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August 6, 2024 62 mins

Join us for an eye-opening conversation with Dr. Stanton Peele, the revolutionary psychologist, attorney, and addiction specialist who has spent decades challenging traditional views on addiction. In this episode, we discuss Dr. Peele's groundbreaking work, including his influential book "Love and Addiction," and his compelling arguments against the old disease model of addiction. Dr. Peele advocates for alternative approaches like moderation and emphasizes the role of raising independent, competent children in preventing addiction.

We redefine addiction and recovery, emphasizing the importance of engaging with life and enhancing self-capabilities. Dr. Peele shares his insights on the varying impacts of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), the benefits of Buddhist philosophies in reframing addiction, and the critical role of community in recovery. We also explore the potential pitfalls of labeling addiction as a disease and the implications this has for personal identity and social stigma. For those interested in diverse recovery methods, we recommend resources like peel.net and lifeprocessprogram.com.

Discover the nuanced discussions of personalized recovery approaches in our discussion on harm reduction and alternative therapies such as MDMA. We dive into a Harvard study that categorizes different recovery experiences, highlighting the need for tailored strategies that enhance lif

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello and thanks again for listening to another
episode of All Better.
I'm your host, joe VanWee.
Today's guest is Dr Stanton JPeel.
He's a psychologist, anattorney, a psychotherapist and
the author of books and articleson the subject of alcoholism,

(00:24):
addiction and addictiontreatment.
Dr Stanton Peale was raised inPhiladelphia, pennsylvania.
Peale received his BA inpolitical science cum laude on
municipal and state scholarshipsfrom the University of
Pennsylvania in 1967, supportedby a number of fellowships,

(00:45):
including the Woodrow WilsonFellowship.
He went on to earn a PhD insocial psychology from the
University of Michigan in 1975.
From 1976 to 2012, hemaintained a private practice
and consultancy while based inMorristown, new Jersey.

(01:05):
After earning his JD fromRutgers School of Law, newark,
in 1997, keel was admitted tothe New York and New Jersey bars
.
He maintained a concurrent lawpractice, including two stints
as a pool attorney at MorrisCounty Public Defender's Office

(01:26):
two stints as a pool attorney,Morris County Public Defender's
Office and offered vitalinsights into the workings of
American criminal justice systemuntil 2012.
As a psychologist and addictionspecialist, he has held
visiting adjunct academicpositions at New York University
, positions at New YorkUniversity, bournemouth

(01:49):
University, the New School, andhe currently resides in Brooklyn
, new York.
I read that from his Wikipedia.
I don't use it for researchpapers but Wikipedia is great
for intro, why I had Dr Pilon wetalked about a little bit.
You type into any largelanguage model, give me the top
20 voices of addiction and hecame up now as number four and I

(02:13):
wasn't familiar with his work,which his book it was very
successful called Love andAddiction.
He's one of the moreinteresting guests I'm going to
have, especially if you comefrom a background and found
meeting in 12 steps.
Dr Peel sits in opposition ofthem for the many populations

(02:37):
that this might not work for.
He wanted to be a voice and hemakes that case clear and it
comes from a position that isintelligent and opens a broader
path for people.
He began his critique ofstandard notions of addiction
when he published LovingAddiction, co-authored with

(02:57):
Archie Brodsky.
According to Peale'sexperimental environmental
approach, addictions arenegative patterns of behavior
that result from anover-attachment people form to
experience generated from arange of involvements.
He contends that most peopleexperience addiction to some

(03:18):
degree, at least for periods oftime during their lives, at
least for periods of time duringtheir lives.
He does not view addictions asmedical problems but as problems
of life that most peopleovercome.
The failure to do so is theexception rather than the rule,
he argues.
The view opposes the braindisease model of addiction In

(03:44):
his book Non-AddictiveChild-Rearing Addiction Proof
your Child.
It was in 2007, outgrowingAddiction with child development
specialist Zach Rhodes that waspublished in 2019.
Peel argues that the bestanecdote for addiction is
raising independent children whoare competent and will have

(04:04):
pro-social, health-orientedvalues.
These same profiles, along withsocially privileged backgrounds
, account for young people areable to overcome whatever
addictive episodes they may have.
When it was published, love andAddiction, though in 1975,
predated by almost a decade ofthe notion of sex addiction and

(04:29):
codependency, popularized byauthors such as Patrick Carnes,
who's out of the shadows work,sex Addiction came out in 1983,

(04:52):
and Melody Eddy, who'scodependent no more was
published in 1986.
Love and Addiction predated thecurrent popular use of these
terms sex addiction andcodependency to describe the
disorders of love attachment.
These terms were not part ofPeel and Brodsky's nomenclature.
However, because of love andaddiction, I was concerned with

(05:13):
observing the same condition ofaddictive human attachments.
It's been argued that this isthe first book to be written on
the subject of codependentrelationships.
It's the first book to bewritten on the subject of
codependent relationships.
Here's where it might becomecontroversial to any 12-step
friends I have out there hisviews on alcoholism.
Peel maintains that, dependingon the person, abstinence or

(05:37):
moderation are valid approachesto treat excessive drinking.
In a Psychology Today articlewhich compared the Life Process
Program, the Life ProcessProgram's Dr Stanton Peale's
program, this study comparedthat with his program, with the
Disease Model Program.
He also argues against thetheory of proposed decades ago

(05:59):
by modern physicians, mentalhealth professionals, research
scientists that addiction is adisease and the Diseasing of
America 1989, he'll contest it.
Dr George Valence, pro-diseaseTreatsy, the Natural History of
Alcoholism.
We dive in a lot on that and hehas a new book out that we'll

(06:20):
get to promote for him.
I had a very interestingdiscussion.
He has a new book out thatwe'll get to promote for him.
I had a very interestingdiscussion.
I asked that you keep an openmind so you can understand
points, of views, framework andthat our history with
understanding the psychology,the neurology and the social,

(06:41):
environmental factors of havingsuch a disorder, a substance use
disorder.
It's an incomplete history andit's good to understand our own
history in a meaningful,in-depth way.
I really enjoyed thisconversation and I want you to
meet Dr Stanton Peel.

