Life on the Rocks: Finding Meaning in Addiction and Recovery

by Peg O'Connor

Addiction and recovery are, at their core, about the meaning of life. Life on the Rocks is the first book to address addiction and recovery from a Western philosophical perspective, offering a powerful set of tools sharpened over millennia. It introduces some of the core concepts and vexing questions of philosophy to help addicts and those affected by their addiction examine and perhaps transform the meaning they make of their lives. Without assuming any familiarity with philosophy, Dr. O’Connor illuminates issues all addicts and their loved ones self-identity, moral responsibility, self-knowledge and self-deception, free will and determinism, fatalism, the nature of God, and their relations to others. Life on the Rocks is an indispensable guide to the deeply philosophical concerns at the heart of every addict’s struggle. Peg O’Connor, PhD , is professor of philosophy and gender, women, and sexuality studies at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota. She is the author of the popular Psychology Today blog “Philosophy Stirred, Not Shaken” and contributor to the Pro Talk series at Rehabs.com.

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 12, 2016

About the author

Peg O'Connor is Professor of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies and Philosophy at Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota.

Reviews

[Tom Pepper · Rating 4 out of 5]

An useful collection of essays for those frustrated by certain aspects of the recovery community.

Very few people succeed in recovery in the most common approaches. Despite the dismal success rates, the commons assertion is that it is essential to stick with the anti-intellectual approach, repeating platitutes instead of thinking through problems, and chanting slogans like "thinking leads to drinking" and "my best thinking got me here."

O'Connor take a different approach, suggestion that better thinking might help make our lives more meaningful and recovery more achievable. The essays are short, and don't need to be read consecutively. Also, while O'Connor is a philosopher and raises serious philosophical issues, she does it in a way that just about anyone can easily engage with. This would be a great book for a weekly discussion meeting of some recovery group--much more helpful than most of the literature used for such groups.

Every time it seems like she's about to fall into the old AA cliches that always shut down thinking, O'Connor gives it a slight philosophical twist that helps promote clear thought. For instance, discussing the "terminal uniqueness" cliche, that demand addicts ignore the particularity of their individual problems (probably one of the most deadly cinched in addiction culture), O'Connor explains the philosophical "problem of other minds" and discusses how we get trapped in the illusion that we cannot every fully understand one another. Instead of demanding that we limit ourselves to what we all have in common superficially, she suggests that we might learn to communicate with others in ways that help us remove our self-deception.

As someone who has almost given up on recovery groups, after many years of watching people die of overdoses or organ failure while chanting the familiar slogans and insisting God has removed their compulsion to drink, I found this book a glimmer of hope.

One final note: if you're fairly knowledgeable about philosophy, this may seem a bit too watered-down. I'll grant that O'Connor passes over some major philosophical problems in a sentence. But the goal is to enable discussion and serious thinking about the problems of recovery, and it seems to me it does that very well.

[Erica Basnicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is such a hard book to review. It is both brilliant and frustrating. Brilliant for all the rabbit holes it invites you to jump down, frustrating because I wanted all those rabbit holes explored within the book itself.

I’m at a point in my recovery where I am asking a lot of Big Questions and this book has helped point me to where I might find answers, and that’s its biggest strength.

There are strong undertones of 12-step language, but a few really valuable alternative thoughts…and those were what I was after.

I think the best I can come up with in terms of a review is this: there are many underlined sentences in my copy, with an arrow pointing to one-word questions in the margins: “WHY?!” or “HOW?!” being the ones I asked most. I’ve always thought it would be good for my soul and/or brain to read some more philosophy, but now I’m pretty intent on deep-diving a few key figures.
And that’s a pretty remarkable achievement for a slim book.

Cue up the cliche about addicts never having enough, because that is what this book was for me: really good, but not nearly enough.

[John Desmond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Changed my life

Not a difficult read, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I love learning about philosophy and my interest in drugs/addiction lead me to this book. I've been regularly drinking since high school, and for the past few years it turned into a daily habit. I never drank much, perhaps a beer or two a day, but I was starting to realize I couldn't stop. This book gave me the philosophical foundation to break out of my dangerous habit, and I'm in Peg O'Connor's debt for her insights.

[D'anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting and helpful.