Stanton Peele Quotes & Sayings

The addictive experience is the totality of effect produced by an involvement; it stems from pharmacological and physiological sources, but takes its ultimate form from cultural and individual constructions of experience. — Stanton Peele

Addiction is more malleable than you know. When people come to me for therapy, they often ask me whether their behavior constitutes a real addiction (or whether they are really alcoholic, etc.). My answer is that this is not the important question. The important questions are how many problems is the involvement causing you, how much do you want to change it, and how can we go about change? — Stanton Peele

Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha have written the essential corrective to the evolutionary psychology literature ... — Stanton Peele

to the world, and there is no more powerful expression of that relatedness than love, or true responsiveness to another person. The issue of love versus addiction is one that is very close to our lives, and thus one that we can do something about as individuals. The environment that is most important to us is the human one. This is why, when we get addicted, we tend to get addicted to people. Similarly, our best hope of breaking out of addiction is by learning better ways of dealing with people. This is true not only for romantic involvements but also for family ties and friendships. Our families have — Stanton Peele

We often say 'love' when we really mean, and are acting out, an addiction-a sterile, ingrown dependency relationship, with another person serving as the object of our need for security. — Stanton Peele

Recovery is about purpose and meaning in life, not "sobriety" and meetings. — Stanton Peele