The Saint Ephraim Center
This center is first-of-its-kind, Orthodox Christian treatment center based in Colorado. We offer addiction and mental health treatment, mental health nutrition services, and addictions and mental health eduction.

The St. Ephraim Center supports and strengthens the Orthodox Church through education and effective, Christ-centered addictions treatment for Orthodox clergy and laity. With growing services and nationally recognized staff, we are here to help.

Who will cure my soul if not Thou, O Christ, the only Physician of Souls!
— St. Ephraim the Syrian

What is it that we need to bring us spiritual renewal in these dark and uncertain times? With what attitude should we face adversity or the possibility of adversity? Things in our country and world are looking a bit bleak and frightening and we don’t know what will happen next. How are we to deal with this, and what spiritual resources can we call upon to support us in this journey?

Today is Palm Sunday. We celebrate with Lazarus, Mary, Martha and all of Jerusalem, the triumphant coming of Jesus into Jerusalem. Lazarus was raised from the dead! The blind were receiving their sight, the lame were being healed, God Himself was among His people. People’s hopes were high, everyone had fantasies about what the coming of the Messiah meant. And then Jesus Himself was betrayed, reviled and shamefully killed. The disciples fled and St. Peter denied Christ. 

We just finished Holy Week. If we were fortunate enough to be able to experience all the services we find that the experience can be rather intense.   I believe it is designed to be rather overwhelming. However, when we reach a state of overwhelm our nervous system will eventually shut down, or move into collapse. This is called hypo- arousal. This is a normal state-of-affairs and is built into our nervous system. 

This is a question that we, as God’s people tend to ask frequently. As human beings, we like certainty. We want to make sure we are “right with God” and we “don’t want to get it wrong”! Some people are afraid that they might miss God’s will for their life, and make an irreparable mistake. To top it off, many of us want to be told what to do because we don’t trust our own judgement, while others of us rebel at any whiff of being told what to do and feel a compulsion to do the opposite!

As we approach Pascha we will be seeing two types of repentance. One is true and one is false. Judas represents a false repentance. St. Peter, on the other hand, demonstrates a true repentance. The difference is this: when Judas came to his senses he was stricken with guilt. His guilt is a false guilt. His guilt is a self-punishing prideful guilt. It is focused on himself and what he did wrong. In his pride he declared himself to be judge, jury and executioner. This role belongs only to God. 

A client of mine, who is a recovering addict/alcoholic and incest survivor recently asked me what “self-esteem” is. Rather than defining it, I gave her the following answer:I now have self-esteem, but I didn’t use to. This is the difference it has made in my life:

As we quickly move to the end of the year, my thoughts are drawn to how quickly life seems to be moving by. It is December already! Where did the year go? No sooner does Monday arrive, when Friday dawns. Each day seems lost in a blur, as one follows the next in rapid succession. I worry that life is quickly coming to a close, and I wonder if I am accomplishing everything that the Lord has for me to do.In an attempt to slow things down, I have decided to see each day as a separate, discreet entity, with a beginning and an end. 

As we all know, the upcoming holidays are a high risk time for relapse for people who are recovering from addictions to sugar, alcohol, and other drugs and behaviors.  Parties and family gatherings increase exposure to sugar and alcohol, and there might be pressure to “drink just one” or “I baked it just for you!”

As we move into Fall, and the holiday season, many people fill with dismay and dread. What could be a glorious time of connecting with family, standing before God with gratitude for all of His blessings, purifying our heart through Advent, and celebrating the birth of our Savior with our human and church families, often devolves into stress, exhaustion and family strife.How do we as Orthodox Christians keep this from happening?  I think we first have to tease out the different elements of this process. There are several. For many people, the holidays bring back very painful memories of growing up with alcoholic parents who destroyed family gatherings with drunken, embarrassing and often violent behavior. 

In my private practice, I see many people who are struggling with their faith. Many times the struggle is really an obsession over doing things right, perfectly or out of a profound sense of shame. Many of them believe that even after confession they are not really forgiven because they are so bad. They do not believe that they should love others as they love themselves.