(07:02):
So thanks for coming on.
Do you know, when you searchtop 20 voices in addiction, say

(07:23):
in the last decade to chat GPTyou know the leading AI language
, large language model your namecomes up as number 12.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Wow, I'm impressed with me, thank goodness.
Thanks for telling me Joe.
Yeah, so you search the top top.
What do you search for?

Speaker 1 (07:48):
tell me that one more time I prompted a question, um
because I was curious.
I I've becoming slowlydependent on ai and also
terrified of it.
Um, all in the same kind ofactions and thoughts.
So I prompted question who arethe top leading voices in
addiction?
And I was just curious one dayand you came up as number 12 or

(08:11):
10.
And honestly, I wasn't familiarwith your work.
I started reading and watchingyour lectures on YouTube and it
was quite refreshing because I'mcoming from a background where
I was introduced to recoveryearly on as Alcoholics Anonymous
, a Minnesota model of treatmentthrough Marworth from Scranton.

(08:34):
My father got sober, then I gotshoveled into the rooms almost
as an act of disciplinepunishment at 16.
Active discipline, punishmentat 16.
By the time I really feltdefeated by my own addiction.
It was hard because I was anatheist.
I felt myself, at least, acritical thinker, but not in

(08:54):
regards to how I was lettingaddiction soothe me and to watch
your information.
It was comforting that therewas a voice like yourself out
there and it takes a lot ofbrass and I guess I just want to
talk to you about that today.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
How did this scenario arise, that we could be so
wrong in language as an approachand then you could get such
pushback when you're talkingabout things that just make
sense.
Well, one thing I want tomention I've written a memoir
called A Scientific Life on theEdge.
My Lonely Quest to Change howwe See Addiction and my career
has been a fairly isolating one,as you can imagine.

(09:48):
As you just described, when yougo against the dominant way
that everybody approachesaddiction, you're not going to

(10:08):
be very popular.
And to answer the question well, how is it that we came to view
addiction as a disease?
I guess the top three answersare you know, america had
national prohibition and that'spart of its temperance tradition
.
Italy has never banned alcohol.
Do you know what I mean?
Greece, france banned alcohol.
Do you know what I mean?
Greece, france, germany, theydidn't think.

(10:30):
You know what?
We have a lot of problems inour society.
Why don't we just ban alcohol?
And, of course, nationalprohibition occurred around 1920
, but we had also banned alldrugs cocaine, marijuana,

(10:52):
opioids a few years earlier,1914, with the tradition of
being highly suspect ofsubstances.
Who tend to blame substancesfor our problems.

(11:12):
In other words, if you go toitaly or greece and you say, oh,
you know all our socialproblems are due to alcohol.
They would look at you and likewhat are you saying?
You know we have wine with ourfamilies.
You know, on Sundays, rightafter we go to church.

(11:34):
It's a kind of a cultural icon.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
I'm glad, yeah, to start it that way.
You know, from my ownperspective, and I think others
would share this, is that you'retalking about community,
community and that could also bean extension, say culture, and
culture being just the softwarebrain downloads.
And that's how you start toapproach this idea of addiction,

(12:00):
or what we were callingaddiction by being prohibition.
Get rid of the agent.
Alcohol has the spirit, alcoholis the demon rum, and I think
that really finds its genesis inCalvinistic kind of approaches.
I think religion still is theunderbelly of poisoned ideas

(12:21):
that evolved into the diseaseconcept that you stood against
this idea of how they'redefining a disease.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
And the second part of that, of course, locating it
in the substance.
I mean, there's been a movementin the last 50 years that I'm
an important part of, where Iwrote a book called Love and
Addiction, to say you know whyis it?

(12:52):
We're just saying substancescause addiction.
Here's a basket.
There's substances drugs,alcohol, but like love,
relationships of food, shopping,gambling, because you know

(13:13):
people can get totally wound upin those things.
How do we develop a basket andall the bad things in the basket
are substances, rather thanthinking?
Well, addiction is a cyclewhere people get involved in
something for some kind ofgratification that actually

(13:34):
worsens their life.
If you describe it that way,then you're not thinking
substances, you're thinkingstuff.
And you're thinking well, somepeople use the substances okay
and some people don't use thesubstances okay, and what we're
concerned about is theinteraction between people who

(13:56):
get hogtied by a particularexperience to the detriment of
the rest of their life.
That's addiction.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
And if you say, well, alcohol is addictive, then you
go.
Well, you know, my grandmother,you know, has a drink every
night before she goes to bed andshe's 94, and she seems okay.
You know what I mean.
And that happens a lot more ifyou're Italian, but it happens
all over.
The second thing thatcontributes to us Americans just

(14:36):
about more than anybody in theworld like to medicalize things.
If we medicalize something,we're happy.
In other words, we've beenmedicalizing the disease of
addiction for half a century ormore.
But when you think about it,things haven't been going that
well the last 20 years.
A famous guy at the NIDA wrotea paper Addiction is a Disease

(14:58):
in Science Magazine, wrote apaper Addiction is a Disease in
Science Magazine and at thattime 6,000 people a year
nationwide were dying fromopioid use or drug use, and now
it's up to 110.
So you might say you know thatapproach hasn't been so helpful.

