I've read "The Truth about Addiction"; "The Diseasing of America"; and "The Meaning of Addiction." It was so refreshing to read these books, like a cool breeze off the lake on a hot summer day in Chicago. Most psychiatrists and psychologists who write, particularly the New Age variety, quote themselves or other pop-psychology tripe. Peele's books, on the other hand, are scholarly works--well thought out; exhaustively researched; and eloquently worded. I've been troubled by the recovery and twelve-step movements for some time, but I couldn't find the right words to describe my misgivings until I read these books. This is brilliant stuff.
My introduction to inpatient chemical dependency treatment came in my first year of medical school. We eager, young students in short white coats were taken to a reputable, local recovery hospital to observe treatment in action. Thirty patients gathered in a circle and started off: "I'm Steven, and I'm an alcoholic, etc..." The director of the program (a spaced-out and religious fellow) had a developmentally disabled woman tell the group about her resolution to get help--I have no idea what sort--in the future if she felt she needed it. He made her say this again loudly so everyone in the group could hear it. Then he made her stand on her chair and shout it three time at the top of her lungs so that "everyone within a city block" could hear it. I was very disturbed by that scene. My stomach was in knots. It was hard to watch this particular person being humiliated, and I knew that if she called for help, she probably wouldn't get "help" no matter how loudly she yelled. (She had little income which meant that she surely wouldn't get private help. County mental health was meager then. It doesn't exist now.) The whole thing was surreal. Later, the director beatifically smiled and said something about "the disease," its severity, and the need for drastic treatment. (If I treated any group of truly diseased people in this manner, say a group of diabetics, I'd lose my license.) "Gee," I thought to myself, "this is the way addicts have to be treated." We all towed the twelve-step line as students and residents. Medical schools don't select contrary thinkers.
It seems to me that there is a streak of sadism in the neo-Puritan American variety of drug treatment. I've seen it repeatedly. I'm not sure where this comes from. My hunch is that some health professionals with sadistic urges tend to gravitate toward substance abuse treatment since this is the one area in which they can act out on their sadistic wishes, be coercive, and still be seen as healers. One staff member from the now defunct US Naval Hospital in Long Beach said, "We give our addicts a swift kick in the pants to get them headed in the right direction." If one wants see oneself as Mother Teresa or Albert Schweitzer, but unconsciously wants to kick people in the pants, substance treatment would be a good place to go. Tough Love, and all that.
In "Diseasing of America," Peele fretted over the consequences of Grant being taken from the field of battle in 1861 and dried out. I had ancestors in Robert E. Lee's army. I'm sure they would have been more than delighted to see Grant involuntarily taken off to a rehab center. I have a more chilling scenario. In 1940, Nazi Germany had overrun France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway. Sweden was cowed into an uneasy neutrality. The Soviet Union had signed a diabolical non-aggression pact with the Nazis partitioning Poland between the two of them. The only thorn in Hitler's side was Great Britain. He wanted to invade or at least isolate England and make her sue for terms. Then he could concentrate his entire war machine on the Soviets. Who else but Winston Churchill could have rallied the English-speaking peoples, the only remaining resistance in the West? This was the man, who, more than anyone else, prevented "...a new dark age made more sinister by the lights of perverted science." This was also a man who had whisky and cigars for breakfast. From the recovery standpoint, this man was "delusional," (I use quotes since recovery misuses the term delusional.), codependent, addicted to nicotine, workaholic, and Higher Power-only-knows what else. I grateful that there were no rehab centers in Britain at that time. Imagine what would have happened if, at the moment of Chamberlain's resignation, Churchill had been hauled off to "find a new life." Who would have filled his shoes? Anthony Eden? Stafford Cripps? Atlee? Baldwin? Who would have given the speech about blood, sweat, toil, and tears? So much being owed by so many to so few? Their finest hour?
Peele's books are the sort that should be read in upper level college psychology classes. At the same time, the books are quite readable to anyone who has a high school diploma. I highly recommend them. -JK, M.D.
