It may appear at the first comparison that in language and ideas the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) program and case work are dissimilar. Upon closer examination this may be found to be an erroneous assumption. When we compare the two, as I intend to do in this paper, we may find that actually there are many areas in which there are many similarities between the two kinds of endeavour. In order prop...

Abstract This article interrogates twelve step practice within Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) from the perspective of Foucault’s later work on governance, truth-telling and subjectivity. Recent critical studies addiction tend to view self-help cultures like that AA related programs as integral parts contemporary power/knowledge complexes, thus agents modern “will knowledge” Foucault often engages wi...

Addiction recovery mutual aid societies have played a significant role in the resolution of severe alcohol and other drug problems throughout the world and have exerted a particularly profound influence on the professional treatment of addiction (Humphreys, 2004; White, 2004). The purpose of this article is to discuss five current contextual influences that will influence the future of Alcoholi...