Yoga booze fests

WINE BOTTLES CLANG as José Manuel cleans out the recycling bin from the previous night’s post-dinner gathering. I am keenly aware of the high-pitched sound as each bottle drops into the bin when only three out of 12 people show up for morning meditation.

The clatter continues and distracts me from my meditation. 
I am to observe, not react.

I observed that 10 people routinely consumed over 10 bottles of wine per night. 

Here’s where I am reacting. 

We’ve witnessed that abusive behaviour and alcohol consumption seems to go hand-in-hand with yoga “retreats.” We’re not austere or particularly fundamentalist about yoga practice or yoga retreats. But, seriously, is drinking so important during your “yoga retreat” that your yoga practice becomes optional?
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“Have we once again fallen prey to the lure of always needing more? Always needing to enhance our experiences, instead of enjoying them for what they are?” an editorial posted by drinktank.org reads.

But, are we alone?
"We pretty much allow anything as long as you show up for class, even if that means that you just lie on the floor and sleep," said Heather Lilleston, the co-founder of Yoga For Bad People, in an article penned by Mia Adorante in W magazine.

Look, we’re not anti alcohol or anti fun. We highlight local wines (hey, we’re in Portugal after all!) and even dish out our home-made liqueurs during our dinners. We develop yoga programs that include opportunities for leisure and adventure. Our higher aim is to help people to Discover and Feel the Azores, not discover and feel another hangover. 

In the 35 yoga retreats we’ve organized and hosted in the last three years we have witnessed addictions, abuse and overstimulation during many of them.

So, I don’t know if I buy the “anything to get someone in my retreat” or “at least they’re trying yoga and starting their journey” mantras.

Not when it seems that the transformation we hoped for isn’t happening.

Our higher aim is to help people to Discover and Feel the Azores, not discover and feel another hangover. ​

Once during a retreat here I heard a shriek from our innkeeper upstairs. One of the retreat participants partied so hard he literally shat himself and left the soiled underpants in the middle of the room.

During another retreat the cleaning staff informed me that nearly half of the participants had been regularly vomiting from over drinking and we needed to call a plumber to clear out the system. 
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For some groups the abuse is coffee and overstimulation. During a retreat we averaged about four mugs of coffee per person at breakfast. In another retreat the addiction was overplanning, where every moment of free time during the retreat was planned and often double-booked with a constant low-level anxiety and FOMO.

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