Angela Devani on Mindfulness, Sobriety, and Building Healing Communities

Rachel: Hello, hello. I am Rachel Kugel. This is Rachel Defends You, and I am super excited to have with us today Angela Devani of Elemental Magic. Her bio is awesome, so I have to pull it up over here because it is too lengthy for me to memorize, but it is super good.

Angela is a healer, a mindfulness teacher, and a sober community advocate. What she’s going to tell us about today is how she really chose this sober lifestyle intentionally. She wasn’t herself directly in recovery, but she wanted a different way of living. She wanted to set a different example for her children. She’s going to tell us, hopefully, about what led to that, and I can’t wait to learn about that conscious choice and how she came to it.

Since that time, she’s found community through The Phoenix, where exercise and kickboxing classes ended up becoming a powerful outlet for her for releasing stress, rebuilding strength, and feeling supported. What initially began as participation has turned into service. She’s now a volunteer and event coordinator there. She creates all kinds of welcoming spaces for sober connection and belonging.

Not only does she teach these classes, but she also does private sessions that include mindfulness. She works alongside drug and alcohol treatment programs, as well as court-mandated programs. I’m really excited to talk about that as well.

For those listening who cannot see, she is speaking to me in front of a variety of beautiful jars of what I understand to be herbs, and she also incorporates herbalism into her work and treatment. She has a beautiful and simple message about living in a deeply human way.

And for all of those reasons, I am very excited to have her with me today. Angela, thank you so much for taking this time, which, as you know, is not easy to carve out an hour or thereabouts, so thank you. I am very appreciative.

Angela: I was so happy to be here and excited to get into all this.

Rachel: Yeah. As you know, I had told you going into this that I’m a criminal defense attorney, and my niche is DWI defense. But any criminal defense attorney butts up against a lot of addiction issues — trauma, addiction, chaos, all of these things. Many of our clients are in those positions, otherwise they wouldn’t have found their way to us.

And so that was a real reason why I reached out and wanted to speak to you, because you work alongside the court system and can speak to some of that. But before we even get into that, I would love to hear your personal story of how you ended up in this work and how you ended up choosing a sober lifestyle. Can you tell me about that? I’m curious.

Angela: Yeah. Gosh, I got into holistic living and a holistic lifestyle around the time I got pregnant in 2010. My daughter is 14, so I have a 2010 baby also.

Of course, I had been studying holistic remedies before that, but then when I got pregnant, I was like, “I really want a more holistic life.” Through all that, I started studying mindfulness and herbalism.

I was married to a man who had an alcohol addiction. When I got pregnant, I stopped drinking, of course, and didn’t really drink much even years after I had my child. When her dad and I separated, I could have gone down a spiral and felt that urge from all the stress of trying to figure everything out. I was basically a stay-at-home mom trying to get my own business going, so I didn’t have a lot of income and was wondering, “What does this look like?”

Rachel: Super stressful. Super chaotic.

Angela: Yeah. And at that time, The Phoenix had just come to my town, and the woman running it was leading kickboxing classes. I thought, “Heck yeah, I’d really love to go work off some stress right now, and a punching bag sounds amazing.”

Rachel: Sounds safer for everyone, right?

Angela: Totally. So I started doing the classes, and she was going through a breakup at the time as well. It was really great to come into this community of women supporting women because it was all women in that class at that time.

As I started going to kickboxing more often, we had classes every few days, and The Phoenix’s ethos is that everything is free with 48 hours of sobriety.

Rachel: How do you prove it, or is it just that you’re saying it?

Angela: It’s the honor system.

I’d find myself unpacking or whatever I was doing and feeling stressed, thinking, “Wow, I’d really like a glass of wine right now.” Then I’d think, “Oh, but kickboxing is tomorrow, and that’s way more important than that glass of wine.”

Rachel: That’s so interesting. So that ended up being a catalyst for you to begin making healthy choices in a moment where it might have been easier to lean on that unhealthy choice.