(15:25):
So we like to medicalize things.
And the answer most peoplestill believe.
You know, we're going to comeup with a cure for addiction,
we're going to come up with anantidote and then you go.
Well, but most people who eventake cocaine don't become.

(15:45):
I mean, millions of people takepainkillers, and so we're going
to come up with an antidote forpainkillers, but people take
painkillers most usually becausethey're in pain.
What about all them?
And then the third thing that Ithink contributes to where

(16:06):
we're coming I wrote a bookcalled Diseasing of America,
before all this.
We've reached a point in timewhere we seem to be so very
alienated from some basicrelationship I mean, I'm not, I

(16:42):
mean I'm recently, since thepandemic, but before that with
the people and the communitiesaround us.
And if there's an opposite, Ihave to give credit to other
thinkers.
The opposite of addiction isconnection.

(17:03):
It's not like when you say whatdoes it mean that you become so
addicted to something that youcut yourself off from everything
else meaningful in the world?
The other way to phrase that iswhy are you not connected to so
many other things your family,your spouse, your community,

(17:26):
your neighborhood, your walkingin the woods, your work that you
are susceptible for anaddiction?
And that gets down to a basicproblem we have why, despite all
the medications, despite all ofthe attention, despite all the
therapies, why the hell are moreand more people dying from drug

(17:49):
use and more and more peoplebecoming addicted?
It's like we're totallytramping down the wrong trail.
And so the other thing I'veasked you to promote about me is
called I have a Life ProcessProgram, the
lifeprocessprogramcom, and ourapproach to helping people deal

(18:12):
with a variety of addictions youknow, pornography, shopping,
any exercise is to review withthem every facet of their lives
and connection to the worldaround them and to talk about
how to enhance all of thoseconnections.

(18:33):
The way out of addiction isn'tto say, oh well, you can't, I'm
going to stop shopping.
You certainly can't say I'mgoing to stop eating.
Most people are not going tosay, well, I'm going to stop sex
, going to stop eating.
Most people are not going tosay, well, I'm going to stop sex
.
And if you generalize that toalcohol and drugs, you come to a
place where you say, well, theway we're going to approach all

(18:54):
of this is to fundamentallyenhance your self-capabilities
self-capabilities, your controlof your life and your engagement
with work, with your health,with your family, with intimacy

(19:16):
with your community, and that'sthe way we're going to lead you
out of addiction.
We're not going to lead you Ibeg your pardon that we're going
to assist you to realize yourfull capabilities to avoid
addiction.

Speaker 1 (19:24):
Assist you to realize your full capabilities to avoid
addiction.
I like that you corrected lead,because that's right.
Yeah, you shave your head next.
I was just getting over.
I just completed that synonymdocumentary.
If you haven't seen it, it wasgreat.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
Right.
But, do you see that you canlook at some of these things?
Did you ever?

Speaker 1 (19:49):
have the feeling.
When you were in AA, you know.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
Now, Doc, I still go.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
I'm addicted here I still go because it's my
community and there's a group ofus that are secular, should
just say, in my region whichisn't common because it's a
predominantly Catholic arealiving back in my hometown that
are very secular and it wasdriven.
My critical lens to some ofthis was a lot of the things you
just discussed, and I'm gladyou mentioned Buddhism because

(20:19):
it's not I'm not making thetenets of Buddhism true, but to
have the perspective of theother half or the majority of
the population of earth.
That is a little, you know,10,000 years old, this
perspective that a soul wasn'tdeposited in you and that the
soul comes from a pure place anddrugs are polluting it, that
there's not something wronginternally.
I really think that'sfundamental to some people's

(20:40):
perspective to thinkingpuritanically, to some people's
perspective to thinkingpuritanically, agents are
corrupting me.
Instead of a process,internally is happening, and you
mentioned that.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
That's a very good way of putting it.
Is your AA group specificallyconnected with the religious
group?

Speaker 1 (20:57):
No, it's just.
I think AA mirrors regions,like there's a texture or
quality to AA that usuallymatches the religious and
socioeconomic tones of that area.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
That's true.
Do you have any problem gettingup and saying I am an addict, I
am an alcoholic Um?

Speaker 1 (21:22):
I don't know how to put this.
I've never challenged it enough.
I know my friends who do andare sober and are really I got.
So I guess there's parts of methat are just scared to not be
around my community, and so manyof my friends are in there.
I say I'm an alcoholic.
Now I'm a drug addict of thisvariety, but I don't call my

(21:42):
condition a disease.
Don't call my my condition adisease.
Um, and I I was really curioushow you feel about the word
disorder and it's a connotationthat there's a process happening
that it's closer to where Iwant to go, okay I'd love to be.
Where do you think we should be?

Speaker 2 (21:59):
what about your adopting an identity?

Speaker 1 (22:02):
yeah I.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
You want to go to heaven or hell?

