> most people recover from addictions
> on their own -- without AA or rehab,
> and what makes the difference is values,
> not biology.

Despite the shady qualifications of its wordings, that's as loathsome as it is absurd.

Amy.

Crid, why not look at the science instead of assuming your assumptions are true. Feel free to listen to the show and the evidence. It's exactly correct, what you said was "loathsome." You may wish the truth were different (invested in belief in AA, perhaps)? But it is the truth.

In short, you are wrong and there's a pile of data that show it.

How many people do you know who quit smoking with a 12-step program?

Crid,

Have you ever listened to any of her shows?

And this one you should listen to because she brings up your whining foolishness with Dr. Peele.

So open you mind a little and you might actually learn something for once.

Amy,

Another good show.

> Have you ever listened to any of her shows?

Can't listen to a phone call that isn't my own.




Amy, if science was on your side, we'd know.

Mostly I think your sunny chatter about this is rude to those whose lives have been punished by alcohol and the other grand addictions.

Naughty.

> Amy, if science was on your side, we'd know

I was also initially a bit skeptical, so I started doing a little reading up on what the scientific literature actually says, and so far it seems to confirm that the science is on Amy's side. E.g. http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/AA70/AA70.htm ( / www.thecleanslate.org/self-change/substance-dependence-recovery-rates-with-and-without-treatment/) "... what we find when we broaden our scope, like in this study, is that the majority of people with Substance Dependence (as defined in the APA’s DSM-IV) actually quit on their own without any sort of treatment or 12-step involvement"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2013/11/04/everything-youve-heard-about-crack-and-meth-is-wrong/

"Carl Hart ... a neuropsychopharmacologist at Columbia ... has done bold, path-breaking research that challenges widely accepted beliefs about crack and meth"

"Before he became a scientist, Hart believed that people who use crack generally get hooked on it and thereby lose control of their behavior. But when he looked at the data on patterns of drug use as an academic, he could plainly see that only a small minority of people who try crack become heavy users. “Even at the peak [of] widespread use,” he writes, “only 10–20 percent of crack cocaine users became addicted.” According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, just 3 percent of Americans who have tried this reputedly irresistible and inescapable drug have smoked it in the last month."

"Hart’s own research with heavy crack smokers found that, in contrast with the stereotypical addict who cannot help but immediately consume whatever crack is available, they frequently rejected the drug in favor of small cash payments or vouchers"

Further references via: www.columbia.edu/cu/psychology/fac-bios/HartC/faculty.html

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-you-cure-yourself-of-addiction/
"A survey by Gene Heyman, a research psychologist at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts, found that between 60 to 80 percent of people who were addicted in their teens and 20s were substance-free by their 30s, and they avoided addiction in subsequent decades"

I assume there are more references in Stanton Peele's book.

Values matter -- a lot. A junkie may need love but he needs a fix more. When that fix stops being the most important thing in his life he will be ready to stop being a junkie.

Is the word "junkie" actually useful for anything or is it just intended to dehumanize and insult?

> Love this -- no need to investigate.
> You just take the "Lots of people
> believe the earth is flat" approach.
> Disappointing.

You're clucking like a hen. Clipped sentences. Pathos.

The world isn't counting on me to "investigate" solutions for addiction, Amy. And it's not counting on you, either. This need to position yourself as a courageous, oracular truth-teller standing up to the Man from outside the system can be really silly. Not in AA, thanks for asking, but your reflex to the insinuation describes the desperation of the fantasy, and perhaps a blindness to the horror of the topic. You wanna wear a cape, and be admired for science-matific thinking outside the box... Without a degree.

Again-- if you could cure people you would. In this as in no other field, anecdotes do not count. I could meet you at the beach and round up fifty addicts by two in the afternoon... And count on NONE to be clean from your theories by Christmas. Meanwhile, badgering persuasion of passersby such as myself won't do much for the problem. This isn't about them.

> I was also initially a bit skeptical

So did you consult the "Scientific Journals" of The Men's Studies Press, as with circumcision? We know you're "apt to trust" them! But it's funny, I looked up the publisher on WebMD, and what it said…

A professor of psychology at Roane State Community College in Tennessee, James A. Doyle is founding editor of the Men’s Studies Review and The Journal of Men’s Studies and the author of The Male Experience.

> This need to position yourself

Promoting evidence- and reason-based viewpoints is objectively good for the world.

Trashing evidence- and reason-based viewpoints is objectively harmful and counterproductive.

> So did you consult the "Scientific Journals"

Yes I consulted "scientific journals", because that's where scientists publish their results. You say that like it's a bad thing? In this case also, as I mentioned above, figures come from the National Institute of Health - if you have evidence that the NIH are publishing false figures then please post your evidence.

I've noticed before that Crid doesn't care at all about what is actually true and correct - not one bit (except when it happens to be a means to some self-serving end). so I'll be surprised if he posts any real evidence here to defend his views ... I predict a few more mindless insults (yaawn), i.e. more ad hominem and weak attempts to 'poison the well'. I posted at least three different 'scientific sources' above.

There was a scientific study several years ago, and may have been several more since.

The conclusions have universally been that psychiatric treatment has absolutely no effect on the mentally ill.

Just as many people recover or get worse without psychiatric care, and medications, as those who are under the care of a psychiatrist.

And yet, and yet,

Amy sees a psychiatrist on a regular basis, but wants to tell those with addictions to just man up, and get over it.

So how bout it Amy, why don't you just man up, and get over your ADD?