Outgrowing Addiction: With Common Sense Instead of "Disease" Therapy

Drug overdoses continue to rise at an alarming rate throughout the U.S., resulting in 72,000 deaths last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The response, tragically, has been to charge full-speed ahead with "solutions" that have already, and consistently, failed.

In this book, Stanton Peele, a prominent addiction expert, and Zach Rhoads, a child behavior interventionist and counselor, show that defining addiction as a "disease" makes recovery much more difficult, and that twelve-step programs fail for most participants.

But they don't just criticize. They provide a solid, research-and-experience-based alternative approach that has proven to be successful in overcoming the scourges of suicide, depression, addiction, and drug-related deaths.

The authors show that maturing out of addiction and childhood behavioral problems is a normal process—unless people are sidetracked by the widespread and commonplace therapies that undercut natural growth and self-confidence.

They present extensive research data about natural recovery and case studies of fully recovered adults and of children with various conditions, for a developmental model of addiction that has been proven to help those who are suffering. Much of the focus is on childhood addiction, but their conclusions and methods are helpful for people of all ages.

Their work forms the basis for the Life Process Program, a worldwide online parenting and addiction coaching service.

• Over the Influence, Second Edition: The Harm Reduction Guide to Controlling Your Drug and Alcohol Use
• 7 Tools to Beat Addiction: A New Path to Recovery from Addictions of Any Kind: Smoking, Alcohol, Food, Drugs, Gambling, Sex, Love
• The Truth About Addiction and Recovery
• Recovery Dharma: How to Use Buddhist Practices and Principles to Heal the Suffering of Addiction
• US of AA: How the Twelve Steps Hijacked the Science of Alcoholism
• Breaking Addiction: A 7-Step Handbook for Ending Any Addiction
• The Freedom Model for Addictions: Escape the Treatment and Recovery Trap
• The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction Is Not a Disease
• The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry
• Recover!: An Empowering Program to Help You Stop Thinking Like an Addict and Reclaim Your Life