Victims and Sinners: Spiritual Roots of Addiction and Recovery

More than one million Americans participate in nearly 50000 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 lifes 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.