VIDEO: Drugs Do Not Define Addiction, with Stanton Peele

Our Life Process Program’s founder and creator, Dr. Stanton Peele, Ph.D. spoke to a group at The Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust on March 29th via teleconference called Drugs Do Not Define Addiction. The topic is one of Dr. Peele’s that has been a clear thread over his 40+ years of studying and writing about addiction, and perhaps the one hardest for people to come to terms with.

Addiction treatment and support has changed hugely in the last few decades, and Dr. Peele is still a little ahead of the curve, although his ideas have slowly and steadily become more readily accepted as foundational by surprising numbers of professionals, government agencies, and in treatment practice.

He encourages a full, robust rethinking of addiction, based on fact, experience, and increased knowledge and understanding across many dimensions. Addiction isa complex behavior as are most human behaviors that involve choice, personality, temperament, and thinking.

Dr. Peele encourages people to probe the mythology of addiction and consider that many of our beliefs appear to be faulty.

Mindmap. Stanton Peele, Leeds NHS, Drugs Do Not Define Addiction. 3/31/2018.

In addition to debunking the concept that drugs, especially — insert the most prevalent and scariest drug of the day here, today being opiates — directly cause addiction, he focused in some detail on two ideas that stand out in their currency.

First, the narrative that drugs are an equal opportunity villain, that they voraciously (magically) grip anyone that dares to dabble with them, regardless of socioeconomic strata, emotional stability, mental health status and many more. Second, the idea that medications can fix everything.

Dr. Peele is an engaging speaker and teacher. He has a lot of fun with the classroom format, and the saliency of his points is reinforced by this audience as he asks them to consider practical examples in their own lives that are directly applicable to the topic. Listen in! Leeds NHS Presentation.

While Stanton Peele respects the complexity of addiction, he emphasized throughout the webinar that his approach is based on common sense views and information — often turning to the audience to give their real-Iife experiences with drugs (and love!). Yet, as Dr. Peele drove home time and again, his approach distills and reflects the results of the best epidemiological and clinical research.

Dr. Stanton Peele, recognized as one of the world’s leading addiction experts by The Fix, developed the Life Process Program after decades of research, writing, and treatment about and for people with addictions. Dr. Peele is the author of 14 books. His work has been published in leading professional journals and popular publications around the globe. His newest book with Zach Rhoads, Outgrowing Addiction With Common Sense Instead of “Disease” Therapy coming in May!