Product Description

Refutes conventional attitudes toward addiction and recovery and presents a program of behavioral changes for personal recovery.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #81080 in Books
• Published on: 1992-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Customer Reviews

Purposeless, misleading and destructive
There are now millions of people in the world who owe their lives and liberation from addiction to the Twelve Step programme developed by AA. It is extraordinary that Stanton Peele and so many other would-be 'recovery gurus' choose to ignore this salient fact.

There are a great many vicious and groundless attacks against AA in this book - a book which, for its own part, offers almost nothing that is positive or constructive as an alternative.

AA and the other anonymous fellowships have many decades of successful experience in helping people to recover from addictions and to rebuild their lives. When Stanton Peele and the other vendors of 'miracle-cures' can say as much, they might be worth listening to.

If you wish to be bored by Peele's catechism of envy, resentment and disinformation, buy this book. If you wish to get well and stay well, avoid it like the plague - and go to one of the anonymous fellowships.

There is life after AA!!!
This is NOT a book for people who are perfectly happy in AA; there are plenty of books out there for you. This book is GREAT, however, for those of us who have ended up feeling as though AA has outlived it's usefulness, or those who wonder if they ever really belonged in "the Program" at all. I spent nearly five years in AA, and that it saved my life at the time I joined I cannot deny. Eventually, I had to leave--I simply couldn't stand it any more. I began to wonder: was I truly diseased,or had I just been an immature, insecure person who drank to drown a mountain of fear? I began looking for alternatives, and found this book. I've been drinking again for five years, with no dire consequences; nobody would guess I ever needed AA! I can't recommend this book enough. There are NO miracles here, NO faith-healing, NO catchy little phrases--just lots of good, rational common sense for those who want to move on--whether you choose to drink again or not.

Stanton Peele Speaks Rubbish Re 12-Step Programs!
Please, please get your facts straight Dr. Peele. To say that a problem drinker or alcoholic can magically sober up due to good peer friendships is pretty silly in my opinion. And it smacks of codependency. The woman who wrote to you was describing intimacy problems and her sex and alcohol addiction and you ignored all of this and told her she could drink safely. As for her falling into bed with strangers while drunk, you gave pretty nebulous suggestions...You obviously do NOT understand what happens when someone is in the death grip of addictions! Not so easy to control my dear Stanton. Please GET REAL! AA SAVES LIVES, and enables many many people to lead happy and productive lives, WITHOUT BOOZE. Are you in denial, or WHAT! There is no email address so I had to use this ....Thanks

Athena.