Heidi Alfrey paced the narrow cell, her blue inmate's jumpsuit stiff and smelling of chemicals. She couldn't believe the last drunken driving arrest, her third in seven years, had actually landed her in jail for two days. Plus she had to attend a Weekend in Probation program.

It was June 1983, in Austin, Texas. Alfrey, 23, had prided herself on being a rebel. Alcohol was her courage and her constant companion, her secret weapon against frustration, loneliness and self-doubt. But the weapon was getting out of hand.

As she sat through the weekend program, she heard something that gave her hope.

    “Alcoholism is a disease,” the facilitator said. “We aren't bad people; we just have a bad disease.”

Alfrey clung to the notion that she wasn't a bad person. When the facilitator urged her to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, Alfrey listened.

In April 1984, she achieved sobriety. Later, friends in her AA community encouraged her to attend the nearby Unity church.

    “Walking into Unity, a place that teaches God is love, and finding a community that would love me until I could love myself, was mind-blowing,” Alfrey says. “I felt a sense of freedom, God and Spirit that I had not felt before.”

The Unity experience supported and enhanced her recovery. Today, AA and Unity are still Alfrey's spiritual support communities.

In 1987 Alfrey moved to Italy, taking the Unity message with her, looking for the beauty in everything. As she transcended her addiction, she focused on her wellness and the gifts she had to share.

Then she began traveling the world as a flight attendant.

    “I always carried my Daily Word,” she says. “I called Silent Unity for prayer, attended Unity retreats, and visited Unity churches.”

In 1994, when she was based in Florida, she took a 4T Prosperity Program, a 12-week course focused on living an abundant life. During the session, the facilitator asked, “Are you doing what you were born to do?”

    Alfrey had to answer, “No.”

    “I realized I needed to quit my job,” she says.

She resigned and the Unity minister put her to work as a wedding coordinator, head usher and speaker coordinator. She became a licensed Unity teacher. In 2000 Alfrey moved to Maui and became involved with a Unity church there. As she taught classes, she developed a deeper spiritual understanding of who she was.

That understanding led her to ministerial school at Unity Village and to her current position as the associate minister at Unity Temple on the Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri.

The first time she spoke from the pulpit, she shared the personal story of her addiction and recovery.

    “As I stood in front of all those people, once again, I felt the hand of God, saying, ‘Wake up and be you,'” Alfrey says. “I was willing to be vulnerable.”

Today Alfrey shares her insights as she helps others in their recovery and spiritual journey. She is currently creating a documentary film observing the transformation in people who apply Unity's life-affirming principles; it is titled Let's Get Naked.

    “Unity says that we are all created in the perfect form of who we are. I believe our only job is to know that.” 


Finding the Blessings
Reverend Anna Shouse of Olympia, Washington, has a vision: Every Unity church proactively supports the addiction/recovery process.

    “A church is like a family,” says Shouse, who has a master's degree in addiction counseling and is host of the Unity online radio program Spirit of Recovery at www.unity.fm/program/spiritofrecovery. “When we educate family members, they understand the difference between supporting recovery and enabling continued illness. Churches can do the same.”

Shouse is so committed to her vision that she's started a consulting ministry called Soul Matters-Spirit Works. 

    “Once people get into recovery, it's essential they keep growing spiritually,” Shouse says.

As a minister and counselor who has helped herself, family, friends and others through such spiritual growth cycles, Shouse understands the healing power of Unity principles.

    “These principles strengthen and deepen the sense of self in a positive way,” Shouse says. “A lot of recovery is about letting go of the fear-based sense of self and allowing in the spiritual self. Unity is one of the few philosophies that clearly affirms God is a friend of the self. That's astounding.”


Shouse understands the deep hurt and hopelessness that can overwhelm families that have addiction issues. But the Unity philosophy that expresses our oneness with God and Spirit offers an avenue to true forgiveness.

    “Through my work, I've seen the ravages of addiction and the miracles of recovery,” she says. “When family members get into their own recovery, they can open the doors to a spiritual life. This is the incredible blessing of addiction—the gift of a spiritual life.”


Unity Principles Affirm and Uplift
Edith Washington is an unusual woman in many ways. She is a licensed electrician. She has four adult sons who she raised as a single parent. She is a survivor of domestic violence, suffered both as a child and as an adult. In 1991 she was forced to flee Indiana with a baby and her 3-year-old twins. She left behind everything.

