Recovery and spiritual transformation among peer leaders of a modified methadone anonymous group.

Abstract This analysis of five recovery narratives from leaders of a peer-led, 12-Step-based self- help group in a methadone treatment program highlights the importance of spirituallymediated role transformation in the recovery process. For these men and women in their forties and fifties, their progression to a leadership role helping others with their recovery validated the spiritual transformation they regarded as underlying their own recovery process. Assumption of this new leadership/helper role marked a tangible sign that their deepened spirituality allowed them to assume a new, higher function in a struggle with the addiction that had plagued their lives. For these peer leaders, methadone was at the core of the group experience and an aid to spiritual transformation.