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 others. His Ted Talks have been viewed by tens of millions. He has written two international best-selling book...
Feb 14, 2022•1 hr 21 min•Season 3Ep. 1
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.e. people can be resilient). Zach asks Dr. Bonanno about his role at Columbia University (where he runs t...
Dec 19, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 25
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 Channel ***** To get more of our content and help us grow: https://www.youtube.com/c/LifeProcessProgram...
Dec 13, 2021•30 min•Season 2Ep. 24
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 Destroy You,” is about a millennial woman who gets in trouble with drugs, but still uses them. All k...
Dec 05, 2021•1 hr•Season 2Ep. 23
“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 NYTimes says about being happy: “Don’t focus on your trauma, but reframe your life optimistically.” (Sorry, Ga...
Nov 27, 2021•50 min•Season 2Ep. 22
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 minority men. This, even as many Black critics saw the ADHD label as a major impediment to young Black men’s progres...
Oct 26, 2021•58 min
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 sympathetic to Carl Hart’s opposite position. But not surprised since (a) all-is-dopamine is the cultural fallback p...
Oct 11, 2021•55 min•Season 2Ep. 21
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 think that kids can drink? Can they make productive contributions to the household, even when they're small? ...
Sep 28, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 20
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 his own. In her mind (and in ours), this was sensible, and offered her child to gain some independence in ...
Sep 19, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Season 2Ep. 19
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 heroin addiction to destructive relationships with women. Zach runs a thought experiment about how those ...
Sep 07, 2021•6 min
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 Times. Stanton, on the other hand, impolitely disputes these things, while Zach tries to toe the line between c...
Sep 06, 2021•57 min•Season 2Ep. 18
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 result of the culture-wide adoption of this unnatural— actually quite bizarre— response? ***** SUBSCRIBE to Our Chann...
Sep 05, 2021•57 min•Season 2Ep. 17
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: https://www.youtube.com/c/LifeProcessProgram?sub_confirmation=1 ***** FOLLOW us on Social ***** - Facebo...
Aug 27, 2021•59 min•Season 2Ep. 16
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 an alternative story (feel free to borrow the format, MSM).
Aug 17, 2021•46 min•Season 2Ep. 15
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 ***** - Facebook: https://facebook.com/lifeprocessprogram - Twitter : https://twitter.com/lifeprocessprgm...
Aug 11, 2021•53 min•Season 2Ep. 14
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 and Zach then describe their use of harm reduction and taking an incremental approach to helping pe...
Jul 23, 2021•51 min•Season 2Ep. 13
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 outcomes worsen as we lose community supports and our sense of personal agency. But we are hellbent on pursuing this directi...
Jul 14, 2021•57 min•Season 2Ep. 12
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 Carrie Fisher on the other. They also defy harm reduction. In doing so they endanger all of us, America’s publi...
Jul 05, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 11
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. Meanwhile, the candidate for New York mayor Stanton voted for, Eric Adams, is leading in the tallying. A...
Jun 28, 2021•57 min•Season 2Ep. 10
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 themselves traumatized, victimized, or damaged. Rather, they have focused on creating unique, indelible care...
Jun 20, 2021•59 min•Season 2Ep. 9
HBO has become the ultimate destination of Harm Reduction in streaming media with its shows Mare of Easttown and Hacks. In both, the show’s protagonists (again played by women) drink (Mare) and consume drugs (Hacks) without being driven to perdition. Moreover, the creators of each series seem to be actively pursuing a harm reduction vision — meaning not blaming drugs and alcohol for people’s life problems. ***** SUBSCRIBE to Our Channel ***** To get more of our content and help us grow: https://...
Jun 17, 2021•1 hr 20 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Naomi Osaka’s decision to withdraw from the French Open rather than face a post match press conference became worldwide news. Osaka says her depression and anxiety make it impossible for her to speak in public. Most observers sympathize with Osaka’s reserve, and castigate the tour directors for making her quit. But tennis legend Billy Jean King and most of Osaka’s fellow players feel that successful players should appear publicly in order to raise the visibility and profitability of women’s tenn...