Washington is good at starting over, at reinventing herself and facing her problems. But when she started over in Minnesota, Washington carried a dark secret.

    “I was an alcoholic and an opiate addict,” she says. “Addictions were running my life.”

In 1994, when she was 34 years old, she went to see an intake counselor at the Institute on Black Chemical Abuse.

    “You have not dealt with your addiction problems,” he told her. “You should attend AA or NA (Narcotics Anonymous). Go to seven meetings in seven days.”

Washington thought, “He's out of his ever-loving mind. I'm working and raising my boys. I'm too busy to be trotting off to meetings.”

But his words stuck with her. That month, she was laid off. Her brother came to live with her and he helped care for the kids. Suddenly, she had time.

She tried to attend meetings, but was not ready. Still, the counselor's words haunted her. By April, she decided to try seven meetings in seven days. She went to AA or NA every day for a month.

     “I went with a desire to quit, but I didn't stop drinking or using opiates,” Washington says.

Yet a month later, at an AA convention of 5,000 people, Washington felt the presence of the God within take over her entire body. She's been sober ever since. 

Washington was able to stop drinking and using drugs, but she was not free from addictive behavior. Food had been her initial addiction. Throughout her life, eating sweets and carbs had helped her cope with horrible situations. Sweets had also helped her transition off drugs.

In addition to attending twelve-step groups for compulsive eating, she has also attended others, such as those that assist with clutter.

In 1999 her AA sponsor suggested she attend a Unity church. That experience was life changing.

     “Once I got to Unity, everything made perfect sense,” Washington says.

Unity's five basic principles were in total alignment with what she had discovered in the twelve-step program. Washington uses Unity principles as an integral part of her recovery process.

    “My essence is of God, so I know I'm okay,” she believes. “I had to learn to love and accept myself. I had to practice letting go of limitations and crazy thinking.”

Washington's spiritual journey became central to her life. Intuitively, she knew she was supposed to become a licensed Unity teacher. After she became a teacher, she felt the call to the ministry. In 2009 she became a Unity minister.

Today she works with Unity Love in Action Ministries in Gary, Indiana.

She's currently involved in several twelve-step groups, including Clutterers Anonymous, AA and Compulsive Eaters Anonymous.

    “Every day, I use the Unity principles and twelve-step teaching to help myself and other people,” she says.


All Solutions Are Spiritual
James Trapp went to the Sunday Unity service as a favor to a friend. Trapp was in his mid-thirties and hadn't been inside a church in years. He sat in the back, near the door, in case he wanted to bolt. But when the minister delivered the lesson, Trapp felt the man was speaking directly to him.

The message was about forgiveness.

It was Miami, Florida, in the 1980s. Weeks earlier, Trapp had checked himself into a substance abuse rehab facility, and he was working on self-forgiveness.

    “After living with guilt for so long, I had recently realized I could let go of the past and begin again,” Trapp recalls.

Trapp's past was a difficult one. As a young child, he was abandoned by his mother. That impacted his self-esteem. He sought satisfaction in the outside world because he felt something was lacking within him. He struggled with disappointment and guilt and doubted he could ever have a positive future.

His Unity experience was an important turning point.

    “In Unity, we see ourselves as expressions of God,” Trapp says. “We know that God is absolute love and perfection and so that's who we are. That principle helped me to reframe my negative self-evaluation.”

He began attending church and taking classes and workshops. As time went by, he deepened his commitment, serving on the board. In 1994 he became a Unity minister. He returned to Miami and worked as a minister for 12 years. Today Trapp is president and chief executive officer of Unity Worldwide Ministries, formerly the Association of Unity Churches International.

    “Looking back, my life has been enriched by all the issues I struggled through,” he says. “I've learned that we are not limited by our past: We have the ability to recreate our experiences based on how we act and what we believe and expect.”

Trapp sees the recovery process as a spiritual awakening.

    “I've come to realize that all solutions are spiritual. No matter what we're recovering from—addictions, workaholism, challenging relationships—behind all of that is a desire to have our real self emerge,” he believes. “All of those challenges are opportunities for us to grow.”



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