Angela: Totally. That glass of wine is good for an hour, but the kickboxing is good on so many levels. The dopamine hit lasts so much longer than that glass of wine.

Rachel: That’s so cool.

Angela: Then I started volunteering. I didn’t teach kickboxing, but I teach an eccentric stretching class. Then I became the volunteer coordinator. My goal was to have a class every two days so anybody in that situation would know they had community and could come to one of our events.

Rachel: That’s such an interesting way to motivate sobriety or give people a reason. That’s a very interesting concept.

Angela: Yeah, it’s been really beautiful, and it’s been really helpful for a lot of people to be in that state and know that’s available. Everybody doesn’t always want to go to AA every night or another 12-step program.

We don’t focus on that with The Phoenix. It’s all about trusting the honor system and just coming together and doing group fitness or a book club or a coffee social or whatever the event is.

Rachel: So it’s almost like it’s creating a sober identity that’s not necessarily attached to drinking. Sometimes the criticism with something like AA — and I’m a big proponent of it, I think it’s one of the only things that works long term — but I also understand there’s controversy and criticism, and you have to meet people where they are.

What’s cool about what you guys are doing is that it’s a way to have sober community where you’re talking about something else and doing something else. You have an identity and fun. You’re allowed to sort of be the person you were, just in a sober state.

Angela: Exactly. It’s not about recovery in particular. It’s just, “I haven’t had a drink for two days.” We’ll have people say, “But I drink every now and then.” I’m like, “Did you drink in the last 48 hours?” They say, “No.” I say, “Okay, come go rock climbing with us tonight.”

Rachel: That would be awesome.

Angela: It’s really been fantastic for a lot of the people in our community.

Rachel: And so you really ended up building a life after that separation that is focused not just on sobriety, but overall mindfulness, good health, and wellness, right?

And it always interests me, too, because I’m not in recovery, but I am surrounded by a lot of people who are in my personal life. I always find it interesting that I chose a career and then a niche where I’m literally surrounded by people all the time who have some kind of problem with alcohol or drugs.

I’m like, maybe this says more about me than it does about them — that I chose so many things in my life where I kept surrounding myself with people struggling with these issues. It’s something I’ve only kind of become aware of lately. I didn’t realize I was doing that.

But I wonder if you think there’s something about your own life’s mission. I feel a kindredness between us in that neither one of us is in recovery, and yet we were surrounded by people who were or needed to be. We even chose careers that put us in the midst of that.

I wonder why. Is it that I’m supposed to learn nonjudgment? Is it that I’m supposed to learn how to get people through their worst day? I wonder if you’ve had any thoughts around that.

Angela: I feel like it’s multifaceted. Because I do a lot of mindfulness and spiritual work, I know that I enjoy my meditations so much more when I haven’t had alcohol or any substance. I feel like I have this greater connection to the earth. I’m an herbalist, so I do all this earth-based stuff. I like having that clarity in my life.

What I see with clients I work with who either have had addiction or currently still deal with alcoholism in particular is that they’re stuffing so much emotion down into their bodies. They feel like alcohol makes them more free.

I’ll say, “Why don’t we do two weeks of no alcohol and then have a session and see if it feels different?” Definitely, I feel like people are able to find healing in their bodies much quicker and much clearer than if they’ve had substances.

That’s been a lot of my drive too — just noticing the difference.

Rachel: And then working with the treatment court here in my county, you probably see that difference firsthand too.

Angela: Absolutely. We have conversations frequently where I’ll ask, “What was life like for you a year ago versus today? How is your body feeling?”

People will say, “Oh my gosh, I don’t have tremors anymore,” or “I’m finding joy being out in the mountains,” or “I can taste my food now.”

Those are things that, because I personally never had an addiction, I didn’t even realize were part of the experience.

Rachel: Right. I mean, I’m the same way. I could have a glass of wine at dinner or two beers, but I was never looking to get intoxicated. I can drink and go about my life, but I’m never chasing that feeling.

