Feed Editor 18 Mar 2009 07:33:54 GMT Stanton Peele, Ph.D, is a social/clinical psychologist who has greatly influenced the addiction field. His site contains many of his writings on the issue of addiction, which have been published in widely read journals. http://www.peele.net/ 1996-2010 Stanton Peele. All rights reserved. stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) 60 en-us info@sasict.eu (Arjan Sas) http://www.peele.net/images/logos/feedlogo.gif http://www.peele.net/ The Stanton Peele Addiction Website Comprehensive government research shows that alcohol dependence often appears among young people, but that it is age-limited; that is, unless young people receive standard, 12-step treatment. So, what are experts pushing on college campuses around the US? A massive treatment effort to convince kids they are lifetime alcoholics. 25 Oct 2011 01:47:06 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110822.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110822.html Most people exposed to AA, the 12 steps, and the concepts endorsed with such certitude by Dr. Alasko are (a) young (in their twenties or younger), (b) forced to undergo the experience. This could be because they are experiencing denial which must be confronted. There is another possibility. 22 Oct 2011 01:36:31 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110820.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110820.html PT blogger Nigel Barber insists that religion is on the way out in well-off nations, replaced by atheism. Excuse me, Dr. Barber -- I live in the U.S.A., a nation of true believers where we fry atheists alive! And we would certainly never elect one president. 20 Oct 2011 12:00:02 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110818.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110818.html Rush Limbaugh chose to rag on my views about the addictiveness of the Tea Party by focusing on my views around love and addiction, claiming only a charlatan could hold them. Rush, I think, knows better. 19 Oct 2011 00:42:45 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110805.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110805.html The blog Gawker defends a brawling mayor on a three-day alcoholic bender (one also accused of making sexual comments about family members and of sexual harassment), and attacked efforts at his removal as examples of "everything wrong with politics today" -- he is being "shamed and punished" for "being honest about his personal failings." 17 Oct 2011 23:29:17 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110731.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110731.html People were singing the ballad of Boehner and Obama after they went golfing and canoodled together. Was it true love? Or was it doomed from the start? 2 Oct 2011 14:35:29 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110727.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110727.html People were singing the ballad of Boehner and Obama after they went golfing and canoodled together. Was it true love? Or was it doomed from the start? 2 Oct 2011 14:35:29 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110726.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110726.html When someone dies due to substance abuse, many are quick to point fingers at whomever they regard as the culprits. Unfortunately (and I hate to quote him), John Galt had it right: "I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." 2 Oct 2011 14:00:04 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110723.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110723.html Nothing Americans imagine or discuss doing can reverse our irreversible decline as a nation -- predicated primarily on our failure to right ourselves economically, which is a result of nothing so much as our inability to come to grips with health care (Note: NOT Medicare). 29 Sep 2011 23:52:50 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110722.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110722.html The New York Times last week announced a new medical approach to addiction taking hold in America's medical schools, where addiction medicine is becoming a recognized specialty. Although the Times welcomes this development (it was inevitable), it is doubtful it will improve America's addictive dispositions. 29 Sep 2011 10:32:24 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110720.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110720.html Betty Ford backed into a life where she was celebrated as–if not a victim–then a sufferer. Sorry, not my cup of tea. 28 Sep 2011 00:28:15 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110719.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110719.html Betty Ford backed into a life where she was celebrated as–if not a victim–then a sufferer. Sorry, not my cup of tea. 29 Aug 2011 06:59:46 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110715.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110715.html That idea that addiction has a "meaning" seems strange -- haven't they discovered "addiction" in a PET scan in a laboratory at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)? It's either there or it's not, right? Not actually. Here's why. 29 Aug 2011 04:06:27 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110713a.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110713a.html The New York Times is in love, in order, with Nora Volkow, addiction as disease, and the new specialty of addiction medicine. But will its love be requited? 20 Aug 2011 23:55:20 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110713.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110713.html Stanton Peele (First 30 min.) and Tony Monterastell (Second 30 min.) on Radio Dr. Gluss 27 Aug 2011 21:37:37 GMT http://www.peele.net/lib/drgluss_110617.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/lib/drgluss_110617.html Stanton's appearance on Martin Bashir's on MSNBC, analyzing the Tea Party. 21 Aug 2011 00:42:55 GMT http://www.peele.net/lib/msnbc_110803.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/lib/msnbc_110803.html The New York Times is in love, in order, with Nora Volkow, addiction as disease, and the new specialty of addiction medicine. But will its love be requited? 