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Review
"This would be a good read for those of you who want to explore more deeply the true nature of addiction, are unhappy with the disease or choice models as explanations, and, in the face of the limiations of the recovery movement, want to be encouraged by the veritable contributions of Christianity." (Linda S. Parker, Dharma Deepika, July-December 2012)"Addiction and Virtue sets the stage for a new scene in the church, where she is no longer dulled and distracted by a secular vision of happiness, but is a vibrant, attractive, and welcoming community of 'repentant sinners.'" (Paul Warhurst, Themelios 37.1)"Dunnington's work neither demonizes the addicted person nor excuses the abuse of alcohol and drugs. But it points the way toward compassion for the individual, transformation of the culture (including the church), and recovery through the fullness of the Christian gospel." (Amy Julia Becker, Christianity Today, September 2011)"An intelligent, informed and well-integrated treatment of virtue and addiction that doesn't fall into theological, philosophical or scientific dogma. Dunnington provides a framework that is invaluable for clinicians and researchers in the area of addiction, and for those who strive to live the virtuous life." (William M. Struthers, associate professor of psychology, Wheaton College, and author of Wired for Intimacy)"Kent Dunnington offers a compelling account of addiction as interpreted through the lens of virtue. A strong theological and philosophical foundation helps the reader to see how the good news of Jesus Christ offers a powerful alternative to the habit of addiction. While some within the addiction treatment community will find Dunnington's arguments controversial, others will experience them as a breath of fresh air. Either way, Addiction and Virtue is a worthwhile read!" (Virginia T. Holeman, professor of counseling, Asbury Theological Seminary)"In Addiction and Virtue Kent Dunnington uses Aristotle, Thomas and the philosophically clarified concept of habit to illuminate addiction. The addicts in our midst emerge as 'contemporary prophets' who, if we can but find the ears to hear them, call society as a whole to profound change and the Christian church in particular to renewal. This valuable book points the way, if we are ever to recover from all our junkie-like 'habits' of personal behavior and social interaction, to turn them into truly sustaining habitats for flourishing human life." (Francis F. Seeburger, professor of philosophy, University of Denver)"Addiction and Virtue is one of only a few books which use philosophy to unpack the false dilemma limiting addiction to either disease or willful choice. What's more, Dunnington does this from a Christian theological perspective." (Linda Mercadante, author, Victims & Sinners, and professor, The Methodist Theological School in Ohio)"Considerations of addiction as disease are helpful but inadequate. Kent Dunnington shows us that addiction is a habit, more akin to idolatry or wrongful worship. In doing so he deepens our notions of addiction, but also enriches our understandings of sin and redemption. I can't think of a more timely subject, or a more exemplary way to do theological ethics." (Sam Wells, dean of the chapel, Duke University)"Drawing on Aristotle's and Aquinas's accounts of habit, Kent Dunnington has given us an analysis of addiction we have desperately needed. Few are able to combine philosophical analysis with theological insight, but Dunnington has done it in a manner that helps us better understand the nature of addiction and why it is so prevalent in our time. This is a book that needs to be read, not only by those who work in the fields of addictive behaviors but also by philosophers, theologians and pastors. I suspect in a short amount of time, this book will be viewed as something of a classic in the field." (Stanley Hauerwas, Duke Divinity School)
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About the Author
Kent Dunnington is associate professor of philosophy at Biola University. He holds a PhD in philosophy from Texas A&M and an MTS in theology from Duke University.