And yet, subconsciously or otherwise, I chose to surround myself with people with these issues. I often think, “What does that say about my purpose in this world?”

I’ve come to think maybe it’s about helping people navigate their worst day and navigate bad decisions.

Do you see a lot of people struggling not just with getting sober, but with shame and guilt around what got them there?

Angela: Sometimes, yeah. A lot of them are dealing with childhood trauma that we work through in sessions. There’s shame around not being able to stop, or not knowing how to stop, or not knowing how to ask for help — especially with men.

A lot of men will say, “I didn’t know how to reach out for help.” Then finally someone tells them about a 12-step program or another resource.

For myself, I surround myself with people who don’t have addiction issues because I feel like we’re on the same path. We can have really great conversations and still go out to a nightclub or listen to live music and have a good time together.

I don’t desire to go to a concert and hang out with people who are drunk. That environment still exists, but the friends I want to be with are on the same level — wanting clarity in their lives and not wanting to wake up wondering what they did last night.

Rachel: Right. That clouded feeling for sure.

How did you find your way to herbalism, and what does that really mean?

Angela: I was studying for a master’s degree in nutrition, and herbalism was one of the electives. It just felt really natural.

My grandma used to go pick dandelions and watercress and all this stuff, and when I was a kid, I thought, “That’s gross. I’m not eating your dandelions.”

But when I started reading about herbalism and applying some of these practices — like picking dandelions and drinking them — my body started feeling so much better. I didn’t have indigestion problems anymore, and my nervous system felt much more regulated.

It became a real passion of mine, especially after my daughter was born, to study it more thoroughly and then start teaching it.

I don’t really see clients specifically for herbalism. I like teaching people how to identify plants in the wild and how to make their own medicine or tea or whatever they want from them.

Rachel: I’ve actually heard people talk about dandelion or marigold tinctures for people who are empathetic or stressed out — like if you absorb too much energy from others. People approach me about that kind of thing a lot.

Angela: Interesting. Rosemary actually comes to mind for me. Rosemary is very protective, so if you’re an empath — which we all are to some extent — rosemary is really good at helping you contain your own energy and not take on everybody else’s.

Rachel: So is it as simple as throwing rosemary into the chicken you’re making, or is it more like a tincture or tea?

Angela: I use it in tea. I’ve never made a rosemary tincture because I honestly don’t know how that would taste. But I use it in tea, or I’ll carry a sprig of rosemary in my pocket.

You can also use rosemary essential oil and maybe put a dab on the top of your head or something like that.

Dandelion is really good for the liver and the blood.

Rachel: Do you have a good tip for stress? A lot of clients and people are going through really stressful times. Guilty or not guilty, the reality is it’s stressful.

Lavender seems like the obvious answer.

Angela: Lavender is great for about 95% of the population. For the other 5%, it actually stresses them out.

Rachel: Really? I didn’t know that.

Angela: Yeah. Lemon balm is probably my favorite. Melissa essential oil is amazing. Holy basil — or tulsi — is another good one. You can find them pretty easily in tea bags and things like that.

Rachel: And what do you do with them?

Angela: I would drink them as tea. You could also do tinctures.

But if you’re dealing with people in recovery, tinctures are usually made with alcohol, so that’s not always the best option.

Rachel: I’ve actually had DWI cases involving those stress remedies they sell at Whole Foods in those little yellow bottles. Some clients had taken them and didn’t realize they contained alcohol.

So yeah, the tincture thing definitely matters. Tea is probably better. Or maybe even just smelling it could help.

Angela: Absolutely. You can eat lemon balm. You can cook with holy basil. You can also make a glycerite instead of a tincture using vegetable glycerin instead of alcohol.

Lemon balm glycerites are pretty common because they’re great for kids and helping them calm down and sleep.

Rachel: What’s a glycerite?

