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Stanton Peele Quotes

Recovery is about purpose and meaning in life, not “sobriety” and meetings.

Recovery is about purpose and meaning in life, not “sobriety” and meetings.

Stanton Peele
Recovery, Sobriety, Purpose

When people can say to themselves - "What I'm doing is justified," there is little chance of their modifying a behavior.

Stanton Peele
People, Littles, Chance
Source: www.psychologytoday.com

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
Real, Addiction, People
Stanton Peele. Ph.D., J.D. (2007). “7 Tools to Beat Addiction: A New Path to Recovery from Addictions of Any Kind: Smoking, Alcohol, Food, Drugs, Gambling, Sex, Love”, p.17, Harmony

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
Mean, Addiction, Acting

Anger management (which is a part of both public displays of rage and spouse abuse) is about changing a person's internal reactions to events (how they see their behavior) by changing the support environment for the behavior (making them see the behavior is wrong).

Stanton Peele
Support, Abuse, Events
Source: www.psychologytoday.com

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
Construction, Individual, Source
Stanton Peele (1985). “The Meaning of Addiction: Compulsive Experience and Its Interpretation”, Free Press

People no longer know how to apologize, which is particularly noticeable among athletes, politicians, and entertainment figures.

Stanton Peele
Athlete, People, Entertainment
Source: www.psychologytoday.com

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

Stanton Peele
Psychology, Essentials, Literature

When spectators and fans say about drunken brawls, violence, and dog fights, "Well, football players are prone to these things - that's why we admire them," they are encouraging terribly detrimental behavior. You might even say - a la Roman gladiators - they are egging on this behavior.

Stanton Peele
Football, Dog, Fighting
Source: www.psychologytoday.com

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