Matthew Turley

A Phenomenogical Study on Spiritual Growth Through Storytelling: Eight men Who Found "A New Pair of Glasses" Matthew Turley

Within the pages of this text are the stories of eight men who have chosen a particular discipline, or guiding principles, to live their life by. Although these stories personify the life experience of addiction and recovery from the disease of alcoholism, they moreso speak to the triumph of personal transformation. The thesis of this text arose from my own experiences with addiction; a spark of consciousness where it became evident that a knowledge of the root cause of my malady was utterly insufficient. But this is not a phenomena that is unique to addiction; it is an experience grounded in human growth and adult development. In the field of Adult Education the theory of Transformative Learning speaks to this process. A wealth of academic research has been disseminated on this theory over the past 30 years; the writings within this text have been inspired from the participants of this research, the men and women I have been blessed to meet in the rooms of AA, my sponsors, mentors, and teachers, and my community of loved ones. This book is a primer integrating literature on spiritual development, storytelling, and storycatching.