Higher and Friendly Powers

Transforming Addiction and Suffering

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Pub Date 01 Sep 2022 | Archive Date 02 Aug 2022

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Description

An expansive alternative for those who have struggled with the “higher power” of AA’s 12-step program, Higher and Friendly Powers (Wildhouse Publications / September 1, 2022) offers a sense of human decency, moral ideals, and even a better version of oneself.   


In Higher and Friendly Powers, Peg O’Connor, PhD, addresses an audience much like herself: those in recovery who have struggled with the Christian-centric God at the heart of Alcoholics Anonymous. She brings our attention to a little-known fact: the term “higher power,” a touchstone in the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, was coined by William James, philosopher, psychologist, and intellectual giant of the early 20th century. 


By acting as our personal field guide through the world of William James, Peg shows that “higher power” as James conceived it is far more expansive than we might imagine. The book, which combines Peg’s deep personal wisdom with James’s adventurous intellect, has the power to transform the way we live.


Peg O’Connor, Ph.D., is a Professor of Philosophy at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota. Her training is in moral philosophy, feminist philosophy, addiction studies, and the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. She believes that philosophy helped her to get and remain sober. Avoiding Alcoholics Anonymous for the first 20 years of her sobriety because of the concept of a “higher power,” she is focused on using some of the great canonical thinkers in western philosophy to illuminate dimensions of addiction. She further shares this in her new book, Higher and Friendly Powers: Transforming Addiction and Suffering (Wildhouse Publications, 2022).


Dr. O’Connor is also the author of Life on the Rocks: Finding Meaning in Addiction and Recovery (Central Recovery Press, 2016), Morality and Our Complicated Form of Life: Feminist Wittgensteinian Metaethics (Penn State, 2008), and Oppression and Responsibility: A Wittgensteinian Approach to Social Practices and Moral Theory (Penn State, 2002). A co-editor to multiple other titles, she is regularly published in trade journals and writes a column, Philosophy Stirred, Not Shaken, for Psychology Today, which has nearly two million total views online and select columns have appeared in the print publication. 


Dr. O’Connor’s expertise has been featured on BBC’s Free Thinking and Canadian Public Radio’s On Drugs podcast, as well as in print and online publications ranging from The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Cosmo and Marie Claire to Vice and Kinfolk. She has been invited to present on addiction and recovery at some of the country’s most prestige universities, in addition to workshops and talks in church basements, classrooms, community centers, and treatment centers.


Dr. Peg O’Connor is a recovering alcoholic who maintains that philosophy got and helped her to stay sober. For the last twelve years, she has shifted the focus of her work to using some of the great canonical thinkers in western philosophy to illuminate dimensions of addiction. She understands addiction as a meaning of life problem and no discipline is as well suited as philosophy to address meaning of life questions.

An expansive alternative for those who have struggled with the “higher power” of AA’s 12-step program, Higher and Friendly Powers (Wildhouse Publications / September 1, 2022) offers a sense of human...


A Note From the Publisher

Dr. Peg O’Connor is available for interviews, blog tours, autographed tours, autographed book giveaways, contests, and book club discussions.

Dr. Peg O’Connor is available for interviews, blog tours, autographed tours, autographed book giveaways, contests, and book club discussions.


Available Editions

EDITION Hardcover
ISBN 9781736075067
PRICE $22.95 (USD)

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