Diseasing of America: How We Allowed Recovery Zealots and the Treatment Industry to Convince Us We Are Out of Control (Paperback)

~ (Author) "IN AMERICA today, we are bombarded with news about drug and alcohol problems..." (more)
Key Phrases: addiction treatment industry, modern alcoholism movement, idea that alcoholism, United States, Betty Ford, New York Times (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"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, professor of psychology, Harvard University)

"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, The Menninger Clinic)

"Peele makes it clear that the disease model of addiction is an emperor without clothes. By placing addictive behaviors in the context of other problems of living, he emphasizes personal responsibility for one's habits. The book empowers the reader to view addiction in a new optimistic light." (G. Alan Marlatt, director, Addictive Behaviors Research Center, University of Washington, and coauthor of Relapse Prevention)

Product Description

A Controversial Argument Against the Disease Theory of Addiction 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.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1999 edition (January 8, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787946435
• ISBN-13: 978-0787946432
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #611,064 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant and Original, April 28, 1999

By A Customer

I've read "The Truth about Addiction"; "The Diseasing of America"; and "The Meaning of Addiction." It was so refreshing to read these books, like a cool breeze off the lake on a hot summer day in Chicago. Most psychiatrists and psychologists who write, particularly the New Age variety, quote themselves or other pop-psychology tripe. Peele's books, on the other hand, are scholarly works--well thought out; exhaustively researched; and eloquently worded. I've been troubled by the recovery and twelve-step movements for some time, but I couldn't find the right words to describe my misgivings until I read these books. This is brilliant stuff.

My introduction to inpatient chemical dependency treatment came in my first year of medical school. We eager, young students in short white coats were taken to a reputable, local recovery hospital to observe treatment in action. Thirty patients gathered in a circle and started off: "I'm Steven, and I'm an alcoholic, etc..." The director of the program (a spaced-out and religious fellow) had a developmentally disabled woman tell the group about her resolution to get help--I have no idea what sort--in the future if she felt she needed it. He made her say this again loudly so everyone in the group could hear it. Then he made her stand on her chair and shout it three time at the top of her lungs so that "everyone within a city block" could hear it. I was very disturbed by that scene. My stomach was in knots. It was hard to watch this particular person being humiliated, and I knew that if she called for help, she probably wouldn't get "help" no matter how loudly she yelled. (She had little income which meant that she surely wouldn't get private help. County mental health was meager then. It doesn't exist now.) The whole thing was surreal. Later, the director beatifically smiled and said something about "the disease," its severity, and the need for drastic treatment. (If I treated any group of truly diseased people in this manner, say a group of diabetics, I'd lose my license.) "Gee," I thought to myself, "this is the way addicts have to be treated." We all towed the twelve-step line as students and residents. Medical schools don't select contrary thinkers.

It seems to me that there is a streak of sadism in the neo-Puritan American variety of drug treatment. I've seen it repeatedly. I'm not sure where this comes from. My hunch is that some health professionals with sadistic urges tend to gravitate toward substance abuse treatment since this is the one area in which they can act out on their sadistic wishes, be coercive, and still be seen as healers. One staff member from the now defunct US Naval Hospital in Long Beach said, "We give our addicts a swift kick in the pants to get them headed in the right direction." If one wants see oneself as Mother Teresa or Albert Schweitzer, but unconsciously wants to kick people in the pants, substance treatment would be a good place to go. Tough Love, and all that.

In "Diseasing of America," Peele fretted over the consequences of Grant being taken from the field of battle in 1861 and dried out. I had ancestors in Robert E. Lee's army. I'm sure they would have been more than delighted to see Grant involuntarily taken off to a rehab center. I have a more chilling scenario. In 1940, Nazi Germany had overrun France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway. Sweden was cowed into an uneasy neutrality. The Soviet Union had signed a diabolical non-aggression pact with the Nazis partitioning Poland between the two of them. The only thorn in Hitler's side was Great Britain. He wanted to invade or at least isolate England and make her sue for terms. Then he could concentrate his entire war machine on the Soviets. Who else but Winston Churchill could have rallied the English-speaking peoples, the only remaining resistance in the West? This was the man, who, more than anyone else, prevented "...a new dark age made more sinister by the lights of perverted science." This was also a man who had whisky and cigars for breakfast. From the recovery standpoint, this man was "delusional," (I use quotes since recovery misuses the term delusional.), codependent, addicted to nicotine, workaholic, and Higher Power-only-knows what else. I grateful that there were no rehab centers in Britain at that time. Imagine what would have happened if, at the moment of Chamberlain's resignation, Churchill had been hauled off to "find a new life." Who would have filled his shoes? Anthony Eden? Stafford Cripps? Atlee? Baldwin? Who would have given the speech about blood, sweat, toil, and tears? So much being owed by so many to so few? Their finest hour?

