In The Sun Rises in the Evening: Beyond addiction
and limited recovery to embracing wholeness, Gary Nixon
PhD gives us a specific framework for dealing with
recovery from addiction, focusing on the issues that
arise after the first stages of recovery. What is
remarkable, and most helpful, is that Gary doesn't spare
himself - we learn that he has made the journey that he
is inviting us to share, from the time when he shouted
out in a session 'I want to be number one!' through all
his attachments to being the best ever at being
enlightened, via an abyss of despair, to a place
where... and here we can best quote Gary himself: "There
is no longer any special status to claim, and all of
life is embraced in a friendly way. We are not the
special one, just a friendly being in existence, living
in the vast suchness of existence, open and vulnerable
to life. But now we are free to bring our joy and
passion into the world." Is this a book about recovery
from addiction? Yes, it is - but it's more and that
'more' applies to most of us who have an undefinable
sense that we have not quite embraced the wholeness for
which we claim to be seeking. About the author Gary
Nixon is Director of the Addictions Counselling Program
at University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, where he
is an Associate Professor. At age twenty-three and
qualified in law, he felt a call to make the
transformational journey his career path and completed a
Masters and a Doctorate in psychology with a focus on
the integration of Western transpersonal psychology and
Eastern contemplative traditions. He pursued 'spiritual
enlightenment' with the same vigour and dedication that
he gave to his academic career, only to find that
intense striving and seeking for spiritual success
brought him to a place of 'absolute hopelessness and
total failurehood.' Thus it was he came to understand
that in seeking a spiritual goal he was merely
reinforcing the illusion of a narcissistic separate
self. Now that he is no longer 'special', he has come to
rest naturally in being - friendly with all existence.
Gary enjoys a celebratory ordinariness of the days
living with his wife Marcia and going for daily long
runs in the coulees. He maintains a private nondual
psychotherapy practice working with individuals and
groups - this complements the passionate legacy of his
published academic work and his editorship of
Paradoxica: Journal of Nondual Psychology. He hosts the
annual Paradoxica Nondual Psychology Conference.
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