Synopses & Reviews
For decades you've been told that addiction is an irreversible disease, a biological force over which you have no control. That defeatist message not only is without scientific foundation, but actually prevents your overcoming addiction.
Now, world-renowned addiction expert Stanton Peele demystifies addiction and offers a groundbreaking program that puts at your disposal what does work in treatment and recovery. For four decades, Dr. Peele has challenged our understanding of addiction and recovery. He has developed approaches that break the cycle of addiction and empower us to take control of our lives--including understanding that we are able to direct our own brains to change. In Recover! Dr. Peele's PERFECT Program takes you through the key concepts of mindfulness--that is, your ability to detach from your addictive experience and to see that it is not who you are--combined with the Buddhist idea of loving kindness, or self-acceptance. It's an easily grasped, yet multifaceted program that allows your true self to overcome your addictive urges.
Instead of focusing on what's wrong with you, the PERFECT Program will help you discover, embrace, and build your recovery on what's already right about you. Combining the best evidence-based treatments with the mindful use of meditation, Recover! presents a life-transforming philosophy for freeing yourself from addiction forever.
Review
"Stanton Peele is one of the most insightful thinkers about addiction anywhere, ever. A beautiful writer, with so much to teach all of usthis is an absolute must-read."Johann Hari, author of
Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs"Dr. Peele's writings and teachings have prompted me to look beyond the flashy headlines and the majority position as being overly simplistic and often wrong. Only in this way can we help drug users, render treatment more effective, and create positive drug policies."Carl Hart, Ph.D., Columbia University Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry, author of High Price
"Stanton Peele has long been at the forefront of the battle to understand addictions and eliminate the twin myths that addicts are powerless over their addictions and that they have a lifelong 'brain disease.' In Recover!, he has taken another crucial step toward freeing us from these prejudicial, disempowering misconceptions while truly helping people suffering with addiction."--Lance Dodes, MD, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School (retired); coauthor, The Sober Truth
"At a time when addiction is being trumpeted as a 'brain disease,' Peele slashes through the hyper-medicalized rhetoric to get to the human core of addiction and recovery. This acutely insightful and compassionate book is required reading for anyone struggling with an overwhelming habit."--Sally Satel, MD, coauthor of Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience; lecturer, Yale University School of Medicine
"In Recover!, Stanton Peele and Ilse Thompson offer a blueprint to help addicts cope with their triggers, from loneliness and feeling unworthy, anxious, and overwhelmed. Recover! focuses on what's right in the addict's life, and adding to it. It's a hopeful, tangible set of tools designed to give power back to the addict--not give it up."--Gabrielle Glaser, author of the New York Times bestseller Her Best-Kept Secret: Why Women Drink--And How They Can Regain Control
"Recover!...provides an astonishing array of resources, neatly organized into accessible and sensible tasks, and a final chapter for coping with unexpected problems. In this book you will find guidance on everything you need to address in recovery. Peele writes as if he were a close friend, explaining important concepts carefully and with genuine concern that you truly understand them."--Tom Horvath, Ph.D., ABPP; President, SMART Recovery(R) and Practical Recovery; Past President, American Psychological Associations Division on Addictions
"Probably the world's most notable figure in addiction studies, Stanton Peele has written another great book. Recover! really is a self-help book. Unlike most of what you read, it teaches you to help yourself, rather than telling you to rely on a treatment system because helping oneself is impossible. Stanton's work assisted my recovery many years ago, and he can help you now."--Peter Ferentzy, Ph.D., author of Dealing with an Addict: What You Need to Know if Someone You Care for Has a Drug or Alcohol Problem
"Stanton Peele's insistence that addiction is not a disease, but a symptom of dysfunctional societies, families, and/or psyches is compelling, compassionate, and almost certainly correct. In Recover!, his most impressive work to date, he lays out a programboth utterly simple and profoundthat will quite literally save lives by addressing the root causes of addiction rather than pathologizing its many manifestations."--Christopher Ryan, Ph.D. and Cacilda Jetha, M.D., authors of The New York Times bestseller Sex at Dawn
"I have known Stanton Peele over the decades as one of the great addiction theorists. In Recover! I re-discover him as an absolutely down-to-earth personal counsellor who makes me understand mindfulness in an entirely different way. Great book!"Bruce Alexander, Rat Park experimenter; author, The Globalization of Addiction
Synopsis
World-renowned addiction expert, therapist, and author of the classic Love and Addiction and other titles offers a new program for addicts (and their families), debunking AA/12-step treatment, using evidence-based treatments, CBT, and meditation for lasting recovery and health.
Synopsis
Dr. Stanton Peele is a world-renowned addiction expert, therapist, and author whose books have sold more than one million copies collectively. At the forefront of his field, he has challenged and changed the way people understand addiction and recovery for the past four decades. Rejecting the widely accepted notion that addiction is a disease and noting that the conventional Twelve-Step treatment program is not particularly effective,
Dr. Peele has spent his career developing treatments that break the cycle of addiction, empower addicts to take back control, and bring about the natural recovery process.
Throwing out the addiction-as-disease” model, Dr. Peele explains that the origins of addiction are as complex and unique as the people who find themselves in its grip. In Recover! he offers a holistic treatment plan. Based on the PERFECT Program™, his unique method that combines the best evidence-based treatments with cutting-edge meditation from the mindfulness movement, Recover! presents a life-transforming philosophy for overcoming self-destructive compulsions forever. It will teach readers how to think and live as a non-addict.
Synopsis
Stanton Peelea world-renowned addiction expert, therapist, and author whose books have sold more than 1 million copieshas challenged and changed the way people understand addiction and recovery for the past four decades. In
Recover!, Dr. Peele dispenses with the "addiction-as-disease" model, explaining that the origins of addiction are as complex and unique as the people who find themselves in its grip. Dr. Peele's holistic treatment program combines the best evidence-based treatments with the cutting-edge use of a meditation-based consciousness movement. With practical steps and exercises,
Recover! presents a life-transforming path for overcoming self-destructive compulsions forever.
About the Author
Stanton Peele, PhD, JD, has been a cutting-edge figure in the addiction field for four decades. Since publishing
Love and Addiction in 1975, Stanton has written 12 books (including
The Meaning of Addiction,
Diseasing of America,
The Truth About Addiction and Recovery,
7 Tools to Beat Addiction, and
Addiction-Proof Your Child) and 250 professional articles, won numerous awards (including from the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs and the Drug Policy Alliance), and created the Life Process Program for addiction treatment, which continues to be utilized worldwide. He lives in Brooklyn.
Peele.net; Lifeprocessprogram.com
Ilse Thompson, co-founder of the blog Stinkin-Thinkin: Muckraking the 12 Step Treatment Industry, is a writer and editor living in Portland, Oregon.
stinkin-thinkin.com