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Product details
Series: Strategic Initiatives in Evangelical Theology
Paperback: 199 pages
Publisher: IVP Academic (August 26, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0830839011
ISBN-13: 978-0830839018
Product Dimensions:
6 x 0.6 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.8 out of 5 stars
22 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#726,435 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
THE AUTHOR'S MAIN ARGUMENTS ABOUT ADDICTIONS --1. Addiction is more than a brain disease becauseA. tolerance and withdrawal, which are considered necessary conditions for addictions, are experienced by many people who are not addicted, such as surgery patients who are prescribed a pain reliever.B. some people on regular medication experience little to no tolerance or withdrawal symptoms.C. even though studies show that drug abuse does change the structure and function of the brain, people still retain voluntary control over their behavior.2. It is true that people who have genes associated with addictions do exhibit more immediate and powerful attraction to the drug, and/or develop tolerance to the drug more quickly and severely and/or experience more acute withdrawal symptoms in the absence of the drug. However, addiction is not caused by experiences of gratification, tolerance, and withdrawal. Rather, it is the significance or meaning the person places upon those experiences that determines whether addiction will occur.3. Most substance abusers do stop practicing their addictions and go on to lead lives free from addiction. A large majority of them recover in a non-medical context. There is no evidence to suggest that medical treatment improves the chances of recovery from addiction.4. The "paradox of addiction" is when the addicted person claims to be powerless over their addictive behavior, yet this admission itself is the inroad to regaining power over that same behavior.5. The "incontinent addicted person" is one who has the belief that the addictive behavior is bad for him and a corresponding desire to not engage in it, and who has some capacity to resist the behavior, but who nevertheless does engage in addictive behavior against his own better judgment.6. A habit is a relatively permanent acquired modification of a person that enables the person, when provoked by the relevant stimulus, to act consistently, successfully, and with ease with respect to some objective. Thomas Aquinas says that habits form when an external act is repeated, and when appropriate attention is given to the interior quality of the act, namely, its intentions and desires, what the author calls the "habituation of the cognitive estimation".7. It is simultaneously true that an addicted person loses direct control over his choices, and yet still be held responsible for his actions. This is because even though he lacks the necessary resources to exercise enduring control over his addictive behavior, he possesses the resources to act indirectly in such ways as to eventually develop the habits needed to make such enduring control a realty. This is in keeping with Alcoholics Anonymous which claims that addicted persons lack immediate control overt their behavior and yet can regain that control.8. Addiction is the inordinate love of certain objects for reasons other than sensory pleasure. Sensory miseries such as memory loss, blackouts, vomiting, dry heaves, and being deathly ill, do not deter addicted persons from pursuing their addicted objects because these objects are believed to offer a type of moral and intellectual goods such as improving one's ability to communicate, being at ease with yourself, being unafraid, and being part of a community.THE AUTHOR'S MAIN ARGUMENTS ABOUT VIRTUES AND ADDICTIONS --1. Addictions are like virtues and vices in that both virtues and vices are habits which empower persons to pursue what they think is the good life. Our modern life is devoid of any mutually held account of the good life for persons. Aristotle believed that the good life consisted of moral and intellectual virtues which have the ultimate goal of serving and contemplating God. People get addicted because modern life promotes too many arbitrary choices without any ultimate rationale for those choices, because they are bored, since they do not know what their purpose for living is, and because they are lonely.2. The modern tendency within the addiction-recovery movement, Alcoholics Anonymous being one example, has been to replace the Christian language of sin with the language of disease and sickness. The author argues that this has been done for two reasons: (1) So recovering alcoholics who were not Christian or who were adverse to Christianity would not be put off from their recovery by the language of sin, and (2) So recovering alcoholics would not be tempted to think they could fix their own drinking problem through straightforward moral exertion. Yet the author goes on to show how this change was based on a faulty understanding of the Christian doctrine of sin, that sin is something we ARE more than just things we DO. It is our nature to chose sin over goodness, while at the same time we are responsible for our sinning.3. The author wants to restore the language of sin to the language of addiction in order to show how addiction disrupts our proper relation to God. Addiction is a counterfeit form of worship because the addicted person organizes his entire life around his addiction and gives his life "meaning." Addicts do not pursue fulfillment through moderation. They pursue ecstasy through excess.4. Working the twelve steps of recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous is effective not because A.A. promotes the direct use of willpower, but because A.A. helps the recovering person become the kind of person who no longer perceives the world in terms of alcohol. A.A. helps people not so much to quit drinking as how to live sober.5. The only thing the author would change about the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is for addicts not to fashion a God "as we understand him", but to follow the triune God of Israel who became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth.
