On this page I present links concerning habits that people like to term addictions or diseases, the consequential effort to treat these non-existent "diseases", and the efforts of society to impose religious indoctrination (Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)) upon people, contrary to individual rights. In particular, an attack is made upon the religion of AA and other Twelve-Step programs, and upon the immorality and futility of the drug wars. I also consider that society is going too far in suing tobacco companies and that the non-smoking zealots are going too far in limiting smokers' rights.
My text is in black. Text copied from the Net is in maroon or, as highlighted by me, in red.
. . . Alcoholics Anonymous as a religion
. . . The Nouveau Puritanism of the anti-smoking zealots
. . . Addiction is a habit, not a disease _____ The religion of Alcoholics Anonymous _____ Smoking
Alcoholics Anonymous as a religion
The Nouveau Puritanism of the anti-smoking zealots
As to the Nouveau Puritanism of the anti-smoking zealots. I do not resent their wish to be free of my second-hand smoke, and I try my best not to impose it -- even though I know that I have done so in the more forgiving days of a decade or two ago. What I resent is the holier-than-though semi-religious zeal of the more extreme crusaders. I do not know, for example, why it would not be possible for a cafe owner, just on his own -- without being hindered by laws or their absence -- to declare that his establishment is one of the following type:
(a) No smoking, ever.
(b) Smoking allowed in half the place -- behind bullet-proof glass.
(c) Smoking forbidden anywhere on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Sundays -- but allowed on the other days; a night club in Ottawa (Rasputin's, I think) has had such a policy for years.
About five years ago, in California, a lady came into her office at an insurance company on a Monday morning to be faced with a request for a drug test, which is allowed under her contract of employment. Her manager informed her later in the day that he was sorry, but she is being fired.
"For what," she asked.
He replied that, according to the test, she had been smoking.
She replied that she had smoked a couple of cigarettes -- but only on the weekend at home.
"Not allowed under your contract of employment," he replied, "your contract requires no smoking at any time, anywhere -- sorry about that, but please pack up."
That policy was in effect, presumably, because of the costs of health-insurance. I do not know whether she tried to dispute the case. That is why -- as you will notice from a couple of vitriolic letters of mine re the Olympic Games and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) -- that I am against the IOC and its dictatorial imposition of drug-testing on athletes, and with it, the imposition of its own foreign and undemocratic "laws". Those who support such testing, such as our Justice Minister, for example, should have no complaint when the inevitable result of such testing efforts comes to their place of work too and they find themselves fired for having drunk too many cups of coffee -- a restricted performance-enhancing drug under the IOC dictatorship, as is Coca-Cola (a major sponsor, ironically).
Why someone would want to fire someone for enhancing his ability to run faster or to think better I cannot imagine, but our society has bought the concept with unbridled enthusiasm. I agree with our former Privacy Commissioner, Bruce Philips, that, for example, Ben Johnson should never have been penalized for using steroids. It is no business of the IOC, and constitutes a gross invasion of privacy to both insist on the test and to then have the results published on the front pages of the papers. How would you like to have some of your latest medical test results published on the front page of the Citizen? If we keep allowing the Olympic Games, it will come to that -- and maybe worse. I would like Canada to have the guts to say to the IOC that it either bans drug testing or that Canada will not sponsor any athlete to go to the Olympics, will not allow the Games to be held in Canada, and will offer no support of any kind to the Olympic movement. After all, why is it so important that one trained monkey or athlete can run faster than another? Who cares? Certainly not me!
The Ontario and Federal governments have just announced that, although there is not enough money to improve the waiting period of seven months to a year for an MRI scan in Ottawa (see my Health site for a link re that), and that there is a waiting list of 7,000 people wondering whether they really do have a tumor or not -- there is still enough money available to spend $13 billion on the Olympics and Toronto's waterfront. In the meantime, there are rumors that the IOC is giving Toronto less than full marks in its bid for the next Games because Toronto does not have enough five-star hotels. Of course all of the IOC officials (in the thousands) and their wives (and girlfriends and cousins?) absolutely require five-star hotels. Perhaps chauffeured limos on call would be in order too. Ordinary four-door Cadillacs would just not be good enough! After all, royalty should have its perks -- no?
