Further Reading

Jack Trimpey calls Stanton "Dr. Beast at Large"

Dr Beast

Jack Trimpey responded to Stanton's FAQ, "What do you think of AVRT?", with an entire article in his Journal of Rational Recovery, July-August, 1997, pp. 6-12. Jack's article reveals his view of alcoholism as an unconscious, inexorable biological response which has no rhyme or reason in a person's life and which can only be remedied by developing the insight that alcohol is devil's brew, and that it must be avoided no matter what. In its essential disease-like elements, Jack's version of RR is more similar to than different from AA. Following are excerpts from Jack's article entitled:

Stanton Peele: Dr. Beast at Large

Stanton Peele, Ph.D., a social scientist, was one of the first to publish materials critical of the recovery group movement and the addiction treatment industry. He ground breaking expose, The Diseasing of America: Addiction Treatment Out of Control, summarized many shortcomings and problems of 12-step programming, and many people have gained important insights from reading his well-written works.

[However, in The Truth About Addiction and Recovery,] as a purveyor of recovery advice, Peele is the scientist from hell. . . . For a number of years, RR has distanced itself from professionals of all stripes. . . . [Peele] doesn't really understand the joy of realizing that one's addiction is only a devotion to one's desire for a specific, bodily pleasure. . . . The structural model says, "You have a healthy brain. You are not defective. . . ."

[Peele wrote in his original FAQ answer:] I never understood how telling people that unwise choices stem from their "midbrain" helps them.

The structural model's view of human behavior predates modern social psychology, Dr. Peele's academic specialty, by several millennia, and reflects the wisdom of many generations of human beings struggling against their biological nature. In the beginning, it was said that man has an evil, base nature which must be reconciled with God, and that this evil within was the work of a dark spirit called Satan. The Bible describes Satan as a seductive mentality which overtakes the better judgment of men and women. . . . In a number of passages, the Bible calls Satan "the Beast.". . . [William] Bennett, then the so-called drug czar in the Bush administration, said, "I have the seen the mayhem of our inner cities, the human destruction caused by drugs, and I am convinced that this is the work of Satan". . . .

Back to the beast—it isn't much of a stretch to envision addiction or other compulsions as obedience to inner commands. Indeed, most addiction specialists know very well that the addictive voice exists, that it is cunning, powerful, and baffling. . . . Whether the source of the internal voice is external, as in old Mr. 666, or Mr. Mephistopheles, or a biologically-driven aberration. . . . is not. . . critical. It is well-known the midbrain/forebrain is the site where emotion and pleasure is mediated. The neocortex is the site of the uniquely human mental functions, one of which is to override any biological drive. . . .

I have never understood on what evidence Trimpey located a symbolic voice in an area of the brain, and what he felt was gained by this identification.

The AV [addictive voice] is not symbolic, but vivid, real, and associated with strong feelings. . . . The AV is an immutable voice which is not susceptible to willful change, any more than one's sex drive or desire for oxygen can be reasoned away. . . . but may be entirely dissipated by the act of objective recognition. . . .

The mid-brain is that subcortical mass which includes the mesolimbic system and other structures which generate and moderate the survival appetites. If some folks disagree or don't believe this, then they might refer to basic health sciences text [sic], or recent publications by the National Institute of Drug Abuse. . . . The dumb midbrain can "talk" in the sense that biological desires come to consciousness. . . .

Does it make his theory sound scientific, did he have a vision, does he feel lending this voice biological, vestigial presence will make people take it seriously?

Some science is not science, such as behavioral science and social science. . . . Science has become the huckster's pitch for anything that can be sold for money. . . . and an embellishment for bad advice. . . . AVRT is not a scientific theory, but a way of explaining how people self-recover through planned abstinence. It is a piercing insight into the nature of addiction based on the twoness of addictive ambivalence. . . . [Peele has] forgotten that the structural model, the gross functional anatomy of the human brain, is taught in elementary schools. . . .

Can youthful problem drinkers ever resume drinking socially?

Of course. I did so myself, and had very few problems with drinking for a few years. . . .

Is the possibility of drinking moderately influenced by major life changes, such as returning from a war zone. . . ?"

This is what Freud called "wish fulfillment". . . .

Were the people I know who now drink moderately who used to drink problematically (such as Audrey Kishline) not real "alcoholics," so that all the above advice doesn't apply to them?

Here we see a most disturbing phenomenon, a never-addicted, social psychologist imagining that his own values on moderate drinking apply to people who have already been harmed by drinking alcohol. . . . I have read some Dr. Peele's work, and some of it is engaging and has social importance. However, his "Life Process Recovery Program" is little more than advice to "get a life," after which moderate drinking or drugging just happens. When he occasionally suggests that some are better off to abstain, he is without words to suggest how one might accomplish this. . . . With AVRT, the technology now exists for any addicted person to completely recover in a matter of days or weeks.

When someone imagines physical forces they claim drive behavior, when they dictate one true path for recovery, when these basic tenets cannot be questioned without fear of group expulsion, how much does their approach really differ from AA?

Here, Dr. Peele engages in petty gossip which characterizes the denominational recovery group movement. . . . I have condensed a letter which Dr. Peele posted on the internet as an example of the Life Process approach. AVRTers will appreciate the writer's candor, and I will comment afterward. Then I will end this long, long discourse on Stanton Peele, Ph.D., i.e., Dr. Beast at Large.

The letter is "Overcoming disease treatment for addiction: A first person account," from which the following is excerpted:

It has now been over 5 years since I abandoned abstinence. I feel happier than ever and I have begun to develop many aspects of my life that rigidity had kept me from exploring before. I feel more relaxed, less fearful, more profoundly impressed with the human experience. Everyone who knows me considers me a success story, yet I'm sure the folks in AA would come up with some rationalization about why I haven't failed...*yet*.

Trimpey comments: This inability to imagine or create a satisfactory life without alcohol is what AA calls "the spiritual disease of alcoholism," or "dry drunk." In RR, we know this perceptual distortion is typical of addicted people. The AV is essentially a "life sucks" mentality that justifies the physical, spiritual pleasure of self-intoxication. He was a "dry drunk," for whom life was hollow and meaningless, one who would inevitably drink. Through the lens of AVRT, he was, and still is, looking at life through the eyes of the Beast. . . .

The letter writer was quite ambivalent about his continued use of alcohol until he read Peele's work. He had quite reasonably dismissed the insipid pronouncements of AA, but retained one of its few kernels of wisdom—abstinence. He wanted to abstain, but the Beast was driving him nuts. Enter, Dr. Beast. "Take three to five, prn, and call me in the morning—if you can. . . . Some of Peele's readers call in and come to groups or RR Centers. They recall only the material on moderation, often citing from memory the page numbers of exciting passages on moderation. . . . Neither Lois nor I dispute or refute Peele's books, in fact we sell them because his well-written, scholarly work has considerable value as reference. . . . We know that anyone who learns AVRT will understand that their Beasts can read, and will be tickled pink by the mountains of evidence supporting moderate drinking that has been complied by Dr. Beast.

Stanton notes: Some readers use my work to abstain, like the man whose life I saved, and I have therapy clients who seek help from me in achieving and maintaining abstinence—as they choose.

For those considering abstinence versus controlled drinking, some clinical guidelines:

• Controlled Drinking
• If I feel I should abstain currently, can I ever resume drinking?