Thread: Just the facts
View Single Post
Old 08-19-2006, 07:44 PM
  # 2 (permalink)  
Don S
Member
 
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Northern CA
Posts: 1,432
Excerpted from What We Now Know About Treating Alcoholism and Other Addictions
By Stanton Peele
The Harvard Mental Health Letter, December 1991and at www .peele .net

• Whether people succeed in overcoming an addiction may not be determined primarily by the treatment they receive. [George] Vaillant notes that "the most important single prognostic variable associated with remission among alcoholics who attend alcohol clinics is having something to lose if they continue to abuse alcohol."
• As the decisive influence of these social circumstances proves, alcoholism is not a "primary" illness whose course is determined solely by some inexorable internal mechanism. The same is true of other addictions.

• The best way to discourage addictive behavior is to show people how to meet the demands of life without drinking or drug use.

• [The] most effective programs provided alcoholics with training in stress management and self-control, social and negotiation skills, job skills, and work habits.

• The most successful program for hospitalized alcoholics ever evaluated is the community reinforcement approach, which systematically trains alcoholics in job and marital skills while arranging a work and home environment that sustains and rewards sobriety.

Last edited by historyteach; 08-20-2006 at 12:19 AM.
Don S is offline