The Twelve Step Pathway

This is a book about becoming heroic. A hero is a person who faces great danger, overcomes incalculable odds, and accomplishes that which would have been thought (especially by the hero) to be impossible to achieve. Considering the fear and pain that a person must experience in such an adventure, it is a role that few would desire for themselves. And yet, more of us find ourselves in circumstances demanding heroism than one might imagine. In fact, people who are never called upon to be heroic at some point in their lives are in the minority, if they exist at all. This is not a book for people who might want to become heroic someday. It is for people who are in the midst of a crisis, and who must make a decision about whether they are going to face their situation, survive, rise above themselves, and share their newfound knowledge with others who may need salvation. And it is for those who are already traveling such a journey and who would like to gain a new understanding of themselves, what their journey was and is about, and why it is so important.

Using the twelve step framework for understanding the inner work a person must do in order to overcome addiction, Michael Cowl Gordon walks readers through the journey to inner salvation and peace. Using the hero's journey as the path on which to travel through these steps, he uncovers the deep work that it takes to be the hero in your own story.

Michael Cowl Gordon, MD, opened the first detox program in Madison, WI, under the decriminalization of alcoholism statute in 1972. He became Medical Director of the Anderson Alcoholic Rehabilitation Hospital in Janesville, Wisconsin, in 1974, and later joined the Center for Psychiatry and the staff of the Brawner Psychiatric Institute in Atlanta. Gordon is now semi-retired but remains in practice as the Medical Director of the Berman Center, an Intensive Outpatient and Partial Hospital Program. From 2006-2018, he was a speaker for Reckitt-Benckiser, a company that manufactures drugs for the treatment of opioid use disorder. He is a member of International Doctors in Alcoholics Anonymous and is a Fellow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. Gordon has been interviewed by many media outlets, including CNN, and quoted in numerous articles on various topics relating to addiction. He lives in Marietta, Georgia.

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