7 Tools to Beat Addiction: A New Path to Recovery from Addictions of Any Kind: Smoking, Alcohol, Food, Drugs, Gambling, Sex, Love

by Stanton Peele

Whether you are battling drugs, nicotine, alcohol, food, shopping, sex, or gambling, this hands-on, practical guide will help you overcome addiction of any kind.

If you or a loved one are struggling with addiction but do not find that twelve-step or other treatment programs work for you, 7 Tools to Beat Addiction  can help. Internationally recognized expert Dr. Stanton Peele presents a program for addiction recovery based on research and clinical study and grounded in science. His program utilizes proven methods that people actually use to overcome addiction, with or without treatment.

7 Tools to Beat Addiction offers in-depth, interactive exercises that show you how to outgrow destructive habits by putting together the building blocks for a balanced, fulfilling, responsible life. Dr. Peele’s approach is founded on the following tools:

• Values
• Motivation
• Rewards
• Resources
• Support
• Maturity
• Higher Goals

This no-nonsense guide will put you in charge of your own recovery.

Genres: Self Help, Mental Health, Nonfiction, Health

275 pages, Paperback

First published July 27, 2004

Reviews

[Patricia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish I could be the editor for some of these self-help books. I'm sure I could help these guys reach a larger audience. This book for instance is terribly confused about who the audience is: the addict or the friend or counselor of the addict. The material jumps all over from tools that might help an addict to tools that might help a family member to things a counselor might need to know. There are sections about helping a teen who could be headed toward addiction and sections that teach an addict how to set goals. GEEZE, get it together and focus, Peele. That said, a rapid skimming of the book gave me some perspective on the necessary components in beating addiction. I was in the market for material that addresses manageing addiction outside of treatment or 12-step programs. I wanted to know more about folks who "quit" without these programs. I think Peele has identified 7 essential components. I just wish he could have organized his book more fluidly and perhaps divided it into sections for the addict and sections for the support folks.

[Elizabeth Atwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good alternative philosophy (and one I tend to agree with more) than AA and the twelve steps. Favorite tidbits:
*The simplest answer to the question "When do people change?" is "When they want to."
*While it is customary to label such denial as dysfunctional (people who don't label themselves as addicts), it seems that for many--indeed, for the typical alcohol-, gambling-, or sex-dependent individual--NOT acknowledging they were addicted actually made it EASIER for them to escape the addictive behavior.

[Melanie Solomon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book offers a really great new way of looking at alcoholism and drug addiction. It is supported by the research that has been going on for over two decades, which the general public is largely unaware of, at least in the U.S. It is about time that we start looking at alternatives to Alcoholics Anonymous, which according to research only has about a 5% success rate, so that the other 95% can get the help we need! I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is still struggling with an alcohol or drug problem. I wish everyone the best in their journey back to good health!

Melanie Solomon-author of "AA Not the Only Way" 2nd Edition
Go to www.aanottheonlyway.com for FREE first time phone consultation!
Get FREE special report on How to Choose Your Best Treatment here: http://www.aanottheonlyway.com/specia...

[Zaubin Z · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is great, even if you don't have an addiction, if only that it contradicts years of limiting thinking. You are not helpless. You always have a choice, and the choice is not always black and white. If you mess up, it's not the end of the world. There is such a thing as moderation. The thing that makes it hard to change is a pernicious belief, bolstered by others, that you are a victim, that it is too hard, that you are helpless. The best way to change a bad habit is to change your point of view.

[Monica Willyard Moen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is like a breath of fresh air. It shows how many people overcome addictions and bad habits without a 12 step group. While support groups can be very helpful in recovery, they are not the only way a person can get better. This is very heartening for me. I overcame a powerful addiction in the 90s, and I felt strange because so many people told me I couldn't do it without the support group. Yet I did do it, and I couldn't understand why they told me I couldn't.

[Fishface · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just wonderful. This book explains how people really stop themselves from drinking, using drugs, gambling and eating problematically, and how the reader can do the same if he or she is ready. Stanton Peele has been the voice of reason in the wilderness of 12-step nonsense for many years. Long may he wave.