An exceptionally good book on both the psychology and spiritual aspects of addictions. As a recovering alcoholic myself, I thoroughly welcomed Dunnington's premises. They explained a lot of things that were not covered in my time of treatment and counseling. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the addiction/treatment process in a sensible, balanced manner.
Really useful at explaining the duality of addiction as both a physiological and psychological/spiritual phenomenon. The book begins by pointing out the the errors of trying to approach treatment from just one angle (whether saying "it's a disease" or "he chose to drink"), and then moves on to use philosophy to give a new vocabulary and model for understanding how addiction works. This book helped me broaden my understanding of addiction and gave me a new language with which to talk about my own struggles.
Even as an outsider to the academic topic of addiction, I found "Addiction and Virtue" to be filling in an almost palpable gap in the popular treatment of addiction as either disease or choice. For me, it is a satisfying event when a cogent logical argument such as Dunnington's can fill such a void.Calling on the work Aristotle and Aquinas, Dunnington relates a clear and strong argument for why we must make use of the "robustness" of the habit model when examining addiction. He thoroughly navigates the muddy waters between voluntary/involuntary instinct and disposition and ultimately between disease and choice, leading to what feels like a groundbreaking step in the overall discussion and understanding of addiction. His examination of the overall increased amount of addiction demonstrates how modernity is fertile ground for its explosion because of the prevalence of individual boredom, loneliness, and modern arbitrariness of life's meaning.Taking a necessary turn toward addiction's theological underpinnings, Dunnington examines the relationship between sin and addiction, observing how we have somehow all gone from being "sinners in need of the grace of God" to "addicts in need of recovery" and laying out an examination of the most successful addiction recovery program in existence - Alcoholics Anonymous. He rightly points out that AA's concept of sin is not "robust" (as they took a description of sin which "had long since been found theologically wanting"), he demonstrates how they have removed the word "sin" and replaced it with "addiction," and he shows how and what is lost because of that replacement.This was a book that got better the closer I got to the end. Chapter 7 examines addiction and virtue and discusses the ways in which addiction resembles the virtue of love or "charity". Addicted persons resemble charitable persons in that they order their priorities around one thing and one thing only. As a result, addiction (or by contrast, charity) pervades every aspect of the person's life. Just as there is no such thing as a "moderate addiction," there is no such thing as moderate charity. "Charity is to love God without moderation." To bring back the habit model, Dunnington argues that "addiction is a habit that, like charity, informs all other habits by determining the end towards which all other habits are directed."I found the last 2 chapters (7 and 8) to be simultaneously convicting, encouraging and energizing (like a good sermon) with application to be made outside of the realm of addiction. Though he stopped short of specific practical suggestions on how to apply his habit model of addiction in real-world settings, he did not leave the reader unsatisfied by bringing a strong challenge to the church. The church can provide more than any twelve-step program if she would be addicted to worship... if she would foster friendships within the church by a) treating the recognition of ourselves as sinners as the important theological achievement that it is, b) structuring relationships toward a particular end and c) committing to spend time together. Finally, Dunnington suggests that addiction should be a prophetic challenge to the church. Addiction - as an extreme form of idolatry - and the Gospel's power to overcome it should be prophetic in that it exposes the non-addict's own idolatry when searching for fulfillment where it cannot be found or the church's lack of faith in the Gospel to save. Amen to that, and Amen to "Addiction and Virtue."
Fantastic book. I have read just about everything there is to read about addiction. This tops everything. Intriguing hypothesis, thorough research, and solidly supported conclusions.
Great book on addiction that seems to take into account the available research out there that goes against our typical views (and system oriented views) on addiction.
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