In this rendition of the The Way Out I’m absolutely delighted to bring you a fascinating interview I had the pleasure of conducting with Moral Philosopher, Dr. of Philosophy and Author of the new book Higher and Friendly Powers: Transforming Addiction and Suffering, Peg O’Connor. Peg shares with us her extremely relatable journey to and through recovery with us with tremendous insight and self-awareness and how her self-described recovery journey experiment brought her to her important work on the varied nature and practical value of spirituality in recovery. At it’s very essence, spirituality has the profound ability to transform our suffering into a life of purpose and meaning, one that allows us to have right and rewarding relations with ourselves, our higher or friendly power or powers, and others. Peg and I have a wide ranging and amazing discussion on the history of the Higher Power concept in 12 Step recovery, the destructive myth of having to reach Rock Bottom in order to Recover – spoiler alert – you don’t, your bottom is when you stop digging, and what precisely Higher and Friendly powers can do for us in a very practical way in our own recovery so listen up.

Contact Dr. Peg O’Connor:

https://gustavus.edu/profiles/poconnor

Learn More about Higher and Friendly Powers: Transforming Addiction and Suffering:

https://www.amazon.com/Higher-Friendly-Powers-Transforming-Addiction/dp/1736075063

Recovery literature (quit-lit) recommendation: The Urge: Our History of Addiction by Dr. Carl Erik Fisher

https://www.carlerikfisher.com/book

Best piece of Recovery advice - Trust yourself

Songs that symbolize Recovery:

Gloria Gaynor - I Will Survive:

https://youtu.be/gYkACVDFmeg

Sister Sledge - We Are Family:

https://youtu.be/uyGY2NfYpeE

Don’t forget to check out “The Way Out Playlist” available only on Spotify. Curated by all our wonderful guests on the podcast!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6HNQyyjlFBrDbOUADgw1Sz

(c) 2015 - 2022 The Way Out Podcast | All Rights Reserved Theme Music: “all clear” (https://ketsa.uk/browse-music/) by Ketsa (https://ketsa.uk) licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd