Book Recommendations
 

Two new ones for you guys, by an author named Lance Dodes (psychiatrist):

1) "The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry"
2) "The Heart of Addiction: A New Approach to Understanding and Managing Alcoholism and Other Addictive Behaviors"

I think Dr. Dodes is brilliant, and I think he understands exactly why addiction happens for people - he demystifies it, removes blaming and moralism from it, and does it without (explicitly without) invoking the disease metaphor of addiction - which I personally find insulting and nonsensical - and Dr. Dodes finds unscientific (which I also agree with).

Any and all of you in the Secular Connections groups should check both of these out.

-DrS

Hi there, I am currently reading Lance Dodes' "Breaking Addictions" and I love it! I have worked with a psychiatrist in the past, so his approach is familiar to me.

For the record, I have no opinion about AA, I haven't ever been to a meeting and I'm not judging! :-)

I hear you. I've been to a bunch of 12-step meetings in my life (more than a dozen, probably less than 20) and it doesn't work for me - at all - but that's just me. To his credit - even Dodes (who is very critical of the evidence base, or lack thereof, supporting 12-step as the one-size-fits-all approach to addiction recovery) acknowledges that the data seems to suggest there in fact are people who *do* respond positively to AA and 12-step group participation positively. It can work for people, certainly.

Not really important for the purposes of this post - I'm not hear to bash 12-step (been there, done that, and it's not appropriate for this forum anyways), but it's worthwhile for those of us who haven't had success with 12-step and are trying other methods to know why it may not have worked for us, to not feel blamed, to not feel like a failure, and more importantly, to know there is real help, and hope out there. I really like Dodes' stuff because he seems to promise all of that.

-DrS