[Amber Olson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like it touched key concepts, but didn't go into depth. It left it open for you to have to do some research in order to obtain the goals you want. I did like the stories of other people, but feel it could have been inlaid into the book in a different manner. Sometimes it felt forced.

[Shaun Psaila · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book presents 7 tools that beat adictions. In fact the author identifies 7 components that are;


-Value

-Motivation 

-Reward

-Resources 

-Support

-Mature identity 

-Higher goals 


He also suggests in the afterword what the government must do about reducing addiction and what it fails to do. He also mentions children's education but most of the book is about these tools mentioned. The writer in the beginning yet sugests that there are people who use AA, others who use therapy and some who quit at a point alone. He criticized the programs of recovery as well. Yet sometimes it seemed to me that the book was a commentary on society and government policies and on the other hand a self help book which did not sound 100 per cent to me. Personally in fact it was more information based mixed with all these things mentioned.

Also to be honest I found him even vague as I expected the book to be more a method of how these 7 tools are used and applied in therapeutic approach rather than just explaining them. Yet the information presented was a good job though putting various concepts in few pages still created a need for further elaboration. Ultimately as a self help the is mostly a book about the 7 tools.

Saying all this I found him also advocating that any method works and so it seemed to me to understand that if any method works there is no method in the opinion of the author about how to heal from addiction whether AA, therapy, self help or an awakening moment when something switches on. So the author seemed to advocate that everybody has to find in the end his own path his own way of healing and to add me writing this perhaps in the path the method will find him any case. Yet in all this in my opinion could in fact be further clarified and expanded.


Lastly in all this the book I found the book quite good and it also has a flowy writing style which I liked. Also the book was quite straightforward and not complicated and I think it can be of help to anyone in need or who is curious about the subject of addiction. I also believe that the book can also be used as a primer for people who are interested in this subject of how one can heal from addiction if they are interested in these 7 tools.

Yet again this book lacks structure and a structured method about how one can apply these 7 tools and I believe here the book suffers a lot though I believe still that the book has good and can be useful in the end especially when used with other good self help books effectively.

[Aaron Wallentine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find Stanton Peele's take on addiction and recovery to be quite refreshing and sensical, and I'm glad his voice is out there among all the 12-step s...more I find Stanton Peele's take on addiction and recovery to be quite refreshing and sensical, and I'm glad his voice is out there among all the 12-step stuff that is out there. I almost said "12-step junk", but maybe that's a bit too harsh. That said, I think that 12-step dogma is definitely worth questioning, and Stanton Peele is one of the best questioners in that regard that I've come across

[Ajnadenver · Rating 5 out of 5]

I figured if this works for crackheads, it should hopefully make a dent in my own bad habits. What it did was really change how I view what addiction is (it's rather scathing on AA's abdication of personal responsibility) and how people really break behaviors. I'd suggest it, even if you don't have any serious addictions to break!

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is absolutely no scientific studies or basis for his claims, but for those who agnostic or atheist and want to try a non AA method perhaps it would work. I can't say as I really found the comment '7 tools' rather vague so I can't see how it could help anyone. A lot of this book can also be found else in the New Age Self Help ouevre but I think Ken Christian's book is far better.

[Mark Manderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like Peele's scientific backed examples of addiction and how to best deal with the problem ad opposed to only the symptoms. By using motivational techniques he gives multiple examples how to use the most powerful form of motivation, internal!
This is used to bring out the sources of their conflict.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stanton has my respect, psychologist and an attorney, (fights the court villains who mandate AA). His book is forthright, and simple, "Values, Motivation, Rewards, Resources, Support, Maturity, Higher Goals."

[Lyssa deHart · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this book due to a work issue, it is really good and has some good new ways to think about addiction, to include all addictions not just alcohol or drugs. Very good info - I am recommending it to people interested in this topic.

[Lisa Vegan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another Mickey Mouse CEU class, but it was refreshing to have another perspective than the dominant 12 step program philosophy.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was worth reading for the chapter on Mature Identity alone. So much of it resonated with what I've experienced in my life.