Many Roads, One Journey: Moving Beyond the Twelve Steps

by Charlotte S Kasl

Overview

From the author of Women, Sex, and Addiction, a timely and controversial second look at 12-Step programs, helping all readers to draw on the steps' underlying wisdom, adapting them to their own experiences, beliefs, and sources of strength.

In this compassionate, groundbreaking book, Charlotte Kasl, Ph.D., an internationally recognized expert on addiction, confronts the enormous mystique that has built up around twelve-step programs and the concepts of addiction and codependency. She offers a timely, in-depth examination of the impact recovery groups and treatment programs have on individual lives. According to her extensive research, interviews, surveys, and personal experience as a therapist, while many people find twelve-step programs invaluable, countless others find that the traditional focus on conformity, humility, and personal failings is counter to their tremendous need for self-affirmation and community support in overcoming issues of child abuse, sexism, racism, poverty, and homophobia.

Kasl paves the way for a new and broader understanding of recovery that involves both personal and social awareness. She examines codependency in the context of internalized oppression and explores the issues of boundaries and sexual exploitation in groups. Rather than encouraging reliance on any one program, belief system, or mode of therapy for all the answers, Many Roads, One Journey empowers individuals to find their own voice and their own sources of strength and spirituality to guide their healing.

Combing careful analysis, moving stories, and the author's own flexible sixteen-step alternative, Many Roads, One Journey offers a profound and culturally responsible approach to healing ourselves and our world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780060965181
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/17/1992
Pages:	448
Sales rank:	1,076,599
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.12(d)

About the Author

Charlotte D. Kasl is a social activist and a psychologist at the forefront of the empowerment movement sweeping the recovery field. She lectures and leads workshops in the United States and abroad and lives near Missoula, MT.

Editorial Reviews

"A superb, groundbreaking book. In her understanding of how true healing occurs—through love and not fear—Kasl adds an entirely new level of understanding to the" — Geneen Roth

"Dynamically moving beyond learned helplessness and the marketplace of fear, Dr. Kasl's courageous new book offers readers real choices-diverse empowerment alternatives for achieving and maintaining a high quality of life in recovery. This Is an essential and groundbreaking work." — James Christopher, Founder/Exec Director of Secular Organizations for Sobriety/Save Our Selves (SOS), and author of How to Stay Sober and SOS Sobriety

"A pioneering work with a depth of insight and social consciousness that are rare in the addiction field, which all too often seeks simple answers for complex problems. Kasl's 16 steps for empowerment and her re-framing of codependency as Internalized oppression are gifts for all women." — Stephanie Covington, Ph.D., author of Leaving the Enchanted Forest

From the Publisher

Wide-ranging and refreshing, this is a feminist, New Age critique of the Alcoholics Anonymous approach to addictions, including caffeine, nicotine and TV. Kasl ( Women, Sex and Addiction ) links addiction and treatment with chakras, nutrition and patriarchy--and she's on target. A.A.'s approach is patriarchal, okay for affluent white men but not for others, especially women, she finds. The book offers numerous, surprising examples of how A.A. meetings, slogans, traditions and steps hurt women: while it might be good for white men to humble themselves and make amends to everyone, Kasl contends that women should ignore that A.A. exhortation--they've done enough of that sort of thing already. Ultimately, everyone's recovery is based on recapturing personal power, recognizing social oppression and revering life. This guide should put some of the needful back on track. Author tour. (June)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Add Kasl to the growing number of au thors who are challenging the structure and tenets of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and its 12 steps. Other recent books on the sub ject include Jack Trimpey's The Small Book: A Revolutionary Alternative for Over coming Alcohol and Drug Dependence (De lacorte, 1992) and Christopher James's How To Stay Sober Without Religion (LJ 5/1/92). Examining AA from a feminist point of view, Kasl contends that while AA helps many maintain sobriety, its dogmat ic, male-oriented doctrines and the un yielding way in which some groups inter pret them are damaging to others, especially women. Drawing from her own experiences and those of other twelve-step pers, the author argues that the rigid de mands of some groups for strict adherence discourages rational thinking. For exam ple, a rigid demand to ``admit powerless ness'' or to yield to a ``higher power'' may harm women who are fighting to gain con trol of their lives. The author offers her own 16-step recovery model with guide lines for finding or forming alternative groups. Both lay readers and professionals will gain insight from this book. Purchase for psychology, addiction/recovery, and feminist collections.--Linda S. Greene, Chicago P.L.

Library Journal