t the core of complete recovery is a state of being in a conscious evolutionary process of completing itself. We respond to this life-giving source by staying up to the moment in taking care of our inner and outer needs, continually rediscovering those needs. We gain the courage to appropriately and authentically express our fullness. And we know what it is to be open hearted, and are conscious of when, where and how to experience this opening.

The grounding principal for APH and the journey toward complete recovery is respect for self and other, in that order. Through that respect and with compassion we lay down defensive weaponry and armor piece by piece and understand why they were once necessary. We come to view addictions, personal as well as cultural ones, as ways the organic system creates a feeling of equilibrium and safety in the face of conflict and trauma. We learn that with education, "wise inner counsel," and a new found resilience, underlying conflicts can present themselves for healing. As we are able to make it "okay" for them to come out of hiding, we grow more alive and authentic. Addictions fall away.

Adopting Your Own Process of Recovery

The definition of complete recovery expands with each person who adopts it as their own process. In the essential experience of complete recovery we:

1. Integrate many of the split-off aspects of ourselves so that we feel whole,
2. Reclaim our emotional, spiritual, and sexual fullness,
3. Present ourselves to the world free of toxic shame,
4. Experience a rich open-hearted spiritual connection with ourselves, others, and the pulse of the universe, and
5. Identify more with our spirit than with our conditions, realizing that we are always larger than the present challenges we face.

Expanding Your Recovery

Goals In Twelve-Step programs it is said that anonymity is the spiritual foundation for addictions recovery, a tradition born in Alcoholics Anonymous. In Authentic Process Healing (APH) the ongoing desire for completion, for feeling whole and resolved about our lifetime purpose, is the foundation of complete recovery. It is the binding spiritual glue that brings us together in community and makes healing possible.

The following "promises" are from Alcoholics Anonymous, the pivotal book that galvanized AA and inspired other Twelve-Step programs:

We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word "serenity" and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

I with 23 years of recovery, and many other "Twelve-Steppers", fully realized these promises only when we expanded our recovery objectives. In Authentic Process Healing (APH), we enlarge AA's promises:

We will know true intimacy, and connect in meaningful ways with others. We will finally heal the schism between our spiritual and sexual nature. Fear of authority figures will disappear as we put our faith in an inner, higher authority. In presenting ourselves shame-free to the world, we will discover our purpose for being. We will realize that God is the Great Spirit within us and beyond us. When we open our hearts we will know that we are the Spirit, represented in an energetic feeling called love. We will experience and know the feeling of complete recovery.

As we journey toward complete recovery, the self expands to include our larger world and the cosmos. We near completion of our own personal biographical healing. Our spiritual self is fully energized and blocks to knowing our holistic connection with life finally dissolve. Through recovering our "transpersonal self", our own healing merges with the transformation of the world around us. On this journey, from beginning to end, we are moving in the direction of a free-flow of energy and vitality that we can feel and experience.

For More on Complete Recovery

The journey toward complete recovery is anchored in understanding that recovery is a two-stage process.

1. In Stage One, and perhaps even in Stage Two, this can include rehab centers, 12-Step programs, addiction counseling, and other self help groups.
2. Stage Two of the recovery process is incorporated at different times for specific addictions and individual needs. We engage with APH practitioners to facilitate healing the underlying traumatic energies that our addictions sought to medicate.
3. For an in-depth understanding of this journey read The Journey Toward Complete Recovery: Reclaiming Your Emotional, Spiritual & Sexual Wholeness and Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma.

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