ALCOHOL ABUSE IS NOT YOUR FAULT.

Move beyond fear of failure to recognize that the entire world is changing to support your sobriety. There is a fundamental shift in the paradigm beliefs of our society that have accepted alcohol as ok. The problem is no longer with us, it is with alcohol and it is not alcoholics at fault, but rather the addictive substance and the mass media that perpetuates its use in our culture.Non alcohol drinks are on the rise. A non alcohol beer commercial was even in the Superbowl! Fantastic huge followings by great mentors like Tommy Rosen and Holly Whitaker and Laura McKowen, just to name a few are building momentum with millions of people following and using their support programs to retrain their minds that drinking is not alright and not what they, you and I want to do. Millions of people are turning away from the myth that consuming poison is acceptable and recognizing, mindfully how much better every aspect of life is when you are sober.Many, many social posts, blogs, websites, group gatherings, food & drink products, supplements, therapists and book resources are available that all support peer to peer non alcohol lifestyles. The world is starting to rebel. Like many other social injustices that have risen to the surface of intolerance during the pandemic period that made us all deeply evaluate the way we live, the day of the laughable drunk is gone. The grief for all those we have lost and those who still suffer will remain and be a torch light for us to follow in helping our fellow people to realize their full life potential, without an impediment to their chance to a full life, without alcohol to drag them down.Be very, very grateful. Live long, healthy and prosper.

Contrary to the psycho indoctrination of many societal groups who are both trying to do good and often do good, drinking alcohol is not a disease. There is nothing disease like about it. Its a an addictive habit, end of story. The fact that BIG ALCOHOL has the media power to perpetuate into society that perpetuating harmful behaviour drinking a poison is a normal and good thing to do makes us believe that we are flawed if we don’t and sick if we do ‘without responsibility’. Drink Responsible is also a bullshit advertising slogan than insinuates drinking is ok in certain amounts. The old campaign that a glass of red wine a day was good for you, likely directly helped contribute to many, many painful deaths.

This is just the tip of the iceberg but in the words of Stanton Peel, PH.D:

“Sobriety” is a word whose 12-step misuse now pervades our entire culture, along with ruining addiction treatment.

Sobriety actually means, first, not being intoxicated. It does not mean abstinence, as AA takes it to mean. In fact, the DSM psychiatric manual (unbeknownst to virtually everyone who uses it, including even experts who write about it) contains no abstinence criterion for recovery (actually called remission). Addiction and remission are about the absence of problems—using or not using a substance.

I can’t tell you how many times I have had discussions with people—often the families of those who have just been indoctrinated at some 12-step mill—that recovery is not making sure that the person never uses any psychoactive substance again for the rest of their lives. It is about the person’s being alert to and proceeding in life. Likewise, recovery housing on college campuses and elsewhere is about shutting people off from life—keeping them away from usual activities and “non-recovering,” i.e., regular, people. I call this the creation of recovery pods.

AA’s monomania, its abstinence fixation, actually interferes with recovery.

Recovery/remission is about maintaining focus and engagement in life. The word “sober” conveys an overall seriousness and purpose a person has. By promoting the goal of addiction treatment to be ONLY the absence of something—not drinking or using (an impossibility in many of the new addictions we are recognizing, like eating, shopping, electronic media, sex, love, etc.)—the 12 steps miss the most important part of recovering. (Notice this is not the permanent state of “being in recovery,” another 12-step neologism that locks people forever in their addictions.)

The same is true in neurochemistry’s search for a pill to cure addiction, which actually means using a pill to stop using one or another substance. As I point out in the current Practical Recovery (SM) Newsletter, this is barking up the wrong tree to recovery (as well as an impossibility).

So, while the cutting edge of addiction theory and practice recognizes that purpose is the solution for addiction, the 12 steps and neurochemistry lock our minds on nothingness. As Ilse Thompson and I say in Recover!, Stop Thinking Like an Addict,

Let’s look at the word “sobriety.” In the real world, sobriety means not being impaired. In 12-step speak, sobriety means never taking any consciousness-altering substance, ever. This fixation on abstinence requires that people who recover through the 12 steps decide that their lives revolve around an empty space. Not only is that undesirable, it’s unsustainable. You can’t commit your life to nothingness, only to health, your goals and plans, and your belief in yourself.

Here’s a funny, but incisive, comment:

Dr. Peele, How dare you

Dr. Peele,
How dare you contemplate that there is more to life than black and white thinking, outside the box thought, yes and no answers. How dare you suggest that change ultimately occurs because of decisions (thinking) people make for themselves. Why would you suggest people change with they are HURT ENOUGH and HAVE TO, or when the LEARN ENOUGH AND WANT TO. How dare you suggest that people overcome addiction out of purpose-based motivation—they quit when they recognize how their habit violates who they were (believe they can do it), what they want to be (purpose), where they want to go in life (faith in self).”

Focus on a healthy mind and healthy lifestyle with clarity of your decisions that see alcohol clearly as something you don’t want. I still get the addictive urge sometimes for a drink or a smoke and I let myself go to that thought and really think on it; and it is a disgusting, harmful, degenerative habit that I clearly see no desire in following through with, regardless of some old lingering habitual twitch.