The Hidden Gifts of Addiction

This award-winning book invites you on a redemptive and uplifting exploration of addiction and its healing. While exploring common themes and challenges in recovery, the chapters also reveal the spiritual and psychological gifts residing in the midst of-and as a result of intimately being with-these challenges.

As addiction is everywhere in our modern, globalized world, Dr. Bucklew-who is himself in long term recovery from opiate addiction-invites us not to stigmatize or narrowly define it. Whether we turn to heroin, alcohol, food, screens, or compulsive thought, at the heart of all addiction lies the same dynamic: an unseen and clenching resistance to the present moment. When we slow down enough to feel into this resistance, we find that it underlies and permeates most aspects of our waking lives. My friend, you are not alone.

You are invited to ask, "What if addiction was not something to be overcome as much as understood and loved?" With love and understanding, the energy of addiction is reclaimed and can serve to profoundly enrich and enliven your experience of who you are, and your connection with the world and people around you.

The Hidden Gifts of Addiction shows that as addiction is a natural, unconscious process of resistance, recovery is a process as well. Recovery is revealed as a loving, moment-by-moment, embrace of resistance. We do not need to wait years to feel better. Health, healing, and the peace we yearn for are in large part the life-blood of this moment. This is true even if craving and discomfort are present.

2020 Nautilus Book Awards Winner: As a silver medal winner in Personal Development, the work is recognized to be "of exceptional merit, making a literary and heartfelt contribution to spiritual growth, conscious living, high-level wellness, and positive social change." Previous winners of Nautilus Book Awards include Eckhart Tolle, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Barbara Kingsolver.