Have you ever gone for a long drive before and glanced along the side of the highway at all the different houses? Have you seen lights on and perhaps caught a glimpse of someone walking by the window? Have you ever wondered what story that person might have to tell about their life?It’s amazing to think that Our Father in Heaven knows each and every one of those stories. Ed’s story is just one of those stories.
Ed was adopted at age 6 months by loving parents in Maryland – just outside of Washington, DC. Ed’s parents taught him the value of hard work, excellence and family. Watching his mother care for elderly family members taught him compassion, and through his dad, who immigrated to this country after WW II, Ed developed a heart for people who were poor, homeless and in need. Ed did well in school, had friends, and from most appearances, was doing fine.
But, unknown to everyone, Ed was sexually abused by a non-family member before he was 5. The shame of keeping his secret, the drive to perform to feel worthy and accepted came to dominate his life. Feelings of rejection, shame and unworthiness drove his inward existence. In his mid-teenage years, Ed can remember making a conscious decision to drink and drug, believing that these had to be better than the pain he was feeling.
By the time he was 18 and away at school, Ed’s attempts to numb pain had led to a number of addictions, including drugs and alcohol. He hit bottom quickly, and shortly began his recovery by surrendering his life to the care of Jesus. In Jesus, Ed found a reason to change his life – and the grace to live the change.
A few years later, Ed was married, adopted his stepdaughter, graduated from college and felt God’s pleasure when he began working as a volunteer in recovery groups. He began to discover that God can – and does heal lives broken by trauma, abuse and addictions. Feeling God’s call to serve hurting and addicted people full time, Ed left his job and entered training for ministry in 1986. He was ordained in 1988, and continued to work with many hurting people in a variety of recovery settings.
Then in 1992, Ed accidently damaged his knee while working at a treatment program. Following surgery, he developed an extremely disabling and disease that spread throughout his entire body. Depressed and in despair, Ed’s health broke from this painful disease that left him in a wheelchair. In the years that followed, Ed was unable to work, his family fell apart and he was left with few friends and just his service dog to keep him company and bring him things he needed. At times, he could barely think or move. Ed’s life was not thriving.
Then one day, after Ed’s family fell apart, a counselor asked him a life-changing question. “Ed,” she said, “What do you want the rest of your life to look like?” Empowered by the thought that his life could still be meaningful, Ed determined that his life would not be wasted. He moved to another state, and began volunteering a few hours a day in a Christian substance abuse treatment program.
It was during these years of being alone and in pain that Ed began to discover a depth in his relationship with God that he had never known before. Through what felt like endless sleepless nights, Ed gradually began to experience the reality of the presence of Jesus in the midst of his suffering. As he became increasingly aware of God’s presence with him, Ed began to spend hours in quiet reflection, prayer and journaling. For the first time in many, many years, Ed began to thrive.
Then came the unexpected! God raised Ed out of a wheelchair after 10 years of disability through a miraculous answer to healing prayer. The woman who prayed for him did not know it but she would become a key part of Ed’s life. Within a year, Ed met Jim Wilder and not long after that he and Maritza were married. Together they have been healed to lead this vision and train people across the world. Through the ministry of Equipping Hearts, which Ed and Maritza founded, they train workers and leaders in the US and across the world to better serve the needs of men and women who are struggling with issues related to addiction, trauma, abuse, painful relationships and spiritual dryness. Ed says:
As a person in recovery, who has spent almost 28 years working in this field - and training workers for this field across the world - I've seen a lot of different approaches to recovery. I am more excited about Thriving - and it's ability to impact lives than anything I've ever worked with. Statistically, traditional recovery methods succeed somewhere between 20 - 30% of the time...and that is just not good enough. I believe that Thriving has the potential to change the future of recovery forever.
“Information does not change people!” Ed declares emphatically. You will experience Ed’s passion for the changed lives of facilitators themselves. No more “white knuckles” no more ‘fake it ‘till you make it” no more “treading water” to keep alive. It is time to thrive and experience the joy!
Ed and Maritza took the three years of THRIVE brain skill training designed by Jim Wilder and Chris Coursey and it changed their lives forever. These joy-based skills provide the maturity development that helps us really thrive. THRIVE is designed for optimum brain training and that requires two people with a loving bond for life in order to train. People with traumas and addictions rarely have these strong bonded relationships and three years to train their brain so, in 2005 Jim and Ed decided to do what had never been done and find a way to train people who lacked a bonded partner in a year without using professionally trained doctors as facilitators. Before their pilot program was even completed the invitations to tell others about this revolution of hope were coming in from around the world.
Ed crossed another invisible frontier when he described the unifying cause behind all addictions as the hijacking of the brain’s attachment system by BEEPS. (Behaviors, Events, Experiences and Substances that help regulate emotions, reduce pain or increase pleasure.) When BEEPS take over your attachment system they replace relationships as our source of joy. By dealing with the force behind all addictions, Ed and Thriving allow people with many different forms of addiction or codependency to recover together in a community where they are known but their BEEPS can be anonymous.
Ed has presented the case for change in how we do recovery. The current 25-30% success rate is just not enough. Now the world is asking for the vision Ed brings and the model that has changed his life and family – and he has responded by sharing his vision and passion for life-transforming recovery with ministry leaders and workers from over 40 nations from every inhabited continent in just the past year alone. Ed is now receiving more international training requests than he can possibly manage!
Ed says, “If we keep training recovery leaders to do the same things that produced the current results, we will continue to get the current results.” Now is the time for a new generation of recovery leaders to be raised up who carry the passion to help men and women suffering from addiction, trauma, abuse, spiritual dryness and painful relationships to develop life-transforming relationships with God – and with joyful recovery communities across the world. Experience the power of a joyful recovery!