Speaker 1 (22:06):
you have children.
I have two children and I Idon't believe in the afterlife.
I, I mean, I have no I don'tthink it's relevant.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
You're obviously not going too well in the catholic
world, but let's leave thataside.
Um, do you ever, do you wantyour children to ever have an
identity of a disease?
Is that something you dreamabout?
No, of course not no I mean, ifyour child bites his nails,
whatever yeah kids do andthey're 8 or 12 or 15, you don't

(22:40):
go.
You're a nail biter.
You go, you know, let's thinkabout how maybe you won't bite
your nails.
Sure, it's not who you areexactly all right, but it's not
a good place to go and we wantto go in a different direction.
And you can go in a differentdirection because you're not a
nail biter, you're a human beingyeah, yeah, when did when did

(23:03):
this occur to you and I?

Speaker 1 (23:06):
you have, you know, an amount of work and I want to
drive people to your sitebecause there's there's still so
many younger people that arenot getting the connection they
want in traditional places thatI think can find an unbelievable
resource with you.
I want to say that first.
But when did this becomeapparent?

Speaker 2 (23:26):
What do you want to call uh what?
Tell them what?
Uh, I have uh two websites.
I peelnet peelnet and the lifeprocess programcom.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
And I.
We're going to put both linksinto this show, um and I.
I think people should check itout, read it, get curious,
because there's many paths torecovery and I think the easiest
ones are the true ones.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
And let's just say I think it's fair one difference
between now and when I wasstarting out.

Speaker 1 (24:01):
I wrote.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
Love and Addiction in 1975, is a lot of people have a
sense that things aren't goingthat well.
In other words, in the old dayseverybody sort of thought, well
, aa's perfect.
How they believe that, I don'tknow.
Everybody's kind of aware thatwe're falling short of

(24:22):
perfection.
Now you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
So things have opened up.
In the sense it's a littleharder to go to somebody and say
oh, you say that an alcoholiccan drink again.
You're ruining the world, whichis called harm reduction.
It's hard for people to go andsay you're ruining the world now
when aa has basically been incharge for 50 or 70 years and

(24:49):
things are far from perfect.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
It had a great head start and it's dominant to the
culture that it gave birth to.
It's mirrored it.
I'm curious.
The lecture I saw you give onceyou said when do we stop
trusting our own experienceversus information that we're
being browbeated with?

(25:11):
I guess I want to unpack whatyou meant by that.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
Well, I have a couple of exercises I do which I think
are funny.
I describe them in my memoir.
I go, I'm in a group ofrecovering people and I say
what's the toughest addiction toquit?
And usually to a person they'llshout out smoking smoking.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
If you're suffering from a substance use disorder or
your addiction is bringing yourlife to a standstill, call
1-888-HELP-120.
That's 1-888-HELP-120.
This hotline is available 24hours a day, 7 days a week.
Use evidence-based practice,crisis intervention and

(26:14):
trauma-informed therapy to helpyou get to the treatment you
need.
End addiction now at1-888-HELP-120.
1-888-help-120.
1-888-help-120.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
That's the toughest addiction to quit.
And I say, oh, really, that'samazing.
And then I go has anybody inthis room quit smoking?
And if you're in a goodrecovery room, you know you're

(26:56):
going to get 80% of the peopleyou know.
And then I'll say, oh, how manyof you joined a support group
or used some medication to getover your smoking?
And, like in a room of 300, youknow five people will raise

(27:16):
their hand out of you know 200who said they quit smoking.
And I say, well, hold on asecond.
And I say, well, hold on asecond.
You've just told me thetoughest addiction to quit was
smoking and two thirds of thepeople in this room quit smoking
and they did it on their own.
And then I'll call on somebody.

(27:37):
I'll say, well, why did youquit smoking?
And they'll say, well, I hadgotten pneumonia and I started
to get a cough and I said, am Icrazy?
Am I going to kill myself?
Or somebody will say, well, Igot pregnant.
Or somebody will say I had afive-year-old and I was coming

(27:58):
home and they were watching mesmoke and I said I can't do this
.
And I said you know, all ofthose reasons sound like human
being reasons.
You know what I mean yeahthey're not diseases.
They're like you figured outthat where your values were what
was important to you and thatthe addiction was interfering

(28:23):
with that, and you opted foryour more positive values, which
is sort of like how humanbeings work.
You know what I mean.
They encounter problems andthat's usually how they resolve
them and I say but that doesn'tsound like a disease to me.
That sounds like a human beingdeveloping and functioning.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
Yeah, and so would you say we table the idea of
disease in regard, that this isnot Parkinson's, this is not a
neurological disease.
But can we say, and would yoube comfortable in this other
field, where we're just callingit disorder?
It's a cluster of symptoms thatan individual has a

(29:10):
relationship with either drug orbehavior that has a short-term
benefit, even though it haslong-term consequences, and some
of them become very severe.
They're on a spectrum, right,and it's almost this for some
what is replaced bonding andwhat you said, connection.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
And I feel that for myself, to interject my own
experience, Do you feel youraddiction most satisfied,
crucially satisfied, in yourlife?

Speaker 1 (29:40):
I think the first thing I could notice, without
articulating it, is that it gotrid of fear, insecurity, anxiety
, and that I felt alone.
I felt like my brain wentonline and I was like others.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
So let's say, for whatever reason, you were
anxious, insecure and you feltalone and there was a substance
that, for a time, could resolvethat.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yeah, it could generically give me the feeling
I wasn't getting the connectionor bonding, for various reasons,
with other people.
But I wouldn't call that adisease.
I would call that a societal orcultural problem, almost.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
We just said that connection is the opposite of
addiction.
Yeah, and you were saying youwere using your addiction in
place of connection.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
And you know, if you have no kid, that's a pretty
scary feeling.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
Being roaming around in the universe like it's some
that old space space movie 2001oh yeah, we're just floating
around in space.
There's nothing scarier thanthat.
And if you could take a pillthat made you stop feeling that,
yeah, you take it, yeah, yeah.