Angela: It’s basically like a tincture, but made with vegetable glycerin instead of alcohol. You can also make herbal vinegars.

Rachel: Good tip. Thank you.

Rachel: How do you work with clients now? You said you don’t really do herbalism with clients directly, so what does your methodology look like these days?

Angela: My clients are primarily energy-healing sessions. I’m a Reiki master teacher, so I give Reiki to people. My whole thing is helping people heal the past.

Most people come to me saying, “I’m feeling stuck and I don’t know why,” or “I can’t figure out what my next step is,” or “My hip has been hurting for a while and I don’t know why.”

I take people on a guided visualization. Most of my sessions are that way. Everyone is different, of course, but I lead them through a process to get to the root of whatever is going on.

They may think they’re going to deal with getting pushed down when they were five, but maybe it’s really their dad yelling at them when they were eight. Their body is still holding onto that. Their energy field still holds onto that, even years later.

Trauma as a child is very different from what we think about as adults. As adults, we might think, “I was just trying to protect my child by yelling, ‘Stop! Don’t run into the road!’” But the child experiences it as, “Oh my gosh, Mom yelled at me.”

You don’t always realize how deeply the child version of you interprets and stores those experiences.

Rachel: Wow. And what do people experience after a session?

Angela: Usually they don’t have pain in that area anymore, or they feel lighter — like they’ve shed a huge weight.

Some of my work partners with forgiveness work or inner-child work. Sometimes it’s ancestral healing. If someone believes in past lives, sometimes it’s past-life healing.

I never really know what’s going to come up. It’s very interactive. We’re talking the whole time, and it’s led by them. They tell me what they’re experiencing in their body, and then I ask questions like, “What do you think this came from?”

I had a client the other day who said, “Well, I got run over by a truck when I was 19, but I feel like this issue actually goes back to when I cut my leg really badly when I was nine.”

So I said, “Okay, let’s do some healing work with that nine-year-old.” Afterward, he said, “Wow, it feels like there’s actually blood flowing through my leg now,” because before it had felt tender and stagnant.

Rachel: Do people need to believe in it for it to work? Let’s say someone doesn’t believe in past lives or energy healing. Can it still work for them?

Angela: It can be a little bit of both. Some people come in skeptical, and if they don’t believe in past lives, they’re probably not going to get information about a past life.

Instead, they’re going to remember things from this life — like getting bullied on the playground — and that’s what they’ll work on healing. If they’re open to healing that experience, they’ll usually feel a lot better afterward.

Rachel: It must be incredibly fulfilling to work with people who are going through something difficult — especially physical pain — and then see them come out the other side feeling better. I can’t think of anything more meaningful than that.

Can you do this work on yourself, or do you need someone else to do it for you?

Angela: I do work on myself, but I can’t always take myself deep enough. I’ll get to a certain point and think, “Okay, I’m good. I don’t need to cry about that.”

But then I haven’t really resolved it.

So I trade practice sessions with other practitioners because I can usually take them deeper than they can take themselves, and vice versa. That’s really beneficial.

Rachel: That’s interesting. I would love to get your take — especially because I’m a lawyer and a lot of people listening are lawyers too — on your work with the court system and what that looks like.

Is that through The Phoenix or separate from it?

Angela: It’s through The Phoenix. Our treatment court has both a drug track and an alcohol track.

Rachel: Which, by the way, is amazing. One of the biggest problems or controversies is that drug court is pretty pervasive now. Most places have some version of drug court because we understand addiction as a disease.

But there usually isn’t an alcohol court, which I’ve always thought was a huge disservice because alcohol is probably the most common drug and one of the hardest to quit.

If someone gets free from heroin or cocaine, eventually they can distance themselves from those environments. But alcohol is everywhere. You can be sober for decades and still show up at Thanksgiving and have alcohol right there in front of you.

Angela: Exactly. Alcohol affects so many people — people who are working, parents, everyone.

