Diseasing of America

STANTON PEELE, a clinician, researcher, and specialist in the field of alcohol and substance abuse, has won the Mark Keller Award from the Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies and the Lindesmith Award from the Drug Policy Foundation. He is the author of the classic Love and Addiction and The Meaning of Addiction.

• Why Addiction Is Not a Disease (And Why We Should Care that It NotBe Treated as Such). Alcoholism in America (How We Discovered that Alcohol is Addictiveand that So Many People Are Alcoholics). Who Says what the Truths about Alcoholism Are? Transforming the Addict onto a Role Model, and the Person into anAddict. The Addiction Treatment Industry. What Is Addiction, and How Do People Get It? (Values, Intentions,Self-Restraint, and Environments). How People Quit Addictions, Usually on Their Own. Our Confusion over Law, Morality, and Addiction. How We Lost Control of Our World. Creating a World Worth Living In (Community, Efficacy, and Values).

"A courageous indictment of the destructive mindset that alldeviant behavior is a disease. Peele offers mindful alternatives tothose suffering from addictions and to professionals seeking tohelp them." (Ellen Langer, professor of psychology, HarvardUniversity) "I found the arguments in Diseasing of America persuasive andcarefully documented. While I find current addiction-treatmentmodels helpful, I think it is critical to look at Stanton Peele'swork to question our fundamental assumptions and adjust them on thebasis of data." (Jennifer P. Schneider, author of Back FromBetrayal and Sex, Lies, and Forgiveness, and member of the AmericanSociety of Addiction Medicine) "A provocative review of the uses and abuses of the disease modelin the past three decades. This important book has significantlyadded to my education and clinical understanding of addiction in myprofessional practice." (Richard R. Irons, The MenningerClinic) "Peele makes it clear that the disease model of addiction is anemperor without clothes. By placing addictive behaviors in thecontext of other problems of living, he emphasizes personalresponsibility for one's habits. The book empowers the reader toview addiction in a new optimistic light." (G. Alan Marlatt,director, Addictive Behaviors Research Center, University ofWashington, and coauthor of Relapse Prevention)