If you’d like to know why people are so misinformed, you need look no further than your local news. Noah Bond of ABC4 in Salt Lake City recently reported on a new heroin epidemic: A strong batch of heroin is killing addicts in Salt Lake County. At least four people are dead and two others… Continue reading Excruciatingly Normal News from Know-Nothing Numbskulls
Author: Steven Slate
Steven Slate has personally taught hundreds of people how to change their substance use habits through choice - while avoiding the harmful recovery culture and disease model of addiction.
Promoting Self Change, Through Awareness
Research suggests that an initial positive encouraging message may be all you need to change your substance use habits. In fact, the stuff that comes later – the actual program of recovery and follow up material may not matter at all. This is according to a study done by groundbreaking researchers, Mark and Linda Sobell.… Continue reading Promoting Self Change, Through Awareness
State Proudly Wastes $200,000,000 A Year
Pennsylvania’s Bureau of Drug and Alcohol Programs (BDAP) will now be represented by a cabinet level secretary – which is a promotion of sorts, it means that a bureau becomes a department, or something like that. Anyways, some politician with a heroin addict son fought for this for 6 six years, so it’s a big… Continue reading State Proudly Wastes $200,000,000 A Year
Yes, Your Dad Chose To Be A Jerk.
Who would choose addiction? No one would. People don’t make bad choices. They always act completely rationally. If you believe this, then you probably believe the disease theory – which rests on the premise that if a behavior is self-destructive, then it must be involuntary. Gene Heyman astutely identifies this premise in his groundbreaking book… Continue reading Yes, Your Dad Chose To Be A Jerk.
Huffpo Talks Sense on Email Addiction
The addiction term gets thrown around quite a bit, and what I’m starting to notice as I cull through google results, is that when people are talking about the non-substance-related addictions, they usually speak quite rationally. I think we can learn more helpful, genuinely useful ideas to apply to the problems of drug & alcohol… Continue reading Huffpo Talks Sense on Email Addiction
Pharmaceutical Treatments For Addiction Contradict The Disease Theory
We’re told that addiction is a compulsion, that the addicted person essentially has no choice over their behavior, that they’re continuing to abuse substances involuntarily. This is how the experts characterize the “disease”, then they tell you that since it is a compulsion, the only hope for stopping is treatment – but then we find… Continue reading Pharmaceutical Treatments For Addiction Contradict The Disease Theory
Addiction Experts Keep Shaming Us Into Believing The Disease Theory
A few hours after making this post about the Argument From Intimidation, I found this story, A New Treatment For Narcotic Addiction by Lloyd I. Sederer MD, which was published the same day, on the Huffington Post, and served as a near perfect example of the fallacy in action. The article was pushing for public acceptance of buprenorphine as a treatment for opioid… Continue reading Addiction Experts Keep Shaming Us Into Believing The Disease Theory
Ebert At The Meetings
The important thing is that you don’t consider yourself to be your own Higher Power, because your own best thinking found your bottom for you. -Roger Ebert The above quote from Roger Ebert is troublesome and it reflects a common view among AA members. Ebert says that “your own best thinking found your bottom for… Continue reading Ebert At The Meetings
The Disease Theory Argument From Intimidation
In “The Virtue of Selfishness” Ayn Rand brilliantly identified a logical fallacy in wide use today, which she called “The Argument from Intimidation”. If you don’t wholly support and endorse the disease theory of addiction, then you will undoubtedly be countered often with the Argument from Intimidation. If you’re aware that the argument isn’t really… Continue reading The Disease Theory Argument From Intimidation
News Flash: Medical Professionals Over-Think Addiction!
University of Maryland addiction researcher Clinton B McCracken PhD was arrested last year for growing marijuana plants in his home. Police found the plants while responding to a 911 call – McCracken’s fiancee and research partner died while injecting what they thought was an opiate that they’d bought online. They’d both been doing opiates for 3… Continue reading News Flash: Medical Professionals Over-Think Addiction!