And there are actually studies now suggesting alcohol can function like a sugar addiction. That’s another interesting layer to it.

I started learning about that when I was researching things for my ex-husband. A lot of people gain weight when they stop drinking because they start craving candy or sweets instead.

Rachel: That’s fascinating. And honestly, it lines up with some of the new research about GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Mounjaro helping reduce alcohol cravings too.

There’s something about that same reward pathway in the brain. When people aren’t craving sugar or food in the same way, they also seem less drawn toward addictive substances.

So when you work with the court system, people go into one track or the other. What does the actual program look like?

Angela: It’s an 18-to-24-month program. The alcohol track is for people who’ve usually had four DUIs.

They’re going to court in lieu of going to prison. They have to apply for the program and pay a fee to participate.

They have urine analyses several times a week, three self-help groups, therapy, and group therapy. It’s extensive. Honestly, the fact that some of these people can do all of that while holding full-time jobs blows me away.

The administrator for our county asked me if I would start coming in to do mindfulness work with the participants. So now, every two weeks before court, I walk them through different exercises and tools.

I introduce them to breathwork. I bring singing bowls and a gong and show them how sound resonates in the body and helps reduce stress. We do vagus nerve resets and meditative art.

The whole point is to give them tools so that if they get to the brink of wanting to drink or use, maybe they’ll remember one of these practices — or maybe they’ll call me or their sponsor instead.

Rachel: Yeah, I think that’s awesome. It sounds really meaningful because one of the hard things about getting sober — something people maybe don’t realize — is that substances are often being used to numb feelings.

So once someone gets sober, they start feeling everything again. They need tools to cope. They need coping mechanisms that are better than alcohol or drugs.

Whether it’s kickboxing, mindfulness, breathwork, or meditation, different people are going to resonate with different things. I might hate kickboxing and love meditating. Somebody else might be the opposite.

I think it’s really cool that you’re giving people a whole toolbox.

I was going to ask you — and I think you’ve already answered this to some extent — what do you think courts get right, and what do you think they get wrong when they try to intervene?

Where I am, we have treatment programs. People go to a lot of classes, pee in a lot of cups, and check a lot of boxes. But we don’t have singing bowls.

The court’s goal is rehabilitation. It comes from a good place. But I don’t know how often it really works when the motivation is simply staying out of jail.

I’ve had clients where I’ll say, “If you go inpatient for 30 days, we can avoid jail,” and I still can’t get them to do it. That always surprises me because I would personally do almost anything to avoid jail.

So what do you think courts get right, and what do you think they get wrong?

Angela: One of the biggest frustrations I hear from participants is that the court can become very jaded toward them and not believe them.

Someone might have a false positive on a UA and say, “I promise you I’m not drinking, I’m not doing drugs, I’m not smoking,” and the judge says, “Well, I’ve got the proof.”

Then the participant says, “But look how low the levels are. Could it just be traces from something?”

One guy ate a bagel with poppy seeds, and it showed up on his test. He said, “Who would’ve thought that tiny amount of poppy seeds would show up on a UA?”

Then he gets sanctioned with another 14 weeks in the program.

Those small things become very discouraging for participants. After years of dealing with people who truly were manipulative, courts sometimes start treating everyone as though they’re manipulative. The people who are genuinely trying end up paying the price too.

Rachel: Yeah. I see that firsthand all the time.

I have clients with interlock devices in their cars who get positive readings and swear up and down there was no alcohol involved. We get dragged back into court, and they are simply not believed.

I always want to see the best in my clients, but I’m limited in how much I can help if something keeps happening repeatedly.

Sometimes I’ll suggest backup testing through an urgent care or something like a SCRAM device or a drug patch — just some additional layer of proof.

I had one client recently tell me he got a SCRAM device before going on vacation because he was so stressed about everything he ate, drank, or was exposed to. He said his stress level immediately dropped once he had it.

There are so many things people don’t even think about — being around smoke, certain products, all kinds of environmental factors.

