Book reviews

A Review by Jim W. of The Twelve Step Pathway: A Heroic Journey of Recovery

Posted on October 25, 2023, tagged as Heroic Journey, addiction

Review of The Twelve Step Pathway: A Heroic Journey of Recovery, by Dr. Michael Cowl Gordon

This book presents a welcome, highly useful contribution to the struggle for recovery from addiction which is presently blighting the entire world to a staggering degree. The full toll of the scourge of addiction on contemporary humanity can perhaps never be fully reckoned; nonetheless it is clear that the emotional, vocational, financial, and general human-loss costs of addiction throughout the world are difficult if not impossible to overstate. Accordingly, the insights and understanding of the nature of addiction, and the reasoned approach to recovery presented in this book, are timely in the most vital sense.
The author possesses not only a profound comprehension of the nature of addiction, but also years of clinical experience in helping thousands to recover. His medical training and many decades in practice, his broad and deep learning in the arts, sciences, and humanities (including religion and philosophy) and decades of direct, hands-on experience in helping others to recover, provide a rare combination of traits from which to offer insight and guidance toward recovery from addiction. The formidable, frightful power of addiction to degrade and to destroy human lives calls for equally powerful remediation; Dr. Gordon’s experience, knowledge, and wisdom presented in this book serve the purpose of guidance toward remediation well. Though The Twelve Step Pathway: A Heroic Journey of Recovery draws upon sacred literature and a wide array of learning from the humanities and from modern science, the “journey of recovery” described (and prescribed) in the book are non-sectarian; in fact, the “Heroic Journey” is thoroughly inclusive — it is for any and all who wish to recover from addiction. This volume will also prove useful for those not in the throes of addiction but who wish to deepen their understanding of the malady and to comprehend a sound, tried-and-true 12 step pathway that has enabled millions to recover and pursue rewarding, fulfilling lives.
The book is organized around 10 chapters that begin with “The Heroic Journey: A Quest for Redemption and Wholeness,” and concludes with a chapter of practical, personal usefulness entitled “Workbook: Understanding Your Own Heroic Journey of Recovery.” The book is well-written, free of jargon, and though drawing upon insights and knowledge from a broad range of the arts, humanities, and sciences, it presupposes no specific knowledge-base to be comprehensible. Thus, The Twelve Step Pathway: A Heroic Journey of Recovery promises to be useful to a broad readership. It is to be hoped that many will benefit from this much-needed effort to remedy the contemporary blight of addiction by discovering therein a way to their own heroic journey to recovery. Modern society owes a debt of gratitude to Dr. Gordon for his decades of labor in the field of recovery from addiction, crowned appropriately by the publication of this much-needed volume.
— Jim W., Bangor Maine, USA
October 4, 2023