The significance of the religious dynamic in Alcoholics Anonymous was captured in Abraham Twerski's comment that he discovered in AA meetings the kind of sincere and even selfless fellow-feeling that was often absent from synagogues. He was moved by the example of men and women who would willingly be awakened in the middle of the night to go out and help a fellow alcoholic. Recovering alcoholics, Twerski observed, "will often exhibit a sense of responsibility far superior to that of the non-alcoholic in relationship to their families, friends, and God."

...

He was attracted as well by the pragmatism of the Twelve Steps.... [T]he AA system offered a practical non-analytic therapy that resonated with traditional Judaism much more than conventional psychoanalysis did. In treating addicts, Twerski discovered limitations of the psychoanalytic emphasis on understanding the origins of one's behavior. Patients would continue to drink while they inquired with their therapists into the possible reasons for their drinking. The Twelve Step program took the opposite approach, demanding that the person start his or her transformation by stopping the bad behavior. "There is an important similarity between the Torah approach to behavior and the Twelve Step program approach," Twerski realized.

One does not enter into a discussion or argument with the yetzer hara. Whatever reasons you can propose for one position, the yetzer hara will give several logical reasons to the contrary....

....Twerski cleverly presents the theme of alcoholism not as a modern American phenomenon but rather as part-and-parcel of rabbinic discourse. He refers to Rabbi Chaim Shmulevitz, who cites Midrash Tanhuma on the drunken man whose family escorts him to witness an obviously drunk and degraded man. To his family's dismay, he bends over the fallen man and whispers in his ear, "My good man, where did you get such fine wine?" To those who would claim that the problem of addictive behavior is secondary or even peripheral to the observant Jew, Twerski answers, "one cannot consider oneself to be truly observant if one neglects mussar." And for Twerski mussar entails dealing with "the psychological mechanism of denial [which] can blind a person to even the most obvious self-destructive behavior."

Much as it is impossible for a psychologist to ignore or overlook obvious psychological problems, so Twerski's training in the biochemistry of the brain inevitably led him to abandon the strict and often austere moral economy of traditional mussar. He cannot simply exhort, in the ancestral way, about human laziness. If a person seems incapacitated by depression, Twerski must investigate the possibility of a biochemical problem before resorting to the conventional prescription of mussar---the performance of mitzvot.

"In my earlier days of doing psychotherapy, treating persons with a negative self-image was most distressing," [Twerski] recalled---"I would become angry because it seemed to me that the patient preferred to wallow in the mire of his fantasied worthlessness...." ... "The trick in therapy," he concluded, using the English equivalent of the word mussar employed (tachbulah) to describe both the evil urge and methods to defeat it, "is to remove the distortion" of view that hindered psychological and moral growth. Starting out with an old-fashioned moralism that emphasized the stubborn will as chief stumbling block to self-improvement, Twerski ended up with the premise that psychological blocks were essentially involuntary and therefore tantamount to physical disabilities, albeit ones subject to remedy.

• Addictive Thinking and the Addictive Personality: two books in one, with Craig Nakken (M.J.F., 1999)
• Addictive Thinking: Why Do We Lie to Ourselves? : Why Do Others Believe Us? (Hazelden Foundation, 1990)
• Addictive Thinking: Understanding Self-deception, with forward by John Wallace (Harper & Row, 1990; 2nd Ed. Hazelden Foundation, 1997)
• Angels Don't Leave Footprints: Discovering What's Right With Yourself (Artscroll Mesorah Publications, 2001)
• Caution: "Kindness" Can Be Dangerous to the Alcoholic (Prentice-Hall, 1981, 1987)
• The Clergy and Chemical Dependency (Edgehill, 1990)
• Compulsive Gambling: More Than Dreidel (Mirkov Publications, 2006)
• Coping With Stress: The 9/11 Generation (Gateway Rehabilitation Center, 2002, 35 pp.)
• Dear Rabbi, Dear Doctor: The Renowned Rabbi-Psychiatrist Gives Straight Answers to Tough Questions (Shaar Press / Artscroll Mesorah Publications, 2005)
• Dear Rabbi, Dear Doctor Volume 2: The Renowned Rabbi-Psychiatrist Gives Straight Answers to Tough Questions (Shaar Press / Artscroll Mesorah Publications, 2007)
• Dearer Than Life: Making Your Life More Meaningful (Artscroll Mesorah Publications, 1997)
• Do Unto Others: How Good Deeds Can Change Your Life (Andrews McMeel, 1997)
• The Enemy Within: Confronting your Challenges in the 21st Century (Shaar Press / Artscroll Mesorah Publications, 2001)
• The First Year of Marriage: Enhancing the Success of Your Marriage Right from the Start...and Even Before it Begins (Artscroll Mesorah Publications, 2004)
• A Formula for Proper Living : Practical Lessons from Life and Torah (Jewish Lights Publishing, 2009)
• Four Chassidic Masters: the Heart, the Mind, the Eye, and the Tongue...History, Stories, Teachings (Shaar Press / Artscroll Mesorah Publications, 2008)
• From Bondage to Freedom : the Passover Haggadah with a Commentary Illuminating the Liberation of the Spirit, with Hirsh Michel Chinn and Benzion Twerski (Shaar Press / Artscroll Mesorah Publications, 1995, 2001)
• From Pulpit to Couch (Mirkov publications, 2005)
• Generation to Generation: Personal Recollections of a Chassidic Legacy (Traditional Press, 1986. Excerpted edition pub. by C.I.S., 2003)
• Getting Up When You're Down: A Mature Discussion of an Adult Malady - Depression and Related Conditions (Shaar Press / Artscroll Mesorah Publications, 1997)
• Growing Each Day (Artscroll Mesorah Publications, 2004)
• Happiness and the Human Spirit: The Spirituality of Becoming the Best You Can Be (Jewish Lights Publishing, 2007)
• I Am I: a Jewish Perspective From the Case Files of an Eminent Psychiatrist (Shaar Press / Artscroll Mesorah Publications, 1993)
• I'd Like to Call for Help, but I Don't Know the Number: The Search for Spirituality in Everyday Life (Pharos Books, 1991; Henry Holt, 1996)
• I Didn't Ask to Be in This Family: Sibling Relationships and How They Shape Adult Behavior and Relationships, with Charles M. Schulz (Henry Holt, 1996)
• I Didn't Ask to Be in This Family: Sibling Relationships and How They Shape Adult Relationships (Topper Books, 1992)
• In-Laws: It's All Relative, with Leah Shifrin Averick (The Shaar Press / Artscroll Mesorah Publications, 2009)
• It Happens to Doctors, Too (Hazelden Foundation, 1982)
• It's Not As Tough As You Think: How to Smooth Out Life's Bumps (The Shaar Press / Artscroll Mesorah Publications, 1999)
• It's Not As Tough At Home As You Think: Making Family Life at Home Smoother and Better (The Shaar Press / Artscroll Mesorah Publications, 1999)
• Let Us Make Man: Self-esteem Through Jewishness (C.I.S, 1991)
• Life's Too Short: Pull the Plug on Self-defeating Behavior and Turn On the Power of Self-esteem (St. Martin's Press, 1995)