Comedian and “recovering addict” Russell Brand recently testified in front of a committee in Parliament about drug policy. If you want to watch it, here’s the full video, his portion goes 29 minutes long, or you can skip it and read my points below:
What’s wrong with Russell’s pitch?
I’m sure his intentions are nothing but benevolent, but I find it appalling that Brand could spread such misinformation, nonsense, and illogic while simultaneously scolding the panel about “confusion and ignorance about drugs and addiction.” He unoriginally brings up and demonizes Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign, while remaining completely ignorant as to how off-base and potentially harmful his own “treat em or jail em” campaign and abstinence-only stance may be.
Brand implores the panel to view addiction “as a health issue as opposed to a criminal issue” and thus invokes the classic false dichotomy of either treating people or jailing them – neither of which are proper responses to personal behavior which directly violates no one else’s rights. There is a third option which is far better – leave people alone. By presenting the matter of helping people as a binary option of treatment or jail, Brand has unknowingly bought into and fully endorsed the system of morality police which I’m sure he’d object to if he could think abstractly enough to recognize it. But more importantly, treatment for addiction just doesn’t work! Several reliable studies have shown this, we know this anecdotally from the people we’ve seen breeze in and out of treatment repeatedly, and even counselors at treatment centers admit it openly when they tell a group of “patients” the famous line “look to your right, look to your left – only one of you will stay sober.”
So, Brand has unwittingly endorsed the morality police, and he’s endorsed a treatment system that doesn’t even work. He thinks he’s helping, but unfortunately, he’s part of the problem. He sets standards for all people troubled with substance use problems – most obviously by demanding abstinence, the same thing he decries Nancy Reagan for! I couldn’t even begin to count how many times he and his partner called for “abstinence based recovery”, “abstinence-based treatment”, and “abstinence treatment” throughout their testimony. They furthered the lie that people don’t get over their problems unless they become abstinent – this is a lie that hurts many people.
“Confusion and Ignorance about Drugs and Addiction”
Brand claims he wants to offer truth to combat the ignorance and confusion about drugs and addiction, but he gets it all wrong. He said he considers all drugs, alcohol, methadone etc to be the same and recommends complete abstinence from all, once a person has had problems with substance use. The most basic research of the issue would reveal that this recommendation is squarely in the realm of misinformation and ignorance – it’s a complete non-sequitur. The known dominant path after clinically diagnosed “Alcohol Dependence” is moderate usage of alcohol – bottom line. This has been revealed in several epidemiological studies, time and again. The NIAAA openly stated this 3 years ago, and I quote just a few of the findings they were willing to admit:
Twenty years after onset of alcohol dependence, about three-fourths of individuals are in full recovery; more than half of those who have fully recovered drink at low-risk levels without symptoms of alcohol dependence.
About 75 percent of persons who recover from alcohol dependence do so without seeking any kind of help, including specialty alcohol (rehab) programs and AA. Only 13 percent of people with alcohol dependence ever receive specialty alcohol treatment. [SOURCE] [of course we knew this and more from a nearly identical 1992 study and others such as Stanton Peele pointed out the results from this latest study long before the NIAAA did – see my commentary on NESARC here – SS]
More than half of the majority who ‘fully recover’ still drink? Huh? But Russell Brand said you need to be abstinent? Well kiddies, he’s wrong. You don’t need treatment and you don’t need abstinence, and you don’t need to live life on edge believing that if you have one drink you’ll spiral out of control, because that only becomes true when you believe it! Moderation after “dependence” is not impossible – it is the norm. Since we know that other drugs work within the brain in both similar and identical ways to alcohol, we have no reason to believe that moderation is impossible or less probable an outcome with the use of any other drugs, and there is much research that points us to this conclusion as well. In the face of such evidence, Brand’s insistence on moderation is clearly a non-sequitur. His views come from a religious organization which teaches an arbitrary morality deeming substance use to be selfish and thus sinful, and whether he knows it or not, he is moralizing as well as adding to the “confusion and ignorance about drugs and addiction.”
I found it interesting he said he kept going back to drugs after each arrest, until he was introduced finally to abstinence based recovery. For him, 12 step was what finally worked. He also said he believes in decriminalizing drugs, that money spent on arrests should instead go to treatment. But he did not offer any research or evidence based treatment, and his need to go to AAA three times a week is to me a sign of weakness, ie he needs to be reminded he is powerless. Also, his sex addiction and short marriage show he has his own struggles still. The committee should perhaps get their advice from someone more stable.
I would be surprised in Brand hadn’t encountered 12 step concepts, if not full-blown 12 step groups in prison. It’s really common for jails to have 12 step groups, as well as “alcohol & drug awareness” classes that are basically 12 steps in all but name. So if every time he got arrested, he was fed the (false) claim that anyone who uses and doesn’t go to strict abstinence will behave in more & more extreme and unacceptable ways & consume ever increasing quantities. Couple that with the group think process that happens when people get fed their memes in group-settings, increased using & increased bad behavior & more arrests would surely follow. I would be sure that if someone is arrested on drug charges in particular, it is highly likely that they would be strongly encouraged by jail staff to take drug/alcohol classes or do 12 steps. And then, just like teen girls who get abstinence-only sex & and pledge virginity-til-marriage and blather about abstinence to everyone in earshot, while having identical or higher pregnancy rates to teens who get actual sex information, the meme reproduces between his ears & spread via his mouth.