20 Aug 2011 23:55:20 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110711.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110711.html David Brooks is psychology's greatest booster. But his analysis of why psychology is so necessary and valuable actually points out why we are doomed as a discipline -- when it comes to thinking about anything in depth, Americans just don't have the time. 18 Aug 2011 19:45:01 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110708.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110708.html NBC has been engaged in an ongoing boosterism project called, "Education Nation," premised on America's dedication to enhancing its educational performance levels. You'll see MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and crew crop up from time to time in some city where great things are supposedly happening in a given school or school district. Recently Morning Joe focused on New Orleans, where former Notre Dame basketball coach Digger Phelps has been soliciting funding to make one high school into a culinary institute. (Phelps had previously gotten a donation of a state-of the-art basketball floor for the school.) I have been dubious about Education Nation, for several reasons. For one thing, how about bringing in knowledgeable researchers and specialists to implement empirically-validated teaching methods and school organizations, rather than flashy projects sponsored by famous athletic figures? Digger Phelps cadging a nice basketball court is good TV -- but what, really, does it have to do with improving education? 18 Aug 2011 13:10:33 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110705.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110705.html Psychoactive substance use -- certainly including alcohol and psychiatric medications, on top of illicit drug use -- is nearly universal in Western societies. It is becoming more, not less, so, and it's beginning at younger ages. American public policy and treatment don't recognize this reality. 18 Aug 2011 12:12:26 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110701.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110701.html The rumor about Lindsay Lohan drinking was true. The rumor about Lindsay Lohan violating the conditions of her probation was not. Judge Stephanie Sautner ruled last Thursday that the prior judge on the case, Elden Fox, only required testing from January 3 to February 25, 2011. After that point, Lohan was free to drink so long as she didn't drive. This ruling makes both legal and therapy sense. And it is rare. 26 Jul 2011 13:04:09 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110630.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110630.html Marcia Angell paints a horrifying picture of pharmaceutical psychiatry in America, and of how both medicine and Americans at large are so much in its throes that there is no hope for redemption. 25 Jul 2011 13:09:32 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110628.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110628.html Some women seem to be very tolerant of mass murderers, even after they shoot their husband and don't take them out to dinner. 25 Jul 2011 12:46:30 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110626.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110626.html Contrary to the notion that the meaning of addiction is discoverable in a vial somewhere, definitions and the applicability of the addiction concept are historically and socially determined, as the current issue of the journal Addiction struggles to come to grips with. 24 Jul 2011 14:21:48 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110625.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110625.html An extremely reputable periodical -- perhaps the leading general intellectual journal in the United States -- is publishing a two-part series by a former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine questioning our entire mental illness paradigm. A modest suggestion: ban the second part of the series. 24 Jul 2011 14:04:12 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110623.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110623.html The two primary (New York) intellectual organs, the New York Review of Books and The New York Times, have recently featured two powerful cultural icons saying exactly opposite things. Marcia Angell, the first woman editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine and now at the Harvard Medical School, in an ongoing, two-part series in the New York Review of Books (part 1 of which is in the June 23 issue), argues against the firmly ensconced American view that mental illness can be (and it has been) resolved to brain functioning. The New York Times, for its part, once again supports, with a profile of Nora Volkow, the visionary director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the slightly more come-lately view of addiction as a brain disease. 19 Jul 2011 18:01:12 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110616a.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110616a.html Most people are fine with rehab for miscreants addicted to drugs and alcohol, but not to sex. This view raises questions: Is it okay for alcoholics to kill people? Why is our leading addiction therapy steeped in God and moralism? If therapy for Anthony Weiner WERE effective, would that then prove rehab is fine in lieu of punishment for him? 19 Jul 2011 17:44:46 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110615.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110615.html A leading American medical authority reviews books that reflect on the dismal failures of American psychiatry, where decade after decade more Americans are identified as suffering from mental illnesses, treated with drugs, and the process feeds on itself and accelerates. 19 Jul 2011 12:56:22 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110613a.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110613a.html We may wonder what trouble well-known people -- say during the Victorian era -- might have gotten into if they had Twitter. Would they be prim and proper like Victorians of yore? Let's examine that question in light of historical evidence from one very well-known case. 11 Jul 2011 07:09:58 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110613.