It seems that we have created a new religion out of athleticism, with its stadiums full of ardent worshippers and the passing of a very deep collection plate for tithes -- reminiscent of the "great" evangelistic crusades of the past, but not quite achieving the spectacle of Hitler and the hordes of worshippers at those different thrones and shrines of der Reich in Nuremberg and Berlin. But the mindset is the same.
Addiction is a habit, not a disease
The Stanton Peele Addiction Web Site: http://www.peele.net/
Stanton Peele's first book, Love and Addiction, was published in 1975. Its approach to addiction revolutionized thinking by indicating that addiction is not limited to narcotics, or to drugs. Rather, addiction is a pattern of behavior and experience which is best understood by examining a person's relationship with his/her world. It considers addiction to be a general pattern of behavior that nearly everyone experiences in varying degrees, although, for some, it can grow to overwhelming and life-defeating proportions. It is not essentially a medical problem, but a problem of life. It is frequently encountered and very often overcome in people's lives -- the failure to overcome addictions is the exception. It occurs for people who learn drug use or other destructive patterns as a way of gaining satisfaction in the absence of more functional pursuits. Therefore, maturity, improved coping skills, and better self-management and self-regard all contribute to overcoming and preventing addiction.
His approach puts him at odds with the Disease Model of alcohol/drug abuse -- one which has gained almost unaninumous accptance in America and Canada, and which is gaining acceptance worldwide. The notion that drug and alcohol abuse are inevitably progressive, a holdover from the Temperance view, is one example of how modern addictionology is really moralistic and theological rather than scientific and pragmatic. The Peele Web site presents solutions to problems of policy, scientific, treatment, and personal rights.
Stanton's Bookstore - Diseasing of America: http://www.peele.net/bookstore/diseasing.html Diseasing of America: How We Allowed Recovery Zealots and the Treatment Industry to Convince Us We Are Out of Control, by Stanton Peele. A popular book explaining the movement in America toward disease theories of behaviors and their negative consequences for law, morality, and social and individual health. Widely reviewed, largely positively, including JAMA, Health Affairs, American Health, Psychology Today, Psychiatric News, and JSA.
Praise for "Diseasing of America":
Commonly accepted ideas about
alcoholism and other addictions are almost entirely without
scientific basis. We have more than enough diseases without
inventing new ones to relieve us of moral responsibility to deal
with the complexity of the human condition. Diseasing
of America is an important book that should be read
by all concerned about addiction. An added bonus—Dr. Peele
writes exceptionally well.
—Neil A. Kurtzman, M.D., Arnett Professor of Medicine, and
Chairman, Department of Internal Medicine, Texas Tech University
Health Sciences Center
"A courageous indictment
of the destructive mindset that all deviant behavior is a
disease. Peele offers mindful alternatives to those suffering
from addictions and to professionals seeking to help them."
—Ellen Langer, Ph.D., professor of psychology, Harvard
University, and author of Mindfulness
Peele's is a voice of sanity on
a topic where confusion and false doctrine reign today. His book
addresses a subject of urgent importance in America. Peele brings
to the task many years of expertise, as well as plenty of
common-sense insight. It should have a major influence in
redefining America's views on alcoholism and addiction generally.
—Herbert Fingarette, Ph.D., professor of philosophy,
University of California, and author of Heavy Drinking
Jossey-Bass Diseasing of America How We Allowed Recovery Zealots and the Treatment Industry to Convince Us We Are Out of Control: http://www.josseybass.com/catalog/isbn/0-7879-4643-5/ Diseasing of America: How We Allowed Recovery Zealots and the Treatment Industry to Convince Us We Are Out of Control, by Stanton Peele.
A Controversial Argument Against the Disease Theory of Addiction There is absolutely no proven scientific evidence supporting the misconception that substance abuse and other addictions are genetically acquired diseases. Shocked? Diseasing of America is a powerful and controversial rebuttal to the 'addiction as disease model' that many vested interests-including doctors, counselors, psychologists, treatment centers, and twelve-step programs that specialize in addiction treatment-don't want you to read.
