Recovering

"Aaron White is a sharp-minded practitioner, a longterm pioneer on the frontlines of addiction and boy can he write! I recommend this book wholeheartedly to anyone engaged in patterns of addictive behavior. It is a book of hope."

"This is a brutally honest but ultimately hopeful book. Aaron White understands that addiction isn't mainly an individual problem; it's a problem of community. Using the Beatitudes as his guide, White shows us how addiction is a symptom of dislocated and broken communities, including churches. Drawing on a wealth of experience, he describes the alternative Beatitude Community, and he shows us how to take steps to get there. I hope this book will be widely read, especially in churches that are ready to take addiction seriously."

"Aaron White and his lovely family have been in ministry for many years. I first met them as colleagues in ministry on the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. They have lived the contents of this book and continue to do so. Their lives are grace filled, freedom filled, and Spirit filled. As is this book."

"I finished reading Aaron White's book in the middle of the pandemic of 2020, as the whole world was grappling with a stark expression of how broken our beautiful world is. Recovering gives us a foundation on which to move toward rebuilding our lives. From his experience living and serving in one of the most desperate neighborhoods in the world, White helps us realize that the root of our addictive and destructive behavior is pain. The only way forward is acknowledging the pain, and the only way to do that is by living in a new kind of community--one that embraces the pain and brings it to the Great Healer. That new community, White compellingly argues, is the Beatitude Community formed by Jesus's words of blessing in the opening of the Sermon on the Mount. What an inviting picture of that community White paints! He can paint it because he lives it. I will be rereading this book for a long time--until I finally live it too."