![]() The Clean Slate Addiction Site. Before you comment on the site, please give this a read – you might find that your questions and comments are already addressed here. This is by no means an exhaustive list of frequently asked questions; it will be expanded over time. What’s your solution? ![]() ![]() Who writes this stuff? Whoever they are, they must not be an addict. All content on the site is written by me, Steven Slate. I don’t consider myself an addict, because I don’t subscribe to that label. However, my former behavior would probably classify me as an addict in most anyone’s book. Between 1. 99. 4 and february of 2.
I used drugs and alcohol on a daily basis, with a few short periods of abstinence. I lied, cheated and stole in order to fund my habit. Made several trips through the addiction treatment system and several 1. I felt powerless at certain points, as if I needed drugs, and was unable to stop. I ended up homeless for a while, was arrested many times, and did a short stint in jail. Luckily, I found an answer, and changed my substance use habits in 2. What makes you qualified to talk about addiction? I’ve studied it for 1. Before that, I lived it. I have 7 years experience working for Baldwin Research Institute/Saint Jude Retreats (a non- 1. I have chapters on addiction in college textbooks. I count Mark Scheeren and Stanton Peele (both giant thinkers in the field in my eyes) as personal mentors in helping me to understand this fascinating phenomenon and make my own contributions to understanding it. I ask no one to believe my views based on my personal and professional experience with substance use problems alone. I hope you’ll look at the information on the site, check out some of the citations for yourself, analyze the ideas critically, and form your own opinions. Stop bashing AA. Why don’t you create a program instead of knocking other programs? I don’t think I’m really “bashing” AA (based on my concept of bashing), but yes I’m very critical, and I won’t stop. I’m here to explore and spread the truth about addiction, and I will continue to feel free to criticize anyone who I believe stands in the way of that mission and/or actively spreads misinformation. If you don’t like it, close the window. If you’re about to send me hate- mail telling me that I’m killing people with my words, save it – I’ve gotten that email about a million times. I work developing solutions for people with substance use problems. I created my own educational program that I used with clients as part of coaching for a few years; then I worked with Stanton Peele translating some of his work into a distance learning program; and then I went back to work with the Saint Jude Retreats, where I co- authored the 1. Elisha Reply: February 4th, 2013 at 3:34 pm. Please send an email to [email protected] with your purchase receipt and you will be immediately set up. Saint Jude Program (published May 2. Cognitive Behavioral Education method of helping people with substance use problems. I knock other programs because it is actually addiction mythology spread by those programs that keeps people feeling trapped in addiction. They cause more problems than they solve. You say “addiction is not a disease” – don’t you know the authorities say it is definitely a disease? I do know that NIDA, ASAM, the AMA, Nora Volkow MD, Dr Phil, Dr Drew, and many others say that addiction is a disease. Just as I hope you don’t uncritically take my word on the issue, I hope you don’t uncritically take their word on it as well. Please think critically, and judge the evidence for yourself. I have looked at the evidence and arguments presented for the disease model of addiction, and I can’t find anything that holds up to scrutiny. If authority is all you care about, then let me say this – I can list plenty of authoritative sources who have also concluded that addiction is not a disease: Gene Heyman Ph. D of Harvard; Sally Satel MD of Yale; Stanton Peele Ph. D of NYU and The New School for Social Research; Peter Cohen Ph. D of the Centre For Drug Research in Amsterdam; Thomas Szasz; Professer David Hanson Ph. D; Professor Jeffrey Schaler; Dr Tom Horvath and the many other Ph. Ds behind SMART Recovery. There are more to be listed, in fact there have been several polls over the years asking doctors if they believe addiction or alcoholism is a disease, and majorities have said they don’t believe it is a disease. So we could come up with two groups of professionals that hold opposite opinions about whether addiction is a disease or not. What would we do then – count them up and see which side has more people? Is that how you decide a scientific truth – by a vote? Obviously it is not. A fact is a fact regardless of how many people believe it or not. So please, analyze the available information, and judge for yourself. For you people who can only comprehend appeals to authority, here is a page full of quotes from credentialed experts. LINK to Quotes from Experts About Addiction. I hope and pray that you gain the courage one day to think for yourself and trust your own judgment. Why does it matter whether addiction is a disease or not? Let’s just help people. There is such a thing as a stupid question, and this is one. If you want to solve a problem, you need to understand the nature of the problem. If your car won’t run because it’s out of gas, changing the battery won’t do a damn thing to fix that problem. Likewise, if people are experiencing problems with drug and alcohol use, we need to understand why they are using drugs and alcohol. Is the use caused by a disease or something else? This is important to know because it will direct your approach to solving the problem. If heavy drug and alcohol use isn’t caused by a disease, then why do people do it? People freely choose to use drugs and alcohol because, at the time they’re doing it, they believe it will make them happy. At the time they do it, they believe it is their best available option for attaining happiness. But there are horrible consequences to heavy drug and alcohol use. How can that make people happy? Those negative consequences (or costs) may not make people happy. The consequences are often extreme and disastrous, even fatal. Obviously, the consequences put people through a lot of turmoil, so they’re not happy about the consequences when they set in. Nor are they necessarily happy in times where they simply feel regret about continuing their destructive habit. However, this doesn’t change the fact that at first, when the high kicks in, they experience a certain kind of happiness/pleasure. So people use drugs and alcohol because they’re depressed? No. I see how people arrive at that conclusion, and I see how a state of depression can be used as a reason to use drugs and alcohol, but it’s important to know that depression (or other troubling mood states such as anxiety or stress) doesn’t directly “cause” drug and alcohol use. A vast majority of people experience depression without reacting by using drugs and alcohol. Why is that? Probably because they don’t believe that drug and alcohol use is their best viable option for attaining personal happiness. Again, people use drugs and alcohol because they believe it will bring them happiness. But I have stress/anxiety/trauma/depression, and these problems make me use drugs and alcohol. Are you saying I shouldn’t get help for those things? No. You should get whatever help you feel is necessary for those things. However, as long as you believe that drugs and alcohol are your best viable option for happiness, you will continue to use drugs and alcohol – no matter what help you’re getting for your other problems. On the issue of “addiction”, you will change it when you cease to believe that heavy drug and alcohol use is your best option for finding happiness. Work on changing that belief if you want to change your habit. Believing in the “underlying causes of addiction” (and/or “self- medication”) model creates a more complicated problem. If you invest in this idea, then every time life sends a problem your way, or when you feel the very normal emotions of sadness, depression, stress, or anxiety – then you will feel as if you must use drugs and alcohol. If you cease to believe that heavy drug or alcohol use is your best option for happiness then you will cease the heavy use of drugs and alcohol – regardless of whether you continue to face depression, stress, anxiety, etc. But what about physical addiction – tolerance and withdrawal – doesn’t that cause people to use drugs and alcohol? No it doesn’t. These are medical problems which are separate from the behavioral pattern known as addiction.
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