(31:01):
And then if you got to a placewhere you felt a little bit more
comfortable about yourself andyou developed some better social
skills and you said but,moreover, is what we do in the
life process?

(31:22):
You say to the person do yousee that you have the capacity
to replace the addiction withreal connections?
You know you can do that.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
That's what happens.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
Because if you believe that the disease has
control of you, you don'tbelieve that's possible.
But if you believe that you cancontrol your own existence, uh,
the life process program is nota powerlessness model, it's an
empowerment model yeah, okay,yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
So I believe in having power, um or agency.
I like to use that word a lotwhen I'm I'm I'm talking with
you're probably more.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
You know you're trying to encourage your
children to feel empowered andthat they have agency.
Because if they don't, there's10,000 ways you can go wrong in
this world.
You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
Yeah, oh yeah.
So you began writing andputting these ideas.
What were, what was some of thestigma you received in the
pushback and where was it comingfrom earlier in your career?
How'd you overcome it puttingthese ideas.
What were, what was some of thestigma you received in the
pushback and where was it comingfrom earlier in your career?
How'd you overcome it?

Speaker 2 (32:32):
joe, you, can you imagine if people's lives hinged
around aa and you came out andyou said well, aa isn't
necessary for some people, it'sdetrimental.
For some people, they can goback to drinking.
Do you?
You don't know?
For some people, it'sdetrimental.
For some people, they can goback to drinking.
Do you?
You don't know how some peoplewould react to that?
They, they, you, you like.

(32:53):
You know hell's above, you know.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
Actually you know, um , for for all the people that
has helped, I'm not I don't wantto disparage what might be
meaningful to you, but a paidfor a pretty substantial study
with Harvard and a lot of thecrosstabs you kind of look into.
This research didn't lookimpressive for AA.
But then there was this wholeswath of people that got better

(33:21):
organically that Harvard wastailing, that had no contact
with AA and then resumed eithera moderate life of drinking or
just abstinence on their own,and then they started to get
these metrics of people that didwell in AA.
But then there was this portionthat AA made it harder for them
.
It stigmatized them.

(33:42):
So there's these three lanes,and the one lane can't claim
this is the only path to helpingpeople.
Okay, you're helping a group ofpeople that could have walk and
lock step with each other.
Another group when they trythis, it harms them.
And another group doesn't needyou to bother them because they
they reconnected with family ortheir community.
It was, and when I read yourstuff I'm like you had it, you

(34:08):
knew this and when you speak up,you got attacked.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
So, joe, the next time you go to a meeting, are
you going to think twice beforeyou say I'm an alcoholic?

Speaker 1 (34:21):
I'm going to say you know what a guy said last night
at a meeting.
He goes, I'm a person inrecovery.
He didn't.
He didn't say alcoholic.
I noticed younger people aresaying that at times.
What do you think of that?

Speaker 2 (34:34):
statement um did you ever go there we're getting into
it.
I don't even think I mean.
Recovery is a term, everybodyknows what you mean.
Well, sort of Sure.
In AA that means abstinence,but I don't talk about recovery.
I talk about recovery meansthat your life is focused on

(34:58):
your addiction and recoveringfrom it.

Speaker 1 (35:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
You wouldn't want that for your children.
You want your children to lookat the world ahead of them and
to think, well, how am I goingto?
Well?
You want to think how are theygoing to develop?
And you want them to think howam I going to progress in life
to a fruitful place, good work,good relationship, good health.
That's not recovery, that'slooking forward in life.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
It's harmony.
I would call it a developmentalmodel?

Speaker 1 (35:32):
Yeah, and that would run along the lines of most
models in psychology.
Something keeps developing andequilibrium or a homeostasis
arrives with you, yourenvironment, or a homeostasis
arrives with you, yourenvironment, in the life model
that you apply.
Do some people chooseabstinence?
Do some people I have friendsthat benefit, they confess and

(35:57):
report that they benefit frommarijuana but they don't touch
alcohol or opiates and kind ofthis model of harm reduction we,
both you and I, believe in.
I believe in anything thatimproves the quality and dignity
of life.
I sign me up, I I'm for it, foranybody who wants to do it,
from the seatbelt to suboxone tosublicate.

(36:22):
But one idea like when you weretalking earlier, when I started
to connect, I stopped usingnarcotics, say, like cocaine.
I was using MDMA withouttherapeutic kind of
interventions, but the effect ithad on me made the entry.
I want it to be drug-free.

(36:43):
I didn't want.
I did not want to drink anymore.
Entry I wanted to be drug-free.
I did not want to drink anymore.
Mdma made my landing.
For the six weeks prior to Iput everything down a lot easier
.
It got me in this placetherapeutically and
neurologically that I was open.
I want to change and I startedconnecting with the people I

(37:06):
really cared about.
It was.
That's a fact.
That's a hard thing to share ata meeting.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
How long ago was that ?

Speaker 1 (37:12):
That will be five years in the fall.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
And you feel you're exactly in the same place now
that you were then.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
No, I don't.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
For example, I know people well, you know people who
haven't done their addiction in5 or 10 or 20 or 30 years.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
They have a family, they stabilize and you're
thinking, you know, if they goto a wedding and they had a
glass of wine, I don't thinkthey're going to run out in the
street and give up everything togo back to alcoholics.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
I think that could be true.
Do you think it's true thatsome would do that?
Do you think there's a mentalhealth component to certain
people?
I'm not saying it's the demonalcoholism.
I'm not saying it's the demonalcoholism.
Would you say that there's somepeople that have underlying
conditions that alcohol wouldaggravate it severely, that they

(38:14):
could lose control of theirlife?

