I am not sure what I expected out of this book. I think that I may have been looking for some background on how Noah Levine came to develop the Refuge Recovery model. And in some ways, that's what this story gets to, but it takes a long time to get there. I think I was also looking for an alternative to the 12 steps. What I found is that Noah got sober using the 12 steps and then came to find Buddhism as his spiritual path.

It is a memoir, and so one should expect it to be a story of one man's life.

The first part of the book is largely a recap of Noah's life as an active addict and alcoholic in the punk scene of the 80's in California. This is probably only appealing to someone who was also interested in punk rock or a person who is in recovery.

I will be reading Against the Stream and Refuge Recovery in the future.