Hi 3L3VAT3,
Welcome to AYP.
I tapered off a methadone script over about 2 years and then had the good fortune to try out a yoga class a week or 2 after, in jan,06 and then quickly adopted a regular asana practice at home, until i awoke my kundalini,somewhat prematurely ,11months later.
The practice is what took away my cravings though( couple of months proper ,and i was no longer thinking about heroin any more.i'd found something else,not without some effort though.); had i not discovered yoga very shortly after dropping the script I'm pretty sure they would have still been there.I had spotted this forum ,during that first year then, although i had no internet connection at the time.
I can testify that yoga can get you off addictions to opiates like heroin and methodne because they treat it at the ROOT which is the habit-forming behviours in the mind, through a kind of deep neural re-programming.They set up new habits. As long as you've got the bhakti,i.e nothing to lose,which you sound like you have, and a willinginess to try out the practices.
My advice is to just stick and perssist with yoga practice through a regular routine.
If you're following AYP- my advice is also to follow the programme in it it's entirety from the start, as Yogani has laid out in the lessons, starting off with deep meditation.
http://www.aypsite.com/plus/13.htmlMany folk seem to just remain on opioids( i was one of them) and don't get off or manage to remain off them long-term even despite their many not totally successful attempts. Or they even end up dead.There are now a number of people i can count on one hand,at least, who i may have had contact with through drugs, who have ended up that way.It's a slippery slope.
I think the effort involved in kicking an addiction of this sort seems to translate and can get transformed into a great deal of bhakti or spiritual desire.We can undergo a major transofomation because we realise we have the means,the tools, to wake up to our true potential.A life without drugs ,and a whole lot more,more than we ever imagined or even dreamed possible.
I was on heroin from about 1997 onwards then i took up long-term methdonae script in about 2002 and then used somehwat less, and dabbled in this & that , because that lifestyle was quickly unsustainable.The amount of shoplifitng i did would have landed me in jail sooner that later. And i had a very brief period of homelessness coupled with having to score in really hell-hole places, which was all part of the package/lifestyle i guess.
When i first read of Carson's story on the web i sensed there was someone that had went down a similar path.I think my whole life and the culture i grew up in, early-ish on in school , smoking hash and experiementing with acid, & then continuing through uni. with the start of the rave scene in the uk here etc,had always invovled drugs of one kind or another.Of course,I never thoguht i'd get into heroin shortly after leaving uni. and geting deported from Japan (in 1997) for trying to teach English without a work-visa ( not my fault but my employer's), no-one does( 'it would never happen to me' thought has got to be a unviersal one).
Good to see more addicts/ex-addicts popping up and embracing yoga.I'm sure we're not the first and certainly won't be the last.
It would'nt suprise me of the rishis of old had experimented in drugs before they found that yoga could alter their Consciousness on a much more profound and real level.
P.S --In my view, drugs are just an escape from ,or an obscuration of, our true nature.They can provide a lot of relief in a time of crisis and help with alot of pain, albeit temporarily, on a physical,mental & emotional level.But of course they don't really provide a long-term solution( the next day, of course, you're just looking for another fix again, for whatever it is that might ail you)