Jun 07, 2021•54 min•Season 2Ep. 7
WARNING: Please be aware that the following many not be suitable for people who are disturbed by discussions of death OR of the fallible thinking that prevails in the drug reform field. Leading figures in drug policy reform and addiction theory swear by MAT, which is universally accepted and used across the country. These well-meaning reformists and experts — groups and individuals like DPA, Maya Szalavitz, and Zach Siegel — are only slightly nettled by one disconcerting fact: drug deaths have r...
May 23, 2021•57 min•Season 2Ep. 6
WHY do people so often reject drug and alcohol treatment, let alone refusing to volunteer for it, so that American addiction treatment depends on the legal system to survive? Stanton and Zach discuss the addiction treatment coercion phenomenon and imagine an alternative helping universe. Coercion is central to the American addiction treatment enterprise. Without the participation of law enforcement and drug, criminal, civil and family courts (let alone EAPs, licensing bodies, and a host of NGO a...
May 10, 2021•52 min•Season 2Ep. 5
Stanton and Zach consider five responses to NY Times article seeding “pandemic panic” @ alcohol: 1. There hasn’t been a significant increase in drinking. 2. Problems with alcohol and drugs preceded the pandemic, and aren’t due to substances. 3. Judging from Times’ readers’ comments, people with resources do remarkably well adjusting their drinking to their circumstances. 4. People aren’t drinking enough. 5. President Biden’s response to the above propositions has been both good and bad. Check ou...
May 02, 2021•55 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Addiction news of the week (and its meaning and uses) in review: What does it tell us about (a) medical therapy, (b) the history of medicine, (c) the nature of mental disorders that an ancient "herb" (psilocybin) exceeds the most significant product of modern biochemistry (SSRIs) in remedying depression? In what way is anxiety addiction-like, and how can we use this knowledge to help Ezra Klein actually reduce his anxiety-- rather than simply making for good bedtime reading? And how might we wor...
Apr 26, 2021•55 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Dr. Peele and Zach consider Zach’s interview with Maia Szalavitz. Does Maia believe in the disease theory? What would happen if she took heroin again? Would she "Richard Harris" it (drinking Guinness as a 70ish grandpa)? Do chronic brain disease advocates understand why families resist their depredations? Are they guilty of manslaughter? Zach says he’s okay with heroin — unlike the opioided friend of a New York Times opinion writer who, convinced he could never escape his life disease sentence, ...
Apr 18, 2021•48 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Maia Szalavitz joins Zach Rhoads a discussion about addiction and harm reduction, including her forthcoming book, "Undoing Drugs". Maia and Zach agree on a definition of addiction but re-open their epic argument about "values" ;) They also discuss Dr. Carl Hart's book, "Drug Use For Grown Ups" -- Maia disagrees with Hart on a fundamental point about Harm Reduction. ***** SUBSCRIBE to Our Channel ***** To get more of our content and help us grow: https://www.youtube.com/c/LifeProcessProgram?sub_c...
Apr 11, 2021•53 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Dr. Stanton Peele takes questions from LPP followers. Today he tackles the concept of moderation, which LPP encourages with respect to drugs, alcohol, or any other involvement that a person may have formed an addictive relationship with. But is there such a thing as an over-emphasis on moderation as an end-goal? Dr. Peele explains here. ***** 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...
Apr 06, 2021•6 min
JAMA Pediatric affirms what Dr. Peele has been saying for fifty years (which prominent drug-reformers deny): “marijuana is as addictive as opioids.” Or is that... Opioids are only as addictive as marijuana? How is this possible? What are the implications of this claim? Peele and Rhoads also discuss the Derek Chauvin case, and whether the idea that there being fentanyl in Floyd's system is relevant. Finally, is Hunter addicted to—or saved by—love? ***** FOLLOW on Social Media ***** - Facebook: ht...
Apr 05, 2021•50 min•Season 1Ep. 56
