Breaking the Chains of Addiction: How to Use Ancient Eastern Orthodox Spirituality to Free Our Minds and Bodies From All Addictions

by Victor Mihailoff

Breaking the Chains of Addiction is a self-help book with information and quotes obtained from Eastern Orthodox Christian spiritual books. The author helps the addicted reader attain to the blessed passionless state, beyond all manner of self-destruction behaviors, which the saints have acquired through the oldest spiritual methods in the Christian world dating back to the third century.

152 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2005

Reviews

[Yvonne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish this book wasn't out of print and so hard to find... I feel many could benefit from it. Written with love, compassion, and kindness for those struggling with addiction, and approaches healing from an Orthodox Christian method of prayer. Well worth tracking down a copy for yourself or to share with a loved one.

[Ted · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book may be of interest to those struggling with addictions. As a priest I certainly am interested in a book like this as a possible tool to help someone also wrestling with their own addictions and demons. Like some other literature in this field it is fairly anecdotal which makes it hard to measure how useful it can be for someone who doesn't think like the author. I also am aware currently that there are a number of serious critics of ideas that follow 12-Step programs. There seems to be some evidence that these programs are no more or less successful than many other forms of treatment, and in fact no different in success than those people who on their own try to overcome their addictions. This book blends 12 Step ideas with some traditional Orthodox spirituality. I cannot really measure how this works for people other than the author's anecdotal claims. He also drifts a bit at times into real side issues - for example he seems to claim that to be Orthodox or to follow Orthodox spirituality one has to read the King James Bible. That would come as a real surprise to the 98% of Orthodox Christians worldwide for whom English is not their first language.

[Joanna Eleftheriou]

this site has offered more interesting suggestions than months of googleing