'I found the arguments in Diseasing of America persuasive and carefully documented. While I find current addiction-treatment models helpful, I think it is critical to look at Stanton Peele's work to question our fundamental assumptions and adjust them on the basis of data.' -- Jennifer P. Schneider, author of Back From Betrayal and Sex, Lies, and Forgiveness, and member of the American Society of Addiction Medicine'
A provocative review of the uses and abuses of the disease model in the past three decades. This important book has significantly added to my education and clinical understanding of addiction in my professional practice.' -- Richard R. Irons, M.D., The Menninger Clinic
Punishment Vs Coddling Two Shoals of Addiction Treatment and Policy: http://www.adfq.org/peele.html Punishment Vs Coddling: Two Shoals of Addiction Treatment and Policy, by Dr. Stanton Peele. Dr. Peele examines views of addiction as representing either loss of control, or behaviour that is predictable in terms of people's situations and values. A view that synthesises both sides of this conflict is one that encourages training and environmental support as a way of assisting addicts out of their predicaments. On the other hand, recognising addiction as a failure of values requires addicts to recognise the conflict between their behaviour and accepted social standards. . . .
We're All Sick and Government Must Heal Us: http://www.forces-cdn.com/articles/index.htm Americans now seem to view social deviance of nearly every stripe -- from criminality and drug use, to Attention Deficit Disorder and everyday schoolboy mischief -- as a mental illness rooted in poor self-esteem and requiring government-sponsored therapy to fix. Ominously, the embrace of this therapeutic ethos has become a source of legitimation of expanded state power that otherwise would face stiff opposition, argues James L. Nolan, Jr., in his well-researched book, THE THERAPEUTIC STATE: JUSTIFYING GOVERNMENT AT CENTURY’S END.
Love and Addiction: http://www.peele.net/lib/laa.html
MarijuanaNews.Com, Freedom has nothing to fear from the truth: http://www.marijuananews.com/stanton_peele_says_new_jersey.htm Stanton Peele Says New Jersey' s Draconian Prohibitionism A Counterproductive Failure. . . .
It would seem that we have gone as far as we can with zero-tolerance, arrest and confiscate, scare tactics with drugs. Yet we are addicted to such approaches. The more drug use by teens, the more we resort to the unsuccessful policies that led to such drug use. Stanton Peele.
The religion of Alcoholics Anonymous
comments.shtml: http://www.cris.com/~kenr1/commonsense/12steps/comments.shtml More Revealed, by Ken Ragge.
"I have always sensed there was something wrong with twelve step programs. Since everyone else seemed to think they were great, I assumed I didn't understand them completely or perhaps I was in 'denial.' ... More Revealed has helped me understand the cultism and dependence inherent in these programs. If this information had been available to my mother 25 years ago, she might still be alive." -- Martha White
jt_review.shtml: http://www.cris.com/~kenr1/commonsense/12steps/jt_review.shtml More Revealed: A Critical Analysis of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Twelve Steps, by Ken Ragge. Review by Jack Trimpey. " . . .
a landmark in America's return to sanity in addiction care. More Revealed sets forth, for the first time I know of, an unambiguous, critical analysis of the twelve step movement, plainly showing it to be a cult. Ken Ragge wrote this with confidence, clarity, and flourish. This is the kind of book that many would like to censor, because it strikes deeply into a nagging national dilemma, "Has a religious cult made its way into America's major social institutions?"
More Revealed traces the cult origins of AA in the Oxford Group, itself a totalitarian Christian cult started in China in 1918 by Lutheran missionary, Frank Buchman. He asserted that his Oxford Group was on a higher "spiritual" plane than conventional Christian religions. . . . The Oxford Group eventually renamed itself Moral Rearmament . . . ".
Addictions Are About Behavior, Not Disease (part 1): http://www.americanpartisan.com/cols/2001/mercer/qtr1/print/0226.htm
When it comes to thinking about addiction, opinions converge. Having bought into the addiction industry's mantra, so-called social progressives and conservatives alike share the same ideological hangover from the Prohibition era, with a twist of AA sadism: all are religious about abstinence, and all accept as bible from Sinai the wisdom of coercing addicts into treatment regimens. But perhaps the greatest error made in the attempt at humane formulations about addiction is to cast as a disease what is essentially a problem of behaviour.
The dangers of gathering more and more behaviors under the disease label is not something pharmacology moguls, politicians or health care professionals ruminate about, despite the ramifications for a society already committed to a morality lite and to diminished personal responsibility. In his book Diseasing of America, addiction researcher Stanton Peele breaks with this tradition. Disease conceptions of misbehavior are bad science and morally and intellectually sloppy, argues Peele. "Once we treat alcoholism and addiction as diseases, we cannot rule out that anything people do but shouldn't is a disease, from crime to excessive sexuality to procrastination." . . .
