LPP Podcast

AA doesn’t dominate the alcohol and drug scene the way it did in the last century.   Harm Reduction has become a new buzz word, claimed by the most unlikely sources.  Meanwhile, popular streaming media depict the reality of a wide variety of substance use patterns by younger generations. And, yet, as demonstrated by series like “Single Drunk Female” and “Euphoria,” when it comes to...

The podcast “Sweet Bobby” raises the question, “What do you call it when a talented, caring woman devotes ten years of her life to an imaginary character, and can still barely function in the aftermath?”  Unfortunately, Tortoise Media is not up to the task. Just like America blames drug manufacturers for our drug deaths epidemic while it rages on, interviewer Alexi Mostrous blames the wiles o...

Dr. Stanton Peele and Zach Rhoads respond to listener feedback.  First, they inspect the old AA adage, "One day at a time" Then they turn to a case study centered on a former LPP participant (with her permission) -- a case study on overeating and how to manage it in the larger context of a person's life.  Finally, they discuss former Genesis drummer Phil Collins' UNREMARKABLE story of na...

Does love addiction exist?” commentators question. Yet our most popular streaming media stories are replete with the cases of people whose lives are severely disturbed by harmful, irrational intimate involvements — up to an including death. Take “Dirty John” Meehan (who is dead at the hands of a victim) and Betty Broderick (who killed her exhusband and his replacement wife). Then there are the hun...

Is AA helpful? Some people claim that AA offers specific benefits. We should say that we endorse anybody’s right to pursue any form of support or treatment they want, or find helpful, from AA to religion. But our training and experience cause us to doubt AA’s supposed benefits. One such claim is that making amends to people alcoholics have hurt is a way of reconstructing damaged relationships. But...

NYT Best-Selling Author Johann Hari, In his new book, "Stolen Focus", explains why and how our ability to pay attention is diminishing; he explains why that matters; and he offers potential solutions to those of us who wish to improve our focus and live better lives.  Johann Hari is a British journalist who has written for The Guardian, New York Times, The Independent, Le Monde, and many othe...

Dr. George Bonanno's decades-long research on trauma and resilience reveals that most people overcome traumatic and adverse events in their lives.  More important: people who do feel plagued by chronic dysfunction after traumatic events have the capacity to re-map, regulate emotions, become more flexible, and self-regulate so that their lives are not defined by traumatic events in the past (i...

Zach and Stanton discuss the profiles of school shooters. They see a lack of connection that is also present in youth (and older) addiction problems. Zach describes working with such children, including how he might have dealt with the 15–year-old Michigan shooter. Full disclosure: Neither Stanton or Zach know the backstory of this event beyond mainstream media coverage. ***** SUBSCRIBE to Our Cha...

Stanton and Zach review America’s allegiance to the opioids-are-inevitably-addictive scenario even though (a) it’s wrong, (b) 100,000 people a year are now dying due to drug use. But separation from our opioid-disease scenario is hard to make happen. Instead, perhaps, we may find popular media programs that express our point of view in order to get our ideas across. The award-winning show, “I May...

“Dopesick” is the new version of the War on Drugs for people who want to demonize drugs but to claim they’re not drug warriors. “It’s in the brain” they screech, pointing to their heads.”We’ll cut painkiller prescriptions and ramp up MOUD around the land. So what if more deprived people die — they’re not on our addiction reovery mailing lists.”   To lighten our podcast, we review what the NYT...

Stanton and Zach discuss why the disease theory will never die in America, no matter how many Americans die from drugs, even as Carl Hart and others (futilely) join Stanton’s antidisease campaign after four decades on his own.  They then move on to marvel at “disease envy.” Some privileged  women now welcome ADHD diagnoses, which had previously been restricted to men, and especially mino...

Dr. Peele and Zach Rhoads respond to clips from Joe Rogan's recent interview with Stanford Psychiatrist and Author Anna Lembke.  It was with some disappointment — but little surprise — that we watched “iconoclast” podcaster Joe Rogan interview an “all-is-dopamine” addiction expert (a position that even Nora Volkow seems to be backtracking on). Disappointment because Rogan seemed so sympatheti...

Zach and Stanton review the addiction news of the week: from "love" addiction (actually, love is the opposite of addiction) to instagram addiction, to the perpetual search for addiction in the brain.  They then match their perspectives on Zach's interview with Lenore Skenazy, of Free Range children fame. Could she comprehend that Stanton and Zach separate addiction from drugs? Does Lenore thi...

