MEET AUTHOR Colleen Harrison

Colleen C. Harrison is the author of He Did Deliver Me from Bondage , the LDS 12 Step study guide that was used by LDS Family Services for 10 years from 1995 to 2005, during the A pilot program @ phase of their Addiction Recovery Program. She is also the author of A Voice From the Fire: The Authority of Experience , a memoir based on her life’s experiences as the mother in an active LDS family that was eventually overwhelmed and destroyed by hidden addictions. Colleen holds a BA and MA in English from Brigham Young University. She has also completed training for certification as an Addictions Counselor from the University of Utah, and all of the course work for a PhD in Family and Human Development from Utah State University. Colleen has been a presenter at BYU Education Weeks, both at BYU-Idaho and BYU-Provo. She has presented at RS Women’s conferences in both the US and in Canada. Colleen is the owner and director of her own publishing company, Windhaven Publishing which specializes in Gospel based addiction recovery literature for the LDS community. She is the mother of 12 children and step-mom to 5. Currently, she lives in Hyrum, UT with her husband, Philip A. Harrison, author of Clean Hands, Pure Heart : Overcoming Addiction to Pornography Through the Redeeming Power of Jesus Christ.Colleen was born Rose Colleen Campion in Marysville, California to predominantly Irish heritage with some Norwegian, English and maybe even a little bit of Cherokee thrown in. She grew up in Sacramento, California in the 1950s and 60s as an only child. Her father passed away when she was eight and her life alone with her mother became deeply troubled by her mother’s several addictive behaviors. Colleen became aware of the LDS faith through a good friend while she was still in junior high school. She asked the friend’s family several times to put her in touch with their church. Eventually they did, and after receiving all six missionary lessons in less than two weeks, Colleen was baptized in March, 1963 at the age of 14.Unaware that her unhealthy eating behaviors that began in her troubled childhood had become an addiction (entrenched dependency), Colleen spent her entire youth and teen years caught in a terrible battle between the exalted definition of herself that the restored gospel offered and the devastated self-worth her weaknesses seemed to reveal. In 1967 she married another troubled young person and began a marriage that she tried desperately to salvage for the next 23 years until addiction finally destroyed it.In 1981, when she was introduced to the Twelve Step model of addiction recovery, Colleen began her personal journey of learning the principles of the gospel that most specifically revealed her need to “come unto Christ” in a very personal and singular way. Previous to that time, her devotion to the Lord had been demonstrated primarily by her external acts of devotion to His Church. Over the next ten years (1981-1991), Colleen used her daily journal entries to record her in-depth study of the Book of Mormon to validate and illuminate each of the Twelve Steps with “further light and knowledge,” gleaned from the testimonies of the prophets of that great book. It was these journal entries and her personal spiritual awakening to the Savior that Colleen incorporated into the pages of the LDS Twelve Step study guide, He Did Deliver Me from Bondage which she self-published in 1991.He Did Deliver Me from Bondage soon became the foundation study guide for Heart t’ Heart, a non-profit LDS Twelve Step addiction recovery support group that also began in 1991, founded by Colleen and several close LDS friends. In 1995 LDS Family Services requested use of He Did Deliver Me from Bondage as a study guide for their addiction recovery pilot program. Five years later it was named as the only official study guide for the quickly growing Family Services program, and was used exclusively until it was retired in 2005. Colleen served from 2003 to 2005 on the committee of recovering LDS addicts that created the original draft of the current LDS Family Services study guide, A Guide to Addiction Recovery and Healing.Colleen is also the author of A Voice From the Fire: The Authority of Experience, a memoir based on her life’s experiences as a wife and mother in an active LDS family that was eventually overwhelmed and destroyed by hidden addictions. This memoir also reveals Colleen’s decision to return to her dream of obtaining a college degree in English (due to her love of literature, not grammar.) Eventually, Colleen received both a BA and MA in English from Brigham Young University with her emphasis in Personal Life Writing. She has also completed training for certification as an Addictions Counselor from the University of Utah, and all of the course work for a PhD in Family and Human Development from Utah State University.Colleen moved to Cache Valley, Utah in 1996 as a single mom, expecting to pursue her doctoral work at USU and to eventually receive that degree and begin a professional life of teaching and writing. The Lord had other plans, though, that revealed themselves when Colleen met Kathy Harrison in the spring of 1998. Kathy and Colleen became instantly aware of how much they had in common, as both of them were filled with a desire to serve the Lord by helping others learn and practice the true principles in the Twelve Steps. Every time they talked they felt like they were catching up on a friendship “made in heaven.” Sadly, late in the summer of that same year Kathy’s serious heart condition-that had necessitated a valve being replaced twice already-suddenly took her life.Colleen didn’t know what to make of this turn of events. She had felt so strongly that Kathy and her husband, Phil Harrison, would be dear friends and devoted LDS Twelve Step advocates for years to come. Within days of Kathy’s passing, however, Colleen was astounded to watch the Lord open up to her heart and mind what she had never before considered-that she should seriously consider joining Phil and Kathy’s family by marrying Phil. Upon accepting the proposal that felt like it was coming from the Lord and Kathy and Phil, simultaneously, Colleen and Phil were married for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake Temple in January, 1999. Since then they have lived in Hyrum, Utah, in a humble but so very comfortable old house (added onto several times in its 70+ years) on one and a quarter acres. Phil and Colleen have felt both the Lord’s and Kathy’s blessings continually in their combined effort to testify to the LDS community of the power in the Savior’s offer of atonement to overcome any major challenge in this life. More of Colleen and Phil’s story can be read in the first chapter of Phil’s book, Clean Hands, Pure Heart: Overcoming Addiction to Pornography Through the Redeeming Power of Jesus Christ.Colleen has been a presenter at BYU Education Weeks, both at BYU-Idaho and BYU-Provo. She has presented at Relief Society Women=s conferences in both the US and in Canada. Colleen is the owner and director of her own publishing company, Windhaven Publishing, which specializes in publication of gospel-based addiction recovery literature for the LDS community. She is the mother of 12 children and step-mom to 5, and “grandma” to 31, and loves living “after the manner of happiness” with Phil, who recently retired in January 2010. They are rejoicing in the freedom retirement gives them to visit family and bring to publication the years of recovery insights with which the Lord has blessed them both. Their latest book, From Heartache to Healing: Finding Power in Christ to Deal with a Loved One’s Sexual Addiction will be available through their website, www.windhavenpublishing.com by August 10, 2010.

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