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110613.html Newt Gingrich is among the most power-hungry and self-assertive men in America. Yet he seemingly bows at the feet of wife Callista. But this is not a sexual attraction. 5 Jul 2011 21:56:25 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110611.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110611.html Gone are the days when people gathered in parks and chit-chatted, watched kids play, and felt safe from criminal indictments. No, that whole ball of wax is no longer legal; and we're watching you! 5 Jul 2011 21:26:36 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110610.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110610.html Since Politico diagnosed Congressman Anthony Weiner as ill based on his sexting, does this mean David Vitter, Newt Gingrich, Bill Clinton, and Jack and Ted Kennedy also suffered from diseases which -- since they apparently received no treatment -- they died (or will die) with? 5 Jul 2011 12:51:15 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110609a.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110609a.html As the author of "Love and Addiction," I am a frequent go-to person for media to ask, "Is Anthony Weiner addicted to sex?" My answer? No, he's not. Women contact me because their husbands spend all night -- night after night -- accessing Internet porn or engaged in online sex. Their own marriage is in tatters; certainly, they have no sex. The men may be further endangering their jobs, their other family relationships (including with children) and even their health. 5 Jul 2011 12:28:11 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110616.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110616.html People -- especially professionals -- often reject any kind of structure at meetings, even or especially when there are specific topics to be covered and an audience. This approach is disrespectful to all involved, although participants may imagine otherwise. 4 Jul 2011 21:45:21 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110609.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110609.html After selecting me for their list of most influential addiction experts, yet disparaging my reputation and ideas, The Fix allowed me to present my ideas for myself. (There is some dispute about that, though; I say they encouraged me, but in a lengthy introduction to my piece, which repeats the same knocks against me, they claim that I twisted their arms.) I took the opportunity to describe what I see as the future of addiction in the 21st century. In one kind nod by an assistant editor, the introduction notes, "To a surprising degree, many of his once-heretical beliefs have increasingly been adopted by mainstream medicine. Whether or not you agree with him, it's a safe bet that his alternative approach will be at the center of the most critical debates in the coming decades." Here are the five points I predict about the future of addiction and how we treat it. 4 Jul 2011 15:39:46 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110608.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110608.html Commenters on my "How the Disease Theory Killed Mary Pendery" really came down hard on me, saying -- well -- I'm killing alcoholics. Their shared view: if you drink again, damn you, you deserve to die (along with anyone you're dating). None mentions harm reduction, though. 3 Jul 2011 23:10:44 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110604.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110604.html A new Global Commission on Drug Policy rejects the U.S.-created, worldwide War on Drugs, saying it is demonstrably ineffective and oppresses other nations. The Obama Administration's reaction, "Screw you!" (a) We're the United states; (b) everyone knows drug use is a disease. 3 Jul 2011 22:34:56 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110603.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110603.html A second international financeer has been accused of sexually assaulting a maid at a New York hotel. Occurring so soon after the arrest of the head of the IMF on similar charges, it begins to seem as though this is standard practice here, and around the world. A secret video reveals that this is indeed the case. 3 Jul 2011 00:48:46 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110531.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110531.html Everybody's talking about it -- the fastest-growing drugs of abuse are prescribed painkillers, synthetic opiates like OxyContin. "Responding to America's Prescription Drug Abuse Epidemic" is the lead story at the Web site of the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy, for instance. There's nothing surprising about these drugs' ascendance. Painkillers have always been Americans' number-one drug attraction, in direct descent from morphine to heroin to Demerol to Percodan to... the present. 2 Jul 2011 12:10:41 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110530a.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110530a.html Mary Pendery, whose article in Science showed that controlled-drinking subjects in an alcoholism study suffered many relapses, was killed by an alcoholic she felt was safely remitted due to his abstinence therapy at the same facility where the CD treatment took place. Her tragic mistake -- which caused her and this alcoholic their lives -- offers a beacon for the future. 30 Jun 2011 00:41:42 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110530.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110530.html Ever since Keith Olbermann left MSNBC, we have missed his "Worst Person in the World" nightly feature. I attempt in my own feeble way to fill in this lacunae with the story of Ryan O'Neal -- alleged drug abuser, child beater, girlfriend threatener, child sexual. . . intimidator, and self-idolator who turned Farrah Fawcett's death into a paean to himself. What a guy! 30 Jun 2011 00:41:27 GMT http://www.peele.net/blog/110529.html stanton@peele.net (Stanton Peele) http://www.peele.net/blog/110529.html