Developing a More Universal Religious Response to the Pain of Addiction and the Promises of Recovery |
| Saturday, August 28th from 9:00 am - 11:30 am |
| UCH Clover Lane, Joseph Priestley Room |
| Please join us for a morning workshop and seminar presented by Rev. Alex Holt, Chairperson, UUA Addictions Ministry. Refreshments will be provided. Please RSVP to Holly by clicking on the link below if you will be attending. 9:00 to 10:00 Our Unitarian Universalist Encounter with Addiction and Recovery: Past Denial, Present Encounter, Future Possibilities This workshop will invite us to speak our stories of addiction and recovery from our own experiences. We will speak of past, present and future understandings of addiction and recovery as both scientific truths and personal insights. We together will begin to shape how a working model of recovery might look without the baggage of religious language. Please note that respect for confidentiality is requested of all attendees of this workshop. 10:30 to 11:30 Addiction and Recovery in an Interfaith America Unitarian Universalism speaks to a holistic and ecumenical way of expressing and living religion and spiritual deepening. How might we apply these principles to a more universal religious response to the pain of addiction and the promises of recovery? About Rev. Alex Holt Rev. Alex Holt has been a UU minister since 1993 and studied in seminary at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He is originally from Maine and studied medieval Icelandic literature and culture in graduate school before stints as a bank manager and an insurance adjuster. He has specialized in interim and consulting ministry to small and midsize churches in New England, Illinois, and the Pacific Northwest. He is currently serving as a full time interim minister in Clemson, SC. Alex is open about being a recovering alcoholic. In his second round of sobriety of nearly 7 years, he was a part of the 12-step community, but felt dissatisfied with the language, sexist and religious exclusivity of the program. He was asked by the District Executive of the PNWD, Janine Larsen, to develop a District Addictions Ministry project in 2005 and has helped lead that group since its inception. He was then invited to attend an initial conversation with the Department of Ministry representatives in Chicago in the UUA on how to help ministers and other religious professionals who were struggling with addiction issues. That initial conversation led to the formation of the UUA Addictions Ministry project which last year was formally approved as a group within the UUA Administration under the primary auspices of Rev. Jory Agate of the Department of Ministry. Alex has helped to lead the group for over two years now and has been the official chair of the Addictions Ministry team this last year. He has traveled widely to help groups get organized, develop resources, address problems and challenges. He is also a long term Zen Buddhist student with Great Vow Zen Monastery in Oregon and in the last three years has been working closely in collaboration with Kevin Griffin who is a Buddhist teacher and author of One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the 12 Steps. Alex was invited to be on the Buddhist Recovery Network advisory council and helped lead the initial international conference of BRN in October. His focus is to help congregations and individuals open an honest and compassionate discussion about addiction in our congregational lives and society at large, and to help groups get activated. |
|
email: Holly < GO BACK |