Ester Nicholson – Soul Recovery
By the early 1980’s, Ester Nicholson was a “functional” addict, doing office work part time, freebasing when the money was there, and finding any means to feed her various addictions.
Music was long forgotten.
…and a path to healing
Ultimately Ester’s child was removed from her custody when it was clear she could no longer care for her – functional or not.
As so often happens, tragedy created the perfect incentive.
Slowly climbing out of desperation, Ester found her way to 12 Step meetings. At first only seeing them as a continuing venue for her disease, she later was inspired to do the hard work of declaring her powerlessness in the face of the addiction. From these tentative beginnings, she worked her way forward.
One, two, five, ten days; then two weeks, then 90 days clean, this was progress that counts.
But relapses happened. It wasn’t clear why.
What was the underpinning that drove the addiction in the first place? It couldn’t be purely medical. And it couldn’t be purely psychological. As Ester later discovered – addiction, dependence, obsession and compulsion are related, yet entangled challenges. They require unraveling because the dysfunction becomes a part of the identity.
In point of fact, they are identity diseases.
But for Ester to discover that, she needed a state-change in her awareness – a non-linear jump. For her, that came in the form of a spiritual teaching that redefined what her personal identity was. She had to “find God” – but a God redefined beyond the 2 dimensional view of an angry, withholding and anthropomorphic God. And very likely, a God that would be unrecognizable to her Baptist roots.