Oh, and if people were not subjected to arrest & jail for drug use or possession, it would greatly reduce the number of people subjected to repeated exposures to the harmful memes from AA about being helpless, having to confess, and needing a group and an imaginary friend to make it possible for the person to never enjoy the drug or alcohol again.
If we reduce the number of people believing and spreading the AA memes that alcohol/drugs cause people to become so out-of-control that they go from law-abiding, to sneaky, lying, thieving, cheating disruptions of society, then fewer people will act out those beliefs…
And I just have to ask this question – for over 100 years, Americans have been told by “experts” that drug users “turn to crime to support their drug habits.” To me, it sounds like they would have to carry little accountant books with them so they could keep complex little budgets in which their minimum wage salaries pay for rent, food & clothes, while their illegal money goes to recreational drugs. But in reality, criminals use whatever money they have (or can acquire) to get whatever they want/need in the moment, whilst law-abiding people who dabble in drugs treat drugs like any other discretionary expenditure – buy em when they have the money and abstain when they’re broke. (In a documentary I saw recently, a couple who moved into a woman’s mobile home & lived rent free &* mooched her food & spent money they got from her on drugs were described as “using the woman to support their drug habit” – No, they used her to pay for *everything*, which included drugs and other things.
Hi Trish, I love your thoughts and ideas. Another smart woman!
Yeah, the whole drug –> crime affililiation is a result of drugs being illegal. You can stay drunk for dollars a day, but an illegal drug can cost hundreds a day. If meth, heroin, cocaine were as cheap and easily available as alcohol, the crime rate for obtaining these substances would probably be equivalent.
Kelly,
You’re very kind.
Russell Brand is doing an addiction documentary, and an excerpt has been quoted in the media, where he says he’s jealous of his old heroin using self, he wishes he could go back there. He says he’d rather be a drug addict. But his actions are not backing that up: he is making that documentary and putting a prayer tattoo on his arm. To him, the drug taking fantasy makes him an addict. To me, I say it’s ok to fantasize. My sexual fantasies I would never act out. I have drug fantasies too, but they are fantasies, nothing more. I always wished I could try heroin. But I won’t. Fantasies should not be confused with reality. I guess AA has taught him that a fantasy is an urge and a symptom of his “disease”. It’s all how you look at things.
I wonder if Brand is also jealous of his old wife – Katy Perry – whom he says he divorced because she kept going out & partying (as in having fun) while he stayed home, presumably sulking in his self-imposed allegiance to the imaginary treatment program for his imaginary disease. Katy seems to be having a lot of fun without him.
At least in the UK the treatment system is rational i.e. not based on the 12 steps. I can’t find any data on how effective it is though and I suspect the results are about the same as here in the US: worthless. But look closely at the Nesarc data. Full recovery: 75% 20 years after onset, 55% 10-19 years after, 35% 5-9 years after and 10% less than 5 years after onset of dependence. There are many people who are dependent/abusing for a long time. The mean years would be about 15 years which is consistant with prospective longitudinal studies. There is no effective treatment, education or therapy but we can do better. I favor behavioral therapies, i.e. Community Reinforcement, Contingency Contracting, habit replacement etc. because addiction is a behavior. In patient rehab should be only for acute cases and then primarily as a place of respite and repose. Therapies should be adapted for long term self help because it can take a while to correct habits learned over many years. By this I mean teaching the basics and how to apply them on a daily basis. We have no system in the US. When I first recognized a problem I thought I was drinking to soothe my soul. I was confused because I had no life problems but I wasn’t happy and I was drinking a case of beer a day. I went to an MD, a psychologist, a psychiatrist. All told me to go to outpatient rehab. Outpatient rehab told me to go to AA three times a week and outpatient rehab four times a week where we addicts sat around and swapped stories. Talk about the blind leading the blind. I don’t believe any counselor there had any knowledge of addiction beyond what Hazeldon and AA tell us. Hell, I even thought Hazeldon were the go to experts. I searched the web – more confusion. There is a lot of information out there but I truly believe one has to become an addiction expert to get to the truth of the matter. It looks like a disease but it’s just a habit. Habits can be broken with great effort but we need help, knowledge, guidance and it’s just not available.
So Russell Brand was married to Katy Perry, a beautiful & successful artist, at the time he decided that he had to take up abstinence. I remember reading an interview with him where he was complaining about her going out & having fun while he preferred to stay home. Then he left her. I’m glad to see she sees to be doing well without him.
But I saw an ad for “Rock of Ages” on cable the other day – ad I realized that the last film Brand made before coming to the decision to become abstinent was with Tom Cruise. With Scientology’s well-known opposition to drugs, even when used for medical purposes under medical supervision, I have to wonder if Brand’s decision was somehow influenced by the views of his co-star.