Twelve Jewish Steps to Recovery: A Personal Guide to Turning from Alcoholism and Other Addictions

A rabbi, a psychiatrist who specializes in addiction treatment, and many recovering Jewish people share their experience with and understanding of the twelve Jewish steps of recovery from addiction of all kinds based on conversations with each other--and with God.

Twelve Jewish Steps to Recovery explains how the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is relevant for Jewish people. Many Jewish people see the Twelve Steps as "Christian" and have difficulty relating to the Steps as Jews. The authors present the Twelve Steps in a Jewish context.

In a spiritually supportive way, Rabbi Olitzky and Dr. Copans resolve questions such as: Why are Jews uncomfortable with the Twelve Steps? How does the Jewish understanding of the material differ from the Christian understanding of it? Which Jewish sources explore the concepts of recovery and renewal? They present a Jewish perspective on the Twelve Steps and offer consolation, inspiration, and motivation for recovery through drawing on traditional Jewish sources and quoting from what recovering Jewish people say about their experiences.

Artist Maty Grünberg's illustrations of the gates of the Old City of Jerusalem open each chapter of Twelve Jewish Steps to Recovery as the reader is welcomed into another stage of a Jewish Twelve Steps experience. These illustrations were selected to emphasize the relationship between heavenly and earthly in all our lives through the prism of Jerusalem.

Rabbi Kerry M. Olitzky, D.H.L., is Director of the School of Education at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York and directs its Graduate Studies Program. He has been a leader in developing training programs for clergy of all faiths, especially in the area of addiction and codependence.

Stuart A. Copans, M.D., is Medical Director of The Adolescent Alcohol & Drug Abuse Treatment Program at the Brattleboro Retreat in Brattleboro, Vermont.