"This wise book provides practical exercises that will help us to develop conscious awareness and inner understanding, and the ways and means to free us from unsatisfying habits, addictions, and unconscious behavior patterns. I recommend it highly." --Lama Surya Das, author of the bestselling Awakening the Buddha Within "Anyone interested in finding a kind, spiritual guide to recovery that focuses on flexibility rather than the 'one true way' will benefit from this enjoyable and helpful book." --Maia Szalavitz, coauthor with Joseph Volpicelli, M.D., of Recovery Options: The Complete Guide In Mindful Recovery, you'll discover a fresh and effective method for healing from addiction that can help you handle important challenges, from managing anxiety and resisting cravings to dealing with emotional and physical imbalance. Drawing on both ancient spiritual wisdom and the authors' extensive clinical psychological work with their patients over many years, Mindful Recovery shows you how to use the simple Buddhist practice of mindfulness to be aware of-- and enjoy-- life in the present moment without the need to enhance or avoid experience with addictive behaviors. Mindful Recovery guides you step by step through ten powerful "doorways" to mindful recovery, giving you specific strategies that can help you cultivate a sense of calm awareness and balance in your life. Filled with personal stories of recovery, practical exercises, instructions for meditation, and more, Mindful Recovery accompanies you on a journey of exploration and healing that will help you find the strength and the tools to change, leading you to a fresh new experience of everyday living.

Addicts and alcoholics are often highly spiritualized individuals who lack the faith apparatus to make a healthy connection with their spiritual drive. As such, they turn to negative behavior patterns to fulfill that hunger: alcohol, drugs, food, sex, gambling, pornography, social media, and dysfunctional relationships. This book offers a series of insights and methods whereby faith may be restored and positively channeled into life-sustaining behaviors. It is addressed to addicts, their families and friends, as well as interested laypeople, government policymakers, and treatment professionals. The authors include instruction in yoga and breathing exercises, meditation, and mindfulness, as well as case studies and medical guidance for detoxification.

Companionship for the lifelong journey of recovery In Addiction and Recovery: A Spiritual Pilgrimage, Martha Postlethwaite--pastor and a person in recovery--reflects on her pilgrimage of healing through valleys of despair and vistas of resurrection. Addiction and Recovery is not just Postlethwaite's story, though. She also draws on the wisdom of pilgrims who have walked other paths to explore themes such as surrender, truth telling, shame, powerlessness, grace, forgiveness, and resurrection. Together, these chronicles bring hope to people who struggle with the disease of addiction and to those who love them. Each chapter ends with questions to reflect on with conversation partners or in a journal, and a spiritual practice. The spiritual practices are related to the chapter themes and serve as samplers, but they can be woven into the reader's own pilgrimage. Readers will recognize themselves in these stories and reflections, learn that they are not alone, and find reasons to hope as they make their own pilgrimage.

Addiction and Grace offers an inspiring and hope–filled vision for those who desire to explore the mystery of who and what they really are. May examines the "processes of attachment" that lead to addiction and describes the relationship between addiction and spiritual awareness. He also details the various addictions from which we can suffer, not only to substances like alcohol and drugs, but to work, sex, performance, responsibility, and intimacy. Drawing on his experience as a psychiatrist working with the chemically dependent, May emphasizes that addiction represents an attempt to assert complete control over our lives. Addiction and Grace is a compassionate and wise treatment of a topic of major concern in these most addictive of times, one that can provide a critical yet hopeful guide to a place of freedom based on contemplative spirituality.

Discusses the realities of spiritual abuse and religious addiction -- how they are defined, the reasons they exist and how people can move beyond vulnerable life patterns in order to enjoy a more lifegiving relationship with God and with a healthy faith community.

Millions of alcoholics and addicts recover through spirituality. In The Soul of Recovery: Uncovering the Spiritual Dimension in the Treatment of Addictions, author and journalist Christopher D. Ringwald tells how and why they seek and achieve these transformations. Ranging as far back as the Washingtonian Total Abstinence Society in 1840, Ringwald illuminates the use of spirituality within a wide range of treatment options--from the famous Twelve Step-style programs to those tailored to the needs of addicted women, Native Americans, or homeless teens not ready to quit. Focusing on the results rather than the validity of beliefs espoused by these programs, he demonstrates how addicts recover through practices such as self-examination, meditation, prayer and reliance on a self-defined higher power. But the most compelling evidence of spirituality's importance comes from those directly involved in the process. Ringwald traveled across the country to visit dozens of programs and interview hundreds of addicts, alcoholics, counselors, family members, doctors and scientists. Many share moving stories of suffering, survival, and redemption. A homeless man, a surgeon, a college student, a working mother-each describes the descent into addiction and how spirituality offered a practical, personal means to recovery. Ringwald also examines the controversies surrounding faith-based treatment and the recovery movement, from the conflict between science and spirituality, to skepticism about the "new age" brand of spirituality these programs encourage, to constitutional issues over court-mandated participation in allegedly religious treatment programs. Combining in-depth research with powerful personal accounts, this fascinating exploration of spirituality will provide a fuller understanding of the nature of addiction and how people overcome it.

Discusses from a Jewish perspective the common alcoholism recovery technique of putting one's faith in a higher power.