Quotes from Stanton Peele

Recovery is about purpose and meaning in life, not "sobriety" and meetings.

We often say 'love' when we really mean, and are acting out, an addiction-a sterile, ingrown dependency relationship, with another person serving as the object of our need for security.

For one thing, that Kitty was addicted to amphetamines for twenty-six years without her husband's knowledge suggests a certain lack of communication or awareness in the marriage. Was

For this reason, temperance was an important component in the Progressive movement's effort to improve the lives of the working class.

In the words of Durk Pearson and Sandra Shaw, the authors of Life Extension

prominent spokespeople lecture us that cocaine is a drug with "neuropsychological properties" that "lock people into perpetual usage" so that the only way people can stop is when "supplies become unavailable," after which "the user is then driven to obtain additional cocaine without particular regard for social constraints.

I always think in this connection of the Rumanian saying my in-laws use when they see an extremely obese person: "So, you ate what you wanted.

In addition, experiences that facilitate addiction offer people a sense of power or control, of security or calm, of intimacy or of being valued by others; on the other hand, such experiences succeed in blocking out sensations of pain, discomfort, or other negative sensations.

Let's Convince Him He's Addicted for Life Parents consent to their children's treatment for diseases other than taking drugs. One of the most common groups of childhood diseases is "learning disabilities," including especially hyperactivity. Are such learning disabilities permanent? One piece of research showed that, "Contrary to the expectations of many experts, . . . boys who are hyperactive do not always have

We must also consider the enormous social-class differences in addiction rates. That is, the farther down the social and economic scale a person is, the more likely the person is to become addicted to alcohol, drugs, or cigarettes, to be obese, or to be a victim or perpetrator of family or sexual abuse. How

From this perspective, love at first sight becomes understandable in the sense that addiction to heroin on the first injection is understandable.

parents are the most important influences on children, and that the best way to curb misbehavior is to insist on standards of decency. If we cannot persuade our children that they have the capacity to manage their lives and that the world is worth living in—and then work to create a world in which this is true—medical treatments will expand endlessly but will not be able to help us.

There were two books that really had a significant impact on me on the issue of drugs: One was Andrew Weil's book, The Natural Mind. The

Toward some few others who habitually became drunk or who couldn't control their drinking, most people adopted an attitude between knowing condescension and outright scorn: why were these people so weak or immoral as not to know when enough was enough?

Maia Szalavitz, author of Unbroken Brain: Why Addiction is a Learning Disorder and What to Do About It; neuroscience

ask a group of your friends about their smoking histories some time over dinner—keeping in mind that smoking is at the top of the list of hardest addictions to quit.)

disease.'" —Lance Dodes, MD, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School (retired); author of Breaking Addiction and The Heart of Addiction "Stanton Peele has helped us understand the most tortuous aspects of addiction and recovery, without ever joining the parade of conventional experts…who happen to be marching the wrong way." —Marc Lewis, author of The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction is Not a Disease; professor

To this day, the percentage of abstainers in the United States—about one-third of the adult population—is, along with Ireland's, the highest among Western nations.

Americans that alcoholism is a disease and the alcoholic a sick person who needs help and treatment. The NCA

coping with life, the logic of the disease concept does the contrary. It leads all concerned, including the drinker, to deny, to ignore, to discount what meaning that way of life may have. Seen as an involuntary symptom of a disease, the drinking is isolated from the rest of life, and viewed as the meaningless but destructive effect of a noxious condition, a "disease.

Instead of encouraging those concerned to see the drinking in the context of the person's way of life, and thus to discern what role or roles it may play for that person in coping

Physicians conduct an initial examination and detoxify the alcoholic in the hospital, then turn the patient over to paraprofessional counselors who are themselves recovering alcoholics. As

Addictive relationships are marked by their endurance. We are prepared to lie, cheat, and steal from other people. We begin to lie, cheat, and steal from each other. In the face of decreasing pleasure and even intense painfulness.

In his nicotine addiction articles, he mentions one example—that Orthodox Jews who are addicted to cigarettes quit smoking "without a qualm" on the Sabbath.