For the rest, the lingering paranoia of the temperance and prohibition era, which has culminated in AA disease dogma, should be consigned to the historical dustbin.
Ilana Mercer. Previously Published in the Calgary Herald.
Can alcoholics become moderate drinkers (counselling, Toronto): http://www3.sympatico.ca/beth/dearbeth/drinking_problem.htm Can Alcoholics Become Moderate Drinkers? Beth Answers: Yes, I do take clients with that objective. . . . Beth Mares, Clinical Member, Ontario Society of Psychotherapists, Toronto & Scarborough. Contra AA.
Deprogramming from
Alcoholics Anonymous - Bookstore: http://www.aadeprogramming.com/choose/books_deconstruct.html The
Real AA: Behind the Myth of 12-Step Recovery,
by Ken Ragge. 12-Step Horror
Stories: True Tales of Misery, Betrayal and Abuse in AA, NA and
12-Step Treatment ,
by Rebecca Fransway (compiler).
Resisting 12-Step Coercion : How to Fight Forced Participation in AA, NA, or 12-Step Treatment, by Stanton Peele, Charles Bufe, Archie Brodsky. . . . demonstrates the many ways in which AA, NA, and treatment based on them are religious in nature; reviews court decisions that have held that AA, NA, and 12-step treatment are religious, and that government coercion of individuals into them violates the First Amendment's "Establishment Clause"; analyzes how 12-step treatment providers routinely violate standard medical ethics, especially the principle of "informed consent"; and presents case studies of such violations.
Alcoholics Anonymous: Cult or Cure? by Charles Q. Bufe, Albert Ellis (Introduction)
A thorough history of the Oxford Group (the Christian influence behind AA). Learn more about that nice pie-baking Christian group before turning your brain over!
Bufe presents his plan in the Foreword: 1) to examine the genesis and development of AA; 2) to determine the relationship between AA and the Oxford Group Movement; 3) to explore the many "cult" charges against AA, in terms of their legitimacy (or lack of it); and 5) 'to analyze AA's program and structure with a view to distinguishing its strengths and weaknesses. He does all that, and more in a concise and thoroughly researched work.
Rational Recovery: The New Cure for Substance Addiction by Jack Trimpey. . . . The vast majority who look into Alcoholics Anonymous reject it out of hand because of its apparent religiosity and inbred social traditions.
Recovery Liberation Front: http://www.aahorror.net/Book%20Express%202.htm Many excellent anti-AA books, including: Addiction Is a Choice by Phd, Jeffrey Schaler.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/081269404X/qid%3D986206754/107-9680657-3378926
For Your Own Good The Anti-Smoking Crusade and the Tyranny of Public Health - Home: http://www.reason.com/owngood.html
For Your Own Good -
Reviews: http://www.reason.com/ogrev.html Here are only two of several
reviews: "A
curious and challenging mixture
of fact and philosophy is what makes this book so intriguing and
worthwhile. Sullum marshals an impressive array of facts and
arguments in tackling such fundamental issues as addiction, the
risks of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, the legitimacy
of taxing cigarettes, and the effects of advertising....Sullum is
a thoughtful and remarkably articulate proponent of a position
that it behooves all members of the health care professions to
understand and contemplate." -- The New England Journal of Medicine, February 18, 1999 -- Volume 340,
Number 7 A
very readable book...Sullum does not smoke but will die in
defense of the right of others to smoke. His book is a persuasive polemic against the
shower-adjusters of this world, whose great hands reach into your
quarters and insist that the temperature you are enjoying is
really just a little too hot, or else a little too cold. Sullum devastatingly reviews the
evidence that we are all victimized by our neighbors'
smoking."
-- William F. Buckley Jr., Syndicated Columnist, March
19, 1998
Salon Books For Your Own Good: http://www.salon.com/books/sneaks/1998/04/16sneaks.html A great review! Extract: Before you read any further, folks, I'd advise you to lock your doors. Close the windows and draw the blinds. You're about to hear something you're not supposed to know. . . .
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You can e-mail me at waynerp@sympatico.ca