But the crossed-out phrases and scribbles make clear that the words easily could have read differently. And the edits embody a debate that continues today: How should the role of spirituality and religion be handled in addiction treatment?
They also take readers back to an era when churches and society generally stigmatized alcohol addicts as immoral rather than ill. The AA movement’s reframing of addiction as having a physical component (the “doctor’s opinion” that opens the book calls it “a kind of allergy”) was revolutionary, experts say.
