. People in 12-step, people who've left 12-step, people who never went, people in SMART or Refuge Recovery or secular recovery, people working their own framework — all welcome. The body doesn't ask for credentials.
Do I need to be working steps to come to your sessions?
No. I don't ask. The practice doesn't require it. What you do for your recovery outside the studio is your own.
Have you worked the steps yourself?
Yes, in early sobriety. AA helped save my life when I first got sober. I'm not currently a daily 12-step practitioner — I've integrated other modalities over the years — but my respect for the program is real. The steps did honest work in me.
Will you talk about the steps in sessions?
Only if you bring them up. I won't preach the steps and I won't preach against them. The practice is a body practice. Anything cognitive or spiritual that you bring to the work is welcome, but not required, and not led by me.
Where to go next
The program is yours. The body is yours. Here's how the body practice runs.