Speaker 2 (38:16):
There are people who quit drinking because their
doctor says you know X or Y, youknow what I mean.
You're 60 years old, I meanokay so we're talking that's
fine, but that's not a responseto alcoholism.

(38:36):
That's a response to your bodyis, for one reason or another,
intolerant of alcohol yeah andnot that you know that's
different from building yourlife around taking in alcohol as
a way of solving your emotionalneeds.
Those are two different things.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
Feel how hard it is to like if your audience, for
the decades that have resisted,resisted or gave you pushback.
There's such an indoctrinationof thinking, there's a disease
that they can't really define.
If you pin someone down, theyjust give you the like this I
cannot drink alcohol.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
Well, your job is in the life right.
Your job isn't to argue withpeople no, no, I I just your job
isn't to argue with my, ourcoaches and life pros and pros.
The job isn't to argue withpeople.
You should do or not, do x or yyeah that's within your control

(39:44):
and it's based on your point ofview of where you are in life.
And if worse comes to worse andyou started drinking again, you
said you know this is going ina bad direction, then you can
say you know how you quit beforefor five or ten years.
God bless you.

(40:04):
You can do it again.
You're always.
That's called relapse.
You're always in charge of whichway you're going yeah I always
use as an example um, um,there's that famous actor, uh
who, uh, he also was a singer,the the Irish actor.

(40:25):
He was in that series aboutwitches and all like that, and
he was a famously coveredalcoholic.
He came on the Johnny Carsonshow and he hadn't had a drink
in 14 years and everybodycheered.
And then he said you know, whenI got to be 70, I went back to

(40:46):
Ireland and I went to.
You know, when I got to be 70,I went back to Ireland and I
went to the local pub and Ithought all of my dead relatives
, they're going to say he'salive and he's not having a
Guinness.
So I go to the local pub and Ihave a glass of Guinness at
night.
A 70-year-old man and a50-year-old man are two

(41:09):
different people, oh yeah.
And to say to yourself well, mylife forever is going to be
this one way is to deny your ownhumanity and deny your own
choice for it.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
The addiction and how you remedy it.
Ultimately, nobody's going tomake a rule.
Well, they do have rules aboutwhat you can do and not do with
drugs, but ultimately, whetheryou go to AA or therapy or a

(41:47):
rehab or not, it gets down toyou making some kind of personal
decision and choice.
It never, there's no other wayaround it.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
Your last work and and how would you summarize um
your last book?

Speaker 2 (42:09):
let me uh put my earphones in one more time.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Repeat that question one time how would you summarize
your last your, your last bookavailable now?

Speaker 2 (42:19):
well, my last book is my memoir and I talk about how
I I answer some of the questionsyou're asking, which is how did
I come to have a particularview of the world?
How did I come to valueself-determination so much?
How did I have the for want ofa better word courage and

(42:44):
critical thinking andindependence of thinking to go
about being willing to bear allthe assaults that I did?
And so my brief answers to thatare one my parents were they're
Jewish.
They drank alcohol, you know,ceremonially, like you know, on

(43:10):
holidays, and so alcohol wasn'ta big thing.
And we had a person on ourblock who came home drunk every
night and I thought why would heput himself in a situation like
that, where he wasn't incontrol of himself?
And I actually began thinkingabout that when I was five and I
asked my mother and my mothersaid you're thinking about

(43:37):
alcoholism and you're five and I, you know.
Then, when I was 12, my fatherwas an extremely apprehensive
man, very driven by anxiety,very driven by anxiety, and I

(43:57):
read an article in the paperabout a guy who had gone to
rehab and his wife had moved inthe interim and when he came
home he saw a bunch of boxes allaround the apartment and he
took one look at them, he turnedaround, he went out on a binge
and I said, at the age of 12,well, I know what was going on
in his mind.
You know he was overwhelmed bysomething he felt he couldn't
deal with like my father wouldbe, and he'd start screaming

(44:21):
anxiously.
I mean, he didn't hit us, butit's a dysfunctional response to
a situation that could bemanaged better if you remain
calm.
And so I said well, thosethings are.
I know that experience, I'maware of it.
It doesn't have to do withalcohol, it has to do with a way

(44:44):
of cloaking your emotions.
And then the third thing Ithought about was when I went to
college, I had a collegeroommate and he was 22 and he
was dating a girl, a freshman incollege, who was 19.
And he said to us well, nowthat I can be with her, I don't

(45:07):
want to spend any time withanybody else, and you know, when
you're in college, that sort ofmakes sense.
He went to graduate school inBerkeley and she found out that
there were a lot more optionsthan him.
I mean, she was 19 when theygot married, and so she came

(45:28):
home one day she started anaffair.
She came home one day and sheleft a tape recording saying bye
.
And I said well, they weren't inlove, they were addicted.
They each lived to fulfill acertain need the other had.
When they didn't fulfill thatneed, they were nothing.
They were, like you know,giving up smoking Boom, I don't

(45:51):
need you anymore.
And so I wrote a book calledLove and Addiction.
They were, like you know,giving up smoking Boom, I don't
need you anymore.
And so I wrote a book calledLove and Addiction.
But I didn't.
Obviously I didn't mean to saylove was a disease.
I meant to say, well, thinkabout the destructive
relationships you've had, whyyou had them and how you dealt
with it and how you went on inlife, hopefully to have a better

