I get asked all the time – Why should I use your approach to healing my addictive behavior? From my perspective I think better questions might be – What is different about how APP approaches healing addiction? How can APP get me different results?
I lead APP, an addiction healing program that is shamanic in nature. For anyone to understand this healing approach, we will first need to define ‘shamanic’. Shamanic, from shamanism, is defined as: creating relationships with nature and our spiritual consciousness so that we can heal our selves. This implies that we will re-connect with nature and journey into our inner world to discover who we really are. This very basic premise of a shamanic approach sets us apart from most ways to heal addiction.
Another difference about our program is that we know that we are motivated in life by seeking pleasure, all humans are. When we had pain and trauma as young people our natural instinct was to stop the pain. When we have addictive personalities, we look for something to help us end the pain we feel. The substance/behavior that we chose, i.e. drugs, alcohol, food, sugar, or sex helped us numb the pain and we saw this ending of the pain as pleasure, although only momentary pleasure. After the pain has ended and we have experienced the pleasure, we come down from the experience and the memory of the pain is still there. The experience of pleasure is not what we remember, we store the memory of the pain. Time after time, through our life, we build on that pain. The pain grows and we reach for the substance again and again creating long term pain and short term pleasure. This is exactly opposite of what a healthy happy human experiences.
Additionally, we have some core beliefs that lock us into the cycle of short term pleasure and long term pain. These core beliefs confirm for us that our experience of pain is what we deserve in this life. When we believe that we are bad and unworthy and that others could not love us if they really knew us, we create a life of separation. We lose our connection to our self, what life is meant to be and healthy relationships with others. We must find a way to develop positive core beliefs as our way back to health.
With these 3 different ways of looking at addiction, how do we approach the healing of the addictive personality? We offer a program that incorporates sacred medicine wheel teachings based on energy balance. We go out into nature and reconnect with nature. We do this by stepping into vision quest-like ceremonies, 12 of them, that challenge us to confront our weakness and build our strength. We also create a community of like minded folks that mirror to each participant who they are without the veiled pretense of separation.
This program is not a quick fix but an opportunity to really heal. Our goal is to get to the cause of the pain and gain an awareness of how to reset our beliefs about the trauma. The journey to happiness and health is a journey into a life of real pleasure.
We have two programs that will start in the fall of 2018. One in the U.K. and one in Arizona.
Contact us at worthyandsober@gmail.com to find out how to join us.