INTRODUCTION
I wrote this book because I believe in you. I believe you can escape the chains of addiction and despair. In fact, I know you can. I am your ally, standing beside you, shining a light on a path that leads out of the nightmare of dependence and co-dependence. When you read the stories set out in this book, you will read about events that might sound like they could have come from your own life. That is why I want you to pay attention to what happens next, because I had a complete healing from my patterns of self-destruction and I am here to guide you to yours.
This is a book about recovery—my recovery—from addiction to drugs, specifically cocaine. But, as anyone with the mind of an addict knows, my patterns didn’t stop there. I was addicted to filling the bottomless pit of my broken heart and hungry soul with any and everything external to myself—drugs, love, men, food, you name it—if it gave me the temporary illusion of feeling whole and complete, even if only for an instant. My wants knew no end. Those wants nearly destroyed me and my child many, many times over.
But I rose like a phoenix from those ashes. I rose to claim my true power. And God responded. Call it the Universe, call it Spirit, call it whatever—I am referring to that great and all-knowing power that has created us all.
My name is Ester, and I am a powerful, magnificent, whole, perfect and complete expression of Spirit. That has always been my true identity. And it is also yours.
But I forgot. It’s easy to forget.
My early upbringing taught me that I was powerless, unworthy, not enough—and I bought it.
The fear, unworthiness and shame I felt were so much a part of my identity that it was as if they were in my very bone marrow. I couldn’t tell where these feelings left off and I began. I couldn’t separate myself from the fiction I had identified with for so long. That story had been repeated over and over until it seemed like it was true. But it wasn’t true. It never was.
Just getting off the drugs didn’t stop the patterns that were distorting my vision. Getting clean didn’t heal my crazy, obsessive thinking. The issues that had led me to the drugs—in the first place—were still running my life, even after I got sober.
So what was missing?
As much as I had recovered, I was still the walking wounded, bleeding from the inside out—as if slashed to ribbons by the fearful thought patterns and beliefs I had taken on as my reality.
I want you to get this, because this is at the heart of your healing, too. The keys to your Soul’s recovery go deeper than just getting clean and sober, leaving painful and unhealthy relationships or abstaining from other compulsive behaviors.
Even after over a decade of sobriety and working the 12 Steps with the desperation of a dying woman, I still had trouble accepting that I was worthy of good, even when amazing opportunities like appearing on The Oprah Show, The Ellen Show with Ellen DeGeneres and The View were happening in my life. Why was I still broke when I was earning more money than I had ever imagined? Why was I still looking—no begging—for love in all the wrong places? Why was I still filled with fear about everything?
The answer was that I hadn’t healed my self-worth.
The 12 Steps got me as far as they could take me. They got me to sobriety and for that I will be eternally grateful. But I wrote this book because I believe there are layers of our wounded thought patterns and beliefs that the 12 Steps are simply not designed to heal.
In the beginning of the recovery process, we are all like infants—learning to roll over, stand up and walk. The purpose of the 12 Steps is to stand us up and prepare us to meet our true selves as expressions of God.
I am a living testament that the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are extremely powerful. They were the steps I required in the immediate crisis of drug/alcohol and food addiction. But there came a time in my healing when the Steps were no longer enough for me. I needed to take the power greater than myself out of the sky, the churches and AA meetings, and connect it to myself in a more tangible way.
The 12 Steps brought me to the realization that I was powerless and that my life was unmanageable, in order that I could be humble enough to truly listen, grow and find a new direction.
After years of practicing the principles I learned in the 12 Steps—turning my life over to God and experiencing a direct connection to that power— the strangest thing happened: I realized that the power of God was not greater than me.
I realized that it was me.
Oh, what a revelation; what a breakthrough! I couldn’t continue to affirm my powerlessness according to the 12 Steps because I no longer believed I was separate and apart from the source of Life itself. This changed everything. Many people suffering from dependence make all the right motions—attend meetings, church, memorize readings, talk to their sponsor, minister, spiritual teacher or psychological therapist—yet never actually reach their full recovery. I call this “healing from the outside in,” because it works on the surface of the problem without achieving any permanent change. But by identifying my own life as an aspect of God’s, I could heal “from the inside out”—which didn’t just support my recovery from drugs and dysfunction, it recovered my wholeness as an expression of God Itself.
The ideas and the practices I developed from that moment on are what inspired and birthed what I now call the 12 Keys of Soul Recovery. The 12 Keys outline a process designed to access an under-utilized, yet incredible inner power that resides in all of us. While Soul Recovery is inspired by the 12 Steps, it is an expansion of the idea into the spiritual dimension—where healings takes place—far beyond the treatment of addiction and dependence.
Because when you are consciously connected to your inherent power, you are restored to balance, harmony and order. Cravings and out-of-balance behaviors simply dissolve in the face of it, because you are no longer operating at the "vibrational frequency" of powerlessness. You are operating in concert with the highest vibration that there is.
Now, I understand and recognize that clinical and psychiatric approaches to addiction and dependence can be very useful. I know people whose lives have been changed—and saved—because of therapy. But for someone like me, who came into this world already haunted by a thousand forms of fear, whose illusions of separation from her inner Spirit were so profound and whose experience was beset by violence, pain, addiction and one crisis after another—therapy is simply not enough. Church is not enough. Nor is the simple recitation of “think positive” affirmations enough.
This book tells my story: a story of a broken, wounded and seemingly powerless girl and how she was restored. It is a story about how to use the 12 Keys to heal. It is a book about transcending the "story" of being a victim in order to create a new life of balance, order and harmony, even in the midst of difficulty and challenge.
Because if I can, you can.
As you read, understand that Soul Recovery isn’t about attaining perfection, but is about reclaiming your inherent wholeness. I will present to you a process that connects you to the power within—a power that is already perfect. It is through the realization of that inherent order and perfection that you will be able to meet challenges with a sense of freedom, peace and worthiness. It is a process that uncovers the magnificence that you already are, and prepares you for the amazing life you deserve.
While the 12 Keys can be utilized by anyone on the journey of recovering their wholeness, I wrote this book particularly for those still in the throes of a torn and injured existence of addictive behavior—drug addiction, love addiction, food addiction, domestic violence, child abuse and worse. Even if you’re not sure, I know that at your core, you are whole. And I am convinced that my story and the processes I’ve developed can help you to realize this inherent wholeness.
Soul Recovery and the 12 Keys gave me back my life by providing a mountain-top view of reality beyond anything I had experienced before. The 12 Keys expanded my awareness beyond being free from addiction, to living in a state of mental freedom I never knew was possible. The teaching uncovered in me the hidden splendor of self-esteem, empowerment and self-love in a way that I thought was for other people, but not for me. This is how I know it is possible for you.
Working with and embodying the 12 Keys continues to support me in staying awake to that all-pervading truth.
And it can do the same for you.
I love you,
Ester Nicholson