Peele's books are the sort that should be read in upper level college psychology classes. At the same time, the books are quite readable to anyone who has a high school diploma. I highly recommend them. -JK, M.D.

38 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Preparation is nine-tenths of the law... prepare now., March 7, 2001

By	Robert P. Beveridge "xterminal" (Cleveland, OH) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Stanton Peele, The Diseasing of America 2/E (Lexington, 1995)

There are two types of people in the world: those the recovery zombies have already attacked, and those they will. It doesn't matter if you don't drink and don't smoke, they'll find something else about which you're "diseased"-- perhaps you enjoy shopping, you like to eat, you spend a couple of weekends per year in Vegas. Did you know these are all symptoms of diseases? Oh, you didn't? Well, they are. Don't believe it? You must be in denial. Here, let us help you lead a more well-adjusted life.

Peele seeks atonement for starting this craze with his book Love and Addiction in 1984. (As a side note, the one important thing Peele does NOT try to atone for is his almost singlehanded corruption of the definition of the term "addiction," which he misuses throughout the book; when reading it, you might be better served by substituting the word "compulsion" every time you see "addiction." Addiction requires, by definition, a physical component, and thus it is impossible to be addicted to most of the things that Peele admits are really addictive.) He does this by stating in no uncertain terms that the addiction/recovery industry has gotten way out of hand, then spends the next two hundred fifty pages outlining one of the scariest stories I've ever read-- the sixty-year history of the recovery industry, beginning with the foundation of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935.

Along the way, Peele stops on occasion to point out some obvious factors we tend to overlook in our quest for political correctness (e.g. the race- and class-based aspects of alcoholism, which are blatantly obvious to the eye but resisted by the mind thanks to decades of being told that alcoholism has nothing to do with class or race). While he occasionally slips into the same crevasse he's trying to close by citing statistics without backing them up, the majority of what he gives us is surrounded with footnotes and citations, important when you're accusing those around you of pulling their figures out of thin air.

Some of Peele's ultimate conclusions should be taken with at least a grain of salt (he could have done himself a couple better by continuing his questioning to its ultimate conclusion, rather than stopping a step short and wholeheartedly endorsing the "family values" idea, which may need questioned even more than

AA's dogma), but that doesn't make the research any less valuable. In a society where "innocent until proven guilty" is a the rule, anyone who expects their word to be treated as gospel and makes sweeping statements only needs one person to find fault with one supposed "fact" they spout. Peele has found a lot of faults with a lot of facts in the original AA dogma, and shows us exactly how the most distorted pieces of the AA marketing scheme have been used to create and power the larger recovery industry in America today.

They will come after you. The faster you read this book, and the longer you spend absorbing its contents, the better-armed you'll be when someone accuses you of "addictive" (actually, compusive) behavior. While I can't give the book five stars thanks to Peele's wimping out in the last chapter, this is certainly a life-changer, and one of the most important books that's ever crossed my path. I strongly urge everyone I know to read this as quickly as possible. **** 1/2

42 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Original, provocative and persuasive, June 9, 1999

By A Customer

As a person who has been labelled as having several "diseases" and who has been subjected to current treatment methods, I found this book to be tremendously encouraging. I entered the treatment system as a successful individual who recognized a problem with substance abuse and associated behaviors. I accepted the disease label (made it easier on me - I wasn't really responsible for my behavior) and that I was "powerless" over my disease. Intially confused, I passively turned over my treatment protocol, virtually my entire life, to a series of programs and specialists who treated me as the victim. Confronted with large problems in my career, I know I would never have turned over so much authority to outsiders - I would have accepted responsibility for the problem and gotten it fixed. I made the mistake of accepting that the treatment specialists knew best for me. While there have been benefits to the therapy I have received (improved self-awareness, better communications about emotional issues, better stress management), I think these are more than offset by the victim status I took on. And looking back on the 12 step groups in which I spent so much time, I grow angry at the entire approach. I do not have a disease. I have made bad choices for which I am responsible. I have found that no higher power is going to swoop in and change my life for me. Pray for potatoes, but reach for the hoe. It amazes me even now that I failed to apply one of my favorite management tenents in my own life "IF YOU WANT SOMETHING DONE RIGHT, DO IT YOURSELF." In my defense, the initial interaction with treatment specialists comes at a time of disorientation and self-doubt. Unfortunately, the protocols try to feed and sustain that self-doubt. After reading this book, I "fired" my 12 step groups and my therapist. I have continued to read and research the alternatives and am thrilled with the way things are going. I'm still human, but I am a darn strong one and ready to take responsbility for my actions. This is a great book. I have lived much of what the author talks about and can attest to the accuracy. This is a tremendously important message that needs to get out. This is a courageous book!