Mindfulness and the 12 Steps: Living Recovery in the Present Moment

August 2, 2010
Part meditation guide, part self-help book, Jacobs-Stewart’s effort delves into the ways in which spirituality and mindfulness can coincide with effective recoveries. “In our addictions, we were never here in the moment. We wanted to be gone. Now we are learning to wake up to the joy of being alive.” The author, a psychologist and founder of the Mind Roads Meditation Center, takes readers through her own recovery and attempts to guide them through theirs. She shares her personal history: she comes from four generations of “Irish alcoholics... way back to the ‘old country.’” She talks of her pain, loneliness, drug addiction, and the decision to get professional help in her mid-20s, which proved a major step. Jacobs-Stewart (Paths are Made by Walking) also shares her encounters with Buddhism, providing details of meetings with monks, and includes instructions on how to maximize mindfulness daily, suggesting exercises that can help to clear minds and calm nerves, but her aim is often better than her execution. Though her own stories give the discussion personality and heft, her advice to readers bogs down with jargon, making her volume at times difficult to get through.