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The Stanton Peele Addiction Website, January 7, 2008

Letter: My articles in the WSJ

Dear WSJ Editor,

I have had three opinion pieces on drugs and alcohol printed in the Wall Street Journal in the latter part of 2007 – on what Lindsay Lohan shows us about addiction treatment, on teaching kids to drink, and on the value of Barack Obama’s honesty about his youthful drug use.

My article about Lohan showed that our whole disease, abstinence-oriented treatment approach makes no sense for young people. A massive government survey (“NESARC”) measuring drinking and drug use by people at two points years apart recently found that young alcohol abusers do no better abstaining than if they change their drinking style.

Lindsay Lohan was captured drinking champagne on New Year’s Eve, and the gnashing of teeth was heard around Hollywood. Yet, as I said in my article, the goal should be for Ms. Lohan to avoid all-night drinking parties, not to keep alcohol from ever passing her lips again.

Stanton Peele

Stanton Peele is the author of Addiction-Proof Your Child.