Addiction, 12 Steps & Church

Catalog description

Why is there a seminary course on addictions? Are there connections between addictions and the spiritual life and, if so, what are they? How might these issues affect or even shape our lives as ministers? How do our personal and individual values, life experience, and limitations impact our ability to deal with these issues and the people in whom they are embodied? How might God be manifesting in all this? The goal of the course is to familiarize church leaders with the issues of alcoholism/addiction and the 12 step process. This familiarization with alcoholism/ addiction will help church leaders so that they can recognize issues around alcoholism/addiction and refer parishioners to 12 step meetings and trained counselors. We shall try to maintain, or at least come back regularly to, a theological perspective. As we do all this, we shall become comfortable with the language and concepts of addiction and recovery. We shall move rapidly through a large amount of material. References will be available for those who wish to pursue topics in greater depth. We shall look at addiction from the standpoint of the addicted person, the significant other people who get caught up in the process with the addiction (co-dependents), the Church as extended family, and the issues as they relate to the larger community.