7 Tools to Beat Addiction

Informationen zum Autor STANTON PEELE, Ph.D., J.D., is the author of the groundbreaking books Love and Addiction , Diseasing of America , and The Truth About Addiction and Recovery . An adjunct professor at the New York University School of Social Work and a senior fellow at the Drug Policy Alliance, he has won the Mark Keller Award from the Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies and the lifetime scholarship award from the Drug Policy Alliance. Visit his website at www.peele.net. Klappentext Whether you are battling drugs! nicotine! alcohol! food! shopping! sex! or gambling! this hands-on! practical guide will help you overcome addiction of any kind. If you or a loved one are struggling with addiction but do not find that twelve-step or other treatment programs work for you! 7 Tools to Beat Addiction can help. Internationally recognized expert Dr. Stanton Peele presents a program for addiction recovery based on research and clinical study and grounded in science. His program utilizes proven methods that people actually use to overcome addiction! with or without treatment. 7 Tools to Beat Addiction offers in-depth! interactive exercises that show you how to outgrow destructive habits by putting together the building blocks for a balanced! fulfilling! responsible life. Dr. Peele's approach is founded on the following tools: • Values • Motivation • Rewards • Resources • Support • Maturity • Higher Goals This no-nonsense guide will put you in charge of your own recovery. 1 Values: Building on Your Values Foundation Values play a critical role in addictionand your values are likely to be the key to your escaping addiction. This is a matter of both considering what your values are and sometimes refocusing on dormant values or even developing new ones. When you can truly experience how a habit is damaging what is most important to you, the steps out of your destructive habit often fall readily into place. While you can utilize any of a wide range of values in your fight against addictionand to a certain extent you can go with whatever works for youit is not true that all values are equally useful in this fight. Some values even support continued bad habits and compulsions. In this chapter we will examine values that are the most antiaddictive and that support your independence, and how you can use your own values as a tool to fight addiction. Exercises geared toward identifying and utilizing your values are provided at the end of the chapter. What Are Values? Do They Really Matter? Your values are your beliefs that some things are right and good and others wrong and bad, that some things are more important than others, and that one way of doing things is better than another. Values are usually deeply heldthey come from your earliest learning and background. Values reflect what your parents taught you, what you learned in school and religious institutions, and what the social and cultural groups you belong to hold to be true and right. It is impossible to maintain that values don't matter in addiction or its cure. The best predictor of whether college students will have an alcohol problem is their attitudes toward drinkingthat is, whether it's okay, even good, to binge.1 On the other hand, what makes some people join AA and quit drinking? It is because they have decided their drinking is wrong, even beyond its negative health impact for them. For people in the United States who have a drinking problemor are told by others that they have onetreatment consists mainly of convincing them that their drinking is bad and harmful, and that they should quit. Values are important to all addictions, and not just addictive drinking and drug taking. If you compulsively gamble, shop, or have affairs, then your values are on display. Many people feel good an...

Autorentext
STANTON PEELE, Ph.D., J.D., is the author of the groundbreaking books Love and Addiction, Diseasing of America, and The Truth About Addiction and Recovery. An adjunct professor at the New York University School of Social Work and a senior fellow at the Drug Policy Alliance, he has won the Mark Keller Award from the Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies and the lifetime scholarship award from the Drug Policy Alliance. Visit his website at www.peele.net.

Klappentext

Whether you are battling drugs, nicotine, alcohol, food, shopping, sex, or gambling, this hands-on, practical guide will help you overcome addiction of any kind.

If you or a loved one are struggling with addiction but do not find that twelve-step or other treatment programs work for you, 7 Tools to Beat Addiction can help. Internationally recognized expert Dr. Stanton Peele presents a program for addiction recovery based on research and clinical study and grounded in science. His program utilizes proven methods that people actually use to overcome addiction, with or without treatment.

7 Tools to Beat Addiction offers in-depth, interactive exercises that show you how to outgrow destructive habits by putting together the building blocks for a balanced, fulfilling, responsible life. Dr. Peele's approach is founded on the following tools:

• Values
• Motivation
• Rewards
• Resources
• Support
• Maturity
• Higher Goals

This no-nonsense guide will put you in charge of your own recovery.

Leseprobe
1

Values: Building on Your Values Foundation

Values play a critical role in addiction—and your values are likely to be the key to your escaping addiction. This is a matter of both considering what your values are and sometimes refocusing on dormant values or even developing new ones. When you can truly experience how a habit is damaging what is most important to you, the steps out of your destructive habit often fall readily into place.

While you can utilize any of a wide range of values in your fight against addiction—and to a certain extent you can go with whatever works for you—it is not true that all values are equally useful in this fight. Some values even support continued bad habits and compulsions.

In this chapter we will examine values that are the most antiaddictive and that support your independence, and how you can use your own values as a tool to fight addiction. Exercises geared toward identifying and utilizing your values are provided at the end of the chapter.

What Are Values? Do They Really Matter?

Your values are your beliefs that some things are right and good and others wrong and bad, that some things are more important than others, and that one way of doing things is better than another. Values are usually deeply held—they come from your earliest learning and background. Values reflect what your parents taught you, what you learned in school and religious institutions, and what the social and cultural groups you belong to hold to be true and right.

It is impossible to maintain that values don't matter in addiction or its cure. The best predictor of whether college students will have an alcohol problem is their attitudes toward drinking—that is, whether it's okay, even good, to binge.1 On the other hand, what makes some people join AA and quit drinking? It is because they have decided their drinking is wrong, even beyond its negative health impact for them. For people in the United States who have a drinking problem—or are told by others that they have one—treatment consists mainly of convincing them that their drinking is bad and harmful, and that they should quit.

Values are important to all addictions, and not just addictive drinking and drug taking. If you compulsively gamble, shop, or have affairs, then your values are on display. Many people feel good and get a boost to their self-esteem from shopping. However, most of these people don't consistently spend beyond their limits. They refrai…