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Article: Victims and Sinners: Spiritual Roots of Addiction and Recovery.
- Article from:
- The Christian Century
- Article date:
- July 29, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 The Christian Century Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Victims and Sinners: Spiritual Roots of Addiction and Recovery.
By Linda A. Mercadante. Westminster John Knox, 220 pp., $20.00.
The religious nature of Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12-Step program it initiated is not always noted, since AA understands alcohol addiction as a disease. This medical approach turns the afflicted into victims. It has the advantage of protecting the sufferer from the punitive judgments of moralists who think the disorder is purely voluntary. But the disease model of alcohol addiction has been discredited by social science and medical research, and the idea that applying a moral model to addictive behaviors necessarily condemns ...