John F. Kelly

William L. White

Jeffrey D. Roth

Mutual-help groups have proliferated, diversified and adapted to emerging substance-related trends over the past 75 years, and have been the focus of rigorous research for the past 30 years. This book reviews the history of mutual support groups for addiction that have arisen as adjuncts or alternatives to Twelve Step Programs, including secular mutual support groups like Secular Organization for Sobriety, Smart Recovery and Women for Sobriety, and faith-based mutual support groups like Celebrate Recovery. It also considers the mutual support groups attended by families and friends of addicts. These mutual support groups are examined in terms of their histories, theoretical underpinnings and intended communities. The structures common in mutual support groups have influenced the rise of a new recovery advocacy movement and new recovery community institutions such as recovery ministries, recovery community centers, sober cafes, sober sports clubs, and recovery-focused projects in music, theatre and the arts. This volume explores how collectively, these trends reflect the cultural and political awakening of people in recovery and growing recognition and celebration of multiple pathways of long-term addiction recovery. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Groups in Addiction and Recovery.

Bringing Theory and Science to Contemporary Trends

Broadening the Base of Addiction Mutual Support Groups

Learn what it’s like to be a member of an addiction recovery group! Group Psychotherapy and Recovery from Addiction: Carrying the Message is NOT a self-help book. Instead, it’s a rare opportunity to sit in on a virtual therapy group and take part in a virtual Twelve Step meeting. The book’s unique perspective lets you compare and contrast the experience of participating in a psychotherapy group and a Twelve Step group, including an examination of the Twelve Steps and The Twelve Traditions. The book demystifies the process of recovery, demonstrating all the important elements of the group process, including free association, resistance, transference, re-enactment, boundary management, interpretation, and confrontation. Rather than relate shared stories of addicts in recovery or present abstract formulations on the group experience, Group Psychotherapy and Recovery from Addiction takes you inside the experiential process of recovery that can’t be achieved in isolation. Your experience as a group “member” will help solve the mystery of the group process and provide you with insight into the scientific elements of recovery as the book builds a bridge between the Twelve Step programs and a psychoanalytic model of group functioning. Group Psychotherapy and Recovery from Addiction examines: how the group carries the message of recovery the higher power of the group as a symbol of authority the development of prayer and meditation as group analytic functions addiction as a family disease making amends as an export process powerlessness and free association unmanageability and resistance surrender and transference inventory and re-enactments humility and working through The Twelve Steps and The Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous and much more! Group Psychotherapy and Recovery from Addiction: Carrying the Message is a unique resource for group therapists, addiction treatment professionals, and anyone else interested in group therapy—especially those who have personal experience with Twelve Step recovery.

Jeffrey D. Roth

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