Most rehabilitation programs offer both twelve-step treatment and psychotherapy, but they are not integrated either in theory or in practice. While intuitively there would appear to be a clear connection between these two areas, in fact, they remain uncomfortable allies, and sometimes not even that.

People in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction are often wary of professionals who have no personal experience of addiction and recovery. For a novice therapist (and more than a few seasoned clinicians) there are few more dreaded questions to be asked by an addicted client than, "Are you in...