Today's guest wants to "future-proof" our next generation. That is, to tug on the natural tendency of children to explore, learn, and grow competent along the way, just as we, at the Life Process Program want to ADDICTION - PROOF our next generation.  Her name is Lenore Skenazy. Lenore famously (or infamously, depending on who you ask) allowed her child to ride a New York City subway home on...

This is a short clip from Zach Rhoads' forthcoming interview with Dr. Stanton Peele. Stanton wrote the best-selling 1975 book, Love and Addiction, in which he laid out a conceptualization of addiction that transcended the drug-centered conceptualization with which the world was familiar. In this clip, Zach expresses to Stanton how his concept rings true in his own life as he compares his own heroi...

There’s no need to contest or censor divergent views on addiction and mental illness as told, for instance, by Koren Zailckas, William Styron, and T Kira Madden. They are effortlessly assimilated into the big ball of wax of the standard disease theory.  The process is aided and abetted  by leading theorists and commentators like Sally Satel, David Brooks, Maia Szalavitz, and the New York...

Zach and Stanton discuss Mark Normand, who as a young man would certainly pass  Gabor Maté’s muster as traumatized.  Normand developed drinking issues in his 20s, but didn’t follow the recovery route away from alcoholism. In fact, the recovery chip has to be implanted, as it isn’t the natural response of most people, who instead recover naturally.  What, Stanton and Zach ask, is the...

Our massive failure in Afghanistan reminds us of cultural delusions that have gutted us in the past—starting with Vietnam. Vietnam signaled that we didn’t comprehend the consequences of our overseas adventures. It also showed that we had no idea about the relationship between drugs and addiction. We still don’t. ***** SUBSCRIBE to Our Channel ***** To get more of our content and help us grow:&nbsp...

Zach and Stanton return to the Olympic fields of glory to worship the women who have overcome every challenge—mental health, moral, and existential—by declaring: “I will not be defeated.” The media and metal health specialists have decided that leaving the field of endeavor for mental health reasons is the secret to happiness. Yet we have never been more miserable. Here, Zach and Stanton explore a...

Zach Rhoads speaks with Maia Szalavitz about her new book, "Undoing Drugs", which traces the history of Harm Reduction from the movement's genesis to the way it affects mainstream thoughts, beliefs, policies, and behavior. ***** SUBSCRIBE to Our Channel ***** To get more of our content and help us grow:  https://www.youtube.com/c/LifeProcessProgram?sub_confirmation=1 ***** FOLLOW us on Social...

Zach discusses the personal meaning of community as “therapy” in terms of his own experiences of a family tragedy, one that drew his extended family together. In this discussion he reflects on the view of addiction from a five-year-old’s perspective, finding it to be superior to that of leading addiction specialists, and on the special burden of revealing and dealing with a porn addiction. Stanton...

America is convinced that if it can only provide enough medicalized treatment that all of its citizens will be fine. The opposite is true. As Stanton quotes a chapter head from his memoir:  “The Remedy for Addiction is Purpose, Connection, and Self-Acceptance —  we are instead wedded to medicalization, isolation, and self-stigmatization.”  We watch addiction and mental health outcom...

Remarkably, American anti-alcohol forces are front and present in contemporary progressive thought. They are amplified by incessant clarion calls for people to abstain — i.e., to enter “”recovery.” (Query by Ethan Nadelmann: does that mean marijuana too?)  Leading recovery advocates interview and feature prominent media figures — but ignore Bob Weir and Demi Lovato, on the one hand, and Carri...

Stanton and Zach dissect the current news cycle.  First, Britney Spears revealed she is being medicated against her will. She is still being held captive by her “diseases” (the ones she had in her early twenties). Drew Barrymore and Lindsay Lohan outgrew theirs. Demi Lovato, on the other hand, had to fight her way free of her “handlers” — and from 12-step “sobriety” — to become her own person...

In memoirs that defy current thinking, Matthew McConaughey and Quinta Brunson describe being beaten and repressed, respectively, by their parents. Only they don’t currently dislike their parents or disapprove of their upbringings. Rather they celebrate what their parents did provide—support and love—and their own acceptance of their parents.  Both McConaughey and Brunson refuse to consider th...