In this first of the three books, A Recovery Journey, Marohn vividly describes his first awakening, fox-hole moment of surrender sitting naked in front of a white telephone frantically wondering whether he should call a local rehab.

Because of that moment, over time, he gained insight into the dominant motifs of his dysfunctional behaviors: his desire to acquire knowledge as power, to seek refuge in religion and spiritual elitism, to experience heightened moments of intense drama, to withdraw into various fictional worlds, to be different, and to identify with the suffering icons of his religious heritage that reinforced his family-inherited sense of fatalism.

The author's continuous self-examination journey led him to own up to his escapist world of one-night stands and chronic resentments and fears, an owning-up that, for the first of many times in his life, were not shame-based psychological inventories. Sharing those dysfunctions with others and listening to similar stories from those on various kinds of awareness journeys continue to guide him on a path of self-discovery.

In this second volume, the author focuses on the psychological and spiritual changes he continues to experience in his life-long awakening and recovery journey.

From the fearless drunk who placed himself in life- threatening situations, he became the sober and stable person able to recognize the difference between a rational, healthy fear and self-deceptive paranoia.

Over time, because of his connection to others, he was able to surrender many of his grand-narrative fantasies and his belief that social and professional roles defined his identity.

That surrender enabled the author to write his first novel in which one of the characters opened him up even more to a cathartic world of forgiveness he never thought was possible.

Happiness, he also discovered, was the end result of connecting to others, not because of an exterior divinity, nor because of his many-leveled delusionary hopes.

In this third volume, the author looks at the broad philosophical and cultural issues that continue to influence his daily-recovery and mental-health journey.

Marohn begins with his observations about the self-created illusions, the deceptions, that lie beneath the surface of our consciousness when we believe that accumulating experiences is the answer, that financial security comes with a warranty, or that immortality is guaranteed. He challenges the "grace" believers by suggesting that the divinity-within school is a more powerful model of growth.

Doubt, Marohn believes, is the great jump-starter for psychological maturity and freedom can often be attained by paring down, limiting our choices, minimalizing our life styles.

For those on the path of mental and psychological well-being, Marohn maintains that the American culture's insistence on closure, certainty, and instant solutions are in constant conflict with experience, which the author believes, trumps even the received-wisdom, ancient-text, and clergy-controlled orthodoxies.