(46:11):
relationship.
That same process is possiblewith any addiction, and indeed I
mean.
One line I use is when peoplequit heroin or smoking, they
don't usually kill themselves,but a certain number of people,

(46:39):
most people, aren't aware ofthis.
The number one source of drugdeaths in America is suicide.
It's not cops murdering people,it's not murder, it's suicide.
More than half of gun deathsare suicides.
A lot of people commit suicideand one the biggest reason
people commit suicide is as aresult of love relationships.
A certain number of people, ifthey're deprived of a lover,

(47:04):
they just feel like this isn'tworth going on.
I say consider that withdrawalI mean quitting smoking is
uncomfortable, but most peoplearen't going to blow their
brains out.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Yeah, so that goes to the heart of what you started
discussing.
You've always been discussingconnection and that severed
connection is like an arterybeing cut.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
Addictions and other Because it's so essential.
People feel that they can'tlive without their loved object
and, to some extent, when youwere, what was your primary
addiction?

Speaker 1 (47:41):
Alcohol, cocaine.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
Did you feel you could live life without cocaine?
I mean leaving aside youraddiction to it.
I did If you sat there.
You thought you could livewithout cocaine.

Speaker 1 (47:55):
Yeah, I think it would be dramatic for me to
describe that.
I didn't, but you hear thatlanguage when you go to meetings
a lot.
I knew I didn't have to.
I just felt it was sointolerable.
But I'm going to have to faceoff with this or the
consequences are going gonna getmore severe.
But I almost felt like I knewat one point I was losing a

(48:17):
little hope, getting jarred.
Am I gonna run out of time?
Is tragedy gonna meet me?
And that that motivated anaction.
It motivated people around methat cared about me to really
intervene and say what's goinglike, what are you gonna do?

Speaker 2 (48:30):
because it can't be this let's, let's, let's talk
about this because then you uh,you're a friendly guy, you had
people around you I did, I didand that was after you felt very
isolated.
So you had already begun, yeah,turning the corner into being
able to form relationships yeah,I fell in love at the end of my
addiction.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
That's hard to share it with people it.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
It doesn't sound common.
Oh, you fell in love after youraddiction.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
No, before it ended, right at the tail end of it, I
was doing little bouts ofabstinence.
I wasn't going to meetings andI was taking psychedelics.
I mentioned MDMA, but I wastaking LSD at times, hoping it
would provoke some kind ofmomentum, because I'm secular no

(49:15):
that's become a big therapy.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
now You're aware.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
I was and I was then I'm like I was doing this, you
know, unmeasured, with noguidance, in my house.
Most people would go to atleast a park.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
I was sitting up in my attic were you already with
your wife at that time, or?

Speaker 1 (49:37):
no, no, I crashed into her accidentally and then,
two months later, after thebeginning of the courtship, I
was it.
I was done drinking, I didn'twant to drink and I did return
to AA.
It did and we all do respect, Ididn't want to drink and I did
return to AA, so vote to getyour addiction.
It did, and I really, we hopeto respect Fuck AA.

(49:57):
I can't say that because I havefriends, my communities.
I have really good friends,lifelong friends at Alcoholics
Anonymous.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
But in your own mind.
The event that caused you tostop drinking was your love for
your relationship with your wife.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
I would say it was the event.
I do find value in theinventory process of writing
down and putting an analysis onmy relationships.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Hey, joe, to do that, you know how to write things
down.

Speaker 1 (50:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
How many AA meetings, how many AA meetings have you
been to?

Speaker 1 (50:42):
I can't even count, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
How many years?

Speaker 1 (50:45):
On and off since I was 16.

Speaker 2 (50:48):
So you know how to write things down.

Speaker 1 (50:50):
Yeah, I know how to take it.
I write, I write down.
You know how to write thingsdown.
Yeah, I know I take it, I write, I write down.
You know if something'slingering or I feel you know a
rumination happening, um, it'snot often.
I try to blame others.
I don't let myself get thatsick.
I just find that I'm desiringsomething too much.
What does this mean?
Why would I?
And meditation rituals?

(51:10):
I do just a plain Vipassanaexercise 10 minutes in the
morning.
I just observe.
What is this mind I'm callingwill Just things popping into?

Speaker 2 (51:21):
it Does your wife drink alcohol or no?

Speaker 1 (51:23):
Yes, yeah, she did it for two years, and then, after
her second baby, she'll have aglass of wine when she's over
her mom's.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
Well, god bless you.
So that shows you A areopen-minded and B you're not
coercing other people.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
Never.

Speaker 2 (51:41):
And your wife doesn't think oh, I can't drink a glass
of wine because that's bad forhim.
No she has her own life.

Speaker 1 (51:49):
No, she can do.
She has no addiction issues, um, and she's had fun in the past,
um, but she's not.
I had a deep emotional problemand, like you said earlier, I, I
, I I call it identity, but acrisis that I felt trapped at

(52:09):
certain times in my life by myown life.
I felt without agency andconnection and then I just make
a willingness to let my guarddown.
I think it's me confusing theidea that what I am is my ego.
I don't know what caused this.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
I have an idea.
You're still in flux in termsof your views of addiction,
would you say you're still Ichanging yeah, they're open,
because I I think it's anincomplete story.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
I look at addiction as a coping mechanism to having
disconnection.
I think it could happen assubtle, as pre-verbal, like the
first two years of your life, ifthe emotional life of your
caregivers are in crisis ordisconnected.

