More than one million Americans participate in nearly 50,000 Alcoholics Anonymous groups in America. Addiction recovery groups such as A.A. often rely on religious themes in their work, offering a form of spirituality as a way to deal with life’s problems. Many recovery groups borrow selectively from theology because the full Christian doctrine of sin can be alienating for those in recovery. Linda Mercadante offers a theological critique of addiction recovery programs and proposes an alternate view of addiction that avoids both excessive blame and excessive victimization. This book is for pastoral counselors, clergy, laypersons, and recovery group members wanting to reassess addiction recovery from a theological perspective. It offers a wake-up call to the church to take seriously the need to establish recovery groups and to construct a language for better dialogue.
Linda A. Mercadante is Professor of Theology and the B. Robert Straker Chair of Historical Theology at Methodist Theological School in Ohio.
