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The Language of the Heart

A Cultural History of the Recovery Movement from Alcoholics Anonymous to Oprah Winfrey

Trysh Travis

Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 01/2010
Pages: 376
Subject: Social Science, Language Arts and Disciplines | University of North Carolina
Print ISBN: 9.78E+12
eBook ISBN: 9780807898703

DESCRIPTION

In The Language of the Heart, Trysh Travis explores the rich cultural history of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and its offshoots and the larger "recovery movement" that has grown out of them. Moving from AA's beginnings in the mid-1930s as a men's fellowship that met in church basements to the thoroughly commercialized addiction treatment centers of today, Travis chronicles the development of recovery and examines its relationship to the broad American tradition of self-help, highlighting the roles that gender, mysticism, and bibliotherapy have played in that development.

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