Background Reading On The Disease Model of Addiction

The literature here serves as a basic pretext for a rational understanding of drug use, drug habituation and the lack of reason behind the current popular perception of the supposed drug "problem": 

(search keywords: hijacked brain hypothesis, disease model, chemical enslavement theory)

Misc. Sources:




Stanton Peele defines addiction


Alternative hypothesis of problem drug use


The similarities of the addictive disease hypothesis & the concept of demonic possession


Complications caused by the chemical enslavement theory


Pseudoscientific origins of the disease hypothesis


Rational insights into addiction from a sociological perspective - Peele


The "evidence" Page


Drug demonization


An interesting take on the prevalence of pseudoscience in psychiatry


Logical inconsistencies in the symbolic meanings arbitrarily attached to drugs


Disease Concept: A Perspective (Umanoff, M.D.)


The Self Fulfulling Prophecy of the Powerlessness Myth (Shaler Ph.D.)


Does AA Lead to Binge Driniking?


Critique of the Involuntary Drug Use Theory


Stanton Peele's Critique of the Involuntary Drug Use Theory


Drug Library Links:


Why do people use drugs?


Our Rights to Drugs


The Case for decriminalization & "normalization" of drug use


Themes in chemical prohibition


Mythical Roots of US drug policy (Addiction & the American Civil War)


Orange Papers:



Explaining the relation between the instinctual drive & the higher brain, in the context of drug use


Critical analysis of pseudoscientific 12-step booster studies


Crtique of the first step of AA/NA

Note: A large portion of the public, and unfortunately, the medical and research community, mistakenly subscribe to the notion that if a behavior is influenced by the neurochemistry of the brain then the behavior of the affected individual is involuntary. Simply put, they believe that because the neurochemical adaptations of the brain are beyond an individuals' control, then the behavioral correlate must be involuntary. Underlying this silly idea is the leaping assertion that we as humans are not free willed creatures, but empty vessels (i.e. robots) with a neurochemically or genetically determined fate. That we are machines carrying out the dictates of our wayward genetics or brain chemistry. It's difficult to imagine how so many well educated physicians or researchers could be led to believe such pseudoscience without any critical analysis. 

There is a biological and genetic correlate underlying every human behavior, and any experience which influences future behavior does so by altering the brain - So the relevant question in considering the nature of addictive drug use, is not whether experience and behaviors alter brain chemistry - they certainly do - but whether these changes in brain chemistry are capable of bypassing the influence of self-control and the natural sense of restraint. They are certainly not and there is no evidence to suggest so. However if this were the case, then most "addicts" might be a bit perplexed as to why their hands reach for a pipe or needle and prepare a dose while they kick & scream in horror. If an individual can control their instinctual sexual urges, then one can certainly control an instinctually wired urge to use drugs. Addiction is not a brain disease. Addiction is a choice - a dysfunctional pattern of learned & reinforced behavior.