Angela: Exactly. It really is a burden. And once people enter the system, they’re already behind the eight ball. There’s this assumption that they’re lying or manipulating because of the stigma attached to addiction.

Judges are in a difficult spot too because they rely on the program information in order for the system to function.

But some participants have told me about other required programs they’re in that feel very shame-based. One in particular asks questions like, “What would you do if you found out you only had 24 hours to live?”

And someone answers honestly, “I’d probably go do drugs.” Then the facilitator says, “No, you need to redo your answer.”

The participants start wondering, “Do you want honesty, or do you just want me to say what you want to hear?”

So instead of learning authenticity, they learn another form of manipulation.

That’s been really interesting for me to observe and try to help people work through — helping them understand that the deeper goal is improving their mindset and making healthier choices, whether they have 24 hours left or 50 years left.

Rachel: Right. And that brings up a really interesting question: can you manufacture rock bottom for someone?

It’s one thing when someone says, “I’ve hit rock bottom. I want treatment. I want a better life.” That person probably has a better chance of success than someone who’s only entering treatment because the court says, “Do this or go to jail.”

Do you see people actually staying sober long term after these programs? Do they ever come back years later and say they’re doing better?

Angela: I’ve been doing this for about a year and a half, and the program itself has existed in our county for four or five years.

I do run into graduates around town, and many of them are still sober and doing really well. They’re grateful they had the opportunity.

A lot of them tell me this is their favorite group because we have genuine interaction and they feel like they’re actually learning useful things.

But I’ve also had two people relapse and go to jail during that time, and it absolutely broke my heart.

They had children. They’d come into court crying and talking about how hard things were, and then they’d get caught drinking and driving again.

I remember thinking, “Why didn’t you call me?”

One of them even said, “I could have called anyone in this group. I could have called my sponsor. I just didn’t.”

That’s something I still struggle to understand, especially when they then have to tell their child, “I’m going to prison for a long time.”

Rachel: Of course. And you tried to give them choices and lead them toward better decisions.

And honestly, maybe that’s the perfect place to end, because it brings us back to where we started.

So much of what you’re involved in seems to center around community. Yes, there are court programs and required classes and all these formal structures, but underneath all of it, what I’m hearing from you is that community is the most important piece.

Why are you so drawn to the idea of community as a way of helping people heal? Why do you think it works?

Angela: Having support is life-changing.

There are so many people who feel completely alone and like they have nobody they can turn to. I’ve noticed in my own life how much better I feel when I’m in community.

That doesn’t mean I call somebody every single time I’m struggling. Some things I still need to work through on my own first.

But I’ve seen firsthand — both in myself and in others — that when people come together, lives change.

We’re seeing that across the country right now. When communities come together and support each other, people’s lives genuinely improve.

When people feel like they don’t have support, I want them to know that support actually does exist. It might be hard to reach out, but if you take that first step and find even one person or one group, it can make all the difference.

Community can decrease depression, decrease anxiety, improve sleep — all of it.

Rachel: I once read something that said the opposite of addiction isn’t necessarily sobriety — it’s connection.

People often end up in these dark places because they’re lacking intimacy and connection with other humans. Being human is uncomfortable. It’s messy and difficult.

But if we can figure out ways to connect with each other on this crazy spinning ball we’re all living on, life gets better. We feel better.

And honestly, that’s what I get from talking to you. Community and connection seem to be the thread running through all of your work.

So how can people find you and become part of your community?

Angela: My website is elementalmagick.net — with a “ck,” kind of the old-school witchy spelling.

And The Phoenix is nationwide. It’s not just here in Montana. You can go to thephoenix.org and find chapters and events all over the country, especially near larger cities.

Rachel: I love that. We could all use a little magic.

Thank you so much for this conversation. I think you’ve helped a lot of people, and I really appreciate you taking the time.

Angela: Yeah, thanks for having me. It was great fun.