Speaker 2 (52:54):
How did being a parent change your life?

Speaker 1 (52:59):
What I wanted wasn't really necessary.
I felt like the steward of justlimiting and creating the
largest opportunities I can fortheir life to be abundant and, I
don't know, balanced, enjoyable, satisfying.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
So that's had a pretty big, I mean when you were
in your addicted mode youweren't thinking about other
human beings that much.

Speaker 1 (53:23):
No, I was trying to treat discomfort or pain,
emotional pain, with pleasure.

Speaker 2 (53:31):
And now you're more concerned about your children's.
You're concerned about your own, obviously.
Their emotional well-being.
It's a whole different thrust.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
Yeah, and when I'm concerned about myself, it's
usually under the lens of livinglong enough to make sure I'm
around for enough security tomake them healthy.

Speaker 2 (53:53):
So that's a whole, that's almost a whole different
consciousness.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
It is, it's just and it's uh, I don't know it
happened.
It seems like, when you lookback, it's without effort, it's
just something that happened orI allowed happened.
It's not something I'm, Iearned it, just it was well, you
developed as a human being andcared about people.

Speaker 2 (54:17):
It's it's normal.
I mean, people become attached.
Well, people becoming attachedto their children.
That's been going on for a longtime.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
The things that we're discussing.
Are you allowed to discuss themin your AA meeting?

Speaker 1 (54:33):
I don't think it's the appropriate space for it.
I think you can.
If there's three or four peoplein there, you'd have an open
discussion, but when you've gotlike a room with 30 people, I
think it's what AA'sresponsibility as a.
If you're going to be anorganization calling yourself
the primary text of AA, you'dprobably have to toe the line of

(54:56):
what the steps are.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
Have you ever attended a SMART recovery
meeting?

Speaker 1 (55:01):
I did.
I really enjoyed it.
They just don't flourish aroundhere because there's just not
enough people involved.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
They're a more online operation at this point.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
Dharma recovery.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
They probably have lucid parameters where you can
encourage, consider differentways of thinking without being
worried about.

Speaker 1 (55:21):
Great literature, Wonderful stuff I really, really
embraced during COVID I wentevery morning to Dharma recovery
and refuge recovery, notbecause I wanted to be Buddhist,
but I really kind of embracedthe Eastern lens of

(55:42):
consciousness that I was havingsuch trouble with any Western
ideas of God or finding, youknow, an open discussion of what
I wanted to talk about beingthe problem, my emotional
problems, my, my, myuncomfortable situation all the
time when I was sober.
Initially I think DharmaRecovery's approach helped me

(56:04):
because I I liked that they'rejust acknowledging life is
suffering.

Speaker 2 (56:08):
Now what it's like I went from there.
Joe, I'm going to have to leavepretty shortly.

Speaker 1 (56:14):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (56:15):
Do you have one or two other questions you might
want to ask?

Speaker 1 (56:17):
me yeah, where would you, where can people find you
and get involved, or where wouldyou well.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
The life process programcom is my organization
for coaches that help people,and we even have a program where
you don't involve a coach,where you can just go through a
pre-organized way of thinkingand exercises.
That's my main way of reachingout to human beings.

(56:48):
You can actually Life ProcessModel of addictions actually in
wikipedia and you get some ideaof how you can go to the website
yeah, and I encourage anyone togo and read any of my books.
Um, uh, I have a book, uh, youmentioned one called Recover.

(57:09):
I have a book with Zach Rhodes.
Actually, I have a few of themright here.
You know what?
I mean there's my memoirscientific life on the edge.

(57:35):
There's the truth aboutaddiction and recovery.
There's seven tools to beataddiction.
There's addiction proof yourchild.
There's diseasing of a bargain.
There's love and addiction.
So I you know, uh you couldpick up uh seven tools to beat
addiction, or any of them.
You can look my name up onAmazon.
You'll see the books.

Speaker 1 (57:55):
I'm going to put both websites and your Amazon link,
and anyone in recovery I wouldencourage to read it, even if it
feels uncomfortable.
You love AA.
I would be curious.
Would this help someone youknow?
So I always stay open to thefact that not everything's for
you, but you should know aboutit and you should encourage

(58:18):
other people.
It might be for them.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
That's my pitch.
You're a person who went toDharma recovery.

Speaker 1 (58:25):
Yeah, love it.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
You obviously say there's value in a whole
different way of thinking aboutthings.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (58:36):
And even to this day it probably well, you say it it
influences your whole way ofdealing with life and thinking.

Speaker 1 (58:46):
Yeah for the better.

Speaker 2 (58:46):
All right, joe, I really, grant, I enjoy talking
with you, I'm glad.
Where are you located?
Scranton, pennsylvania, home ofthe you, I'm glad.

Speaker 1 (58:52):
Where are you located ?
Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Home of the office.
I'm from Philly Joe thanks forhaving me.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
Thanks for introducing me to your audience,
aloha.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
Godspeed.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
Aloha Bye now.

Speaker 1 (59:08):
I'd like to thank you for listening to another
episode of All Better.
You can find us on allbetterfmor listen to us on Apple
Podcasts, Spotify, GooglePodcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio
and Alexa.
Special thanks to our producer,John Edwards, and engineering

(59:30):
company 570 Drone.
Please like or subscribe to uson YouTube, Facebook, Instagram
or Twitter and, if you're not,on social media, you're awesome.
Looking forward to seeing youagain.
And remember, just becauseyou're sober doesn't mean you're

(59:50):
right.
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