AbstractsDrawing on qualitative data, this article attempts to clarify the language of spirituality as used in relation to addiction and recovery. It explores what is meant by 'spirituality' in the context of 12-step programmes followed in the numerous anonymous mutual help groups which address the problem of addiction to a variety of substances and behaviours, and raises some of the most frequently cited problems with a 'spiritual' approach. It argues that wariness on the part of social workers (and other professionals) of 12-step programmes on grounds of their religious/spiritual dimension may benefit from reconsideration. It also suggests that social workers might be informed and empowered to support those individuals and families who chose to seek recovery through the 12 steps.

Commentary to: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.13590/abstract

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This article offers an analysis of Buddhist approaches to addiction recovery in the terms of some of the key debates in addiction/recovery studies. Buddhist recovery teachings are analysed for the extent to which they embody models of addiction which construe the problem as a disease, as a moral problem, as a problem of powerlessness, as a problem of control, as a choice, as a social or a personal problem, and as continuous (or not) with putative saṃsāric experience. They are also analysed for the extent to which recovery is modelled as a change of identity or of practices, and how far 'recovery ideals' align with Buddhist soteriology. The article exposes philosophical and epistemological diversity across Buddhist recovery pathways, and argues that the therapeutization of Buddhism (Metcalf 2002) is inadequate as a categorical frame.

Religion, spirituality, non-religion, and the secular (Lee 2014, 2015) are unstable categories that are nonetheless routinely reified by academics, clinicians and practitioners alike, and positioned as fundamental to experiences of addiction recovery. For instance, addiction is often framed, dramatically, as a spiritual malady, yet, just as often, as simply a poor moral choice. While ideas associated with religion or spirituality play out differently in those contrasting diagnoses, the role of religion and spirituality in their aetiology is evident. We (Wendy Dossett and Liam Metcalf-White) argue that the categories of religion, spirituality, and non-religion, as they to relate to addiction recovery, need further analysis than they receive in the clinical literature. This literature frequently presents them as extra "technologies of the self " (Foucault 1988); either functionally worthwhile or not (Szalavitz 2017); rather than as embedded in the very culture and discourses in which addiction and recovery are named and experienced. We argue for a focus on the latter as more productive for an understanding of the field. This special edition of Implicit Religion engages critically and theoretically with the language of religion, spirituality, and non-religion as articulated within different presentations of addiction and recovery. The issue maps recovery across a variety of pathways and modalities that include, but are not limited to faith based groups, medication-assisted pathways, and Twelve Step Mutual Aid groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA), in a variety of global settings (the United Kingdom and United States, Mexico and Canada). Contributors examine the terms religion, spirituality, and non-religion as found in these settings and as found within culturally mediated and politicized notions of recovery such as the Visible Recovery Advocacy Movement and within popular culture. The articles explore the ways in which conceptualizations of religion, spirituality, and non-religion, are at once fashioned by and medi