Non 12 Step Quotes

“If you can stop using substance or stop your addictive behavior for extended periods of time without craving, you are not dependent. You are dependent only if you can't stop without physical or psychological distress (you have unpleasant physical and/or psychological withdrawal symptoms) or if you stop and then relapse.”
― Chris Prentiss, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery

“AA purports to be open to anyone, as it is stated in Tradition Tree, "The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking," but it isn't open to everyone. It's open only to those who are willing to publicly declare themselves to be alcoholics or addicts and who are willing to give up their inherent right of independence by declaring themselves powerless over addictive drugs and alcohol, as stated in Step One, "We admitted we are powerless over alcohol- that our lives had become unmanageable.”
― Chris Prentiss, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery

“We recognize that you've used substances to try to regain your lost balance, to try to feel the way you did before the need arose to use addictive drugs or alcohol. We know that you use substances to alter your mood, to cover up your sadness, to ease your heartbreak, to lighten your stress load, to blur your painful memories, to escape your hurtful reality, or to make your unbearable days or nights bearable.”
― Chris Prentiss, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery

“A patient complains of feeling nervous or fearful. These feelings and behaviors suggest that the patient has an anxiety disorder, and the doctor prescribes whatever drug will most probably work for an anxiety disorder. However, there's no conclusive way to tell that this patient definitely has an anxiety disorder. Even if the doctor did get the diagnosis correct, there's a great deal of variation regarding which drug class (for example, anti-anxiety drugs versus antidepressants) a particular individual will respond to and which drug within a class (for example, Prozac versus Zoloft) will work best. If the drug doesn't work, the doctor will try the next one on the list and so on, thus delaying treatment success and complicating the process with the mix-and-match type of treatment.”
― Chris Prentiss, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery

“To give up power to change for the better is inherently distasteful to everyone, and to force people to affirm that they are addicts or alcoholics so they can speak in a meeting is shameful and demoralizing.”
― Chris Prentiss, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery

“One of the first actions we take at Passages is to ruthlessly scrutinize, always under a doctor's supervision and care, the specific necessity of any mind- altering or mood-altering medications that our clients are taking. As soon as any non essential drugs are out of their systems, the feelings they were trying to suppress usually emerge. When that happens, we can see what symptoms the client was masking with drugs or alcohol.”
― Chris Prentiss, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery

“The punishment approach and bad consequences approach to treatment is the kind of thinking that is prevalent in every residential substance abuse treatment center in the United States of which I'm aware.”
― Chris Prentiss, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery

“Only discovering and healing the root causes of each individual's dependency puts an end to dependency. One-on-one sessions are key because the individual issues at the core of dependency are just that- completely individual.”
― Chris Prentiss, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery

“Staying sober is easy once you have been successful in healing the underlying conditions that were responsible for your dependency in the first place.”
― Chris Prentiss, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery

“Believe that is cure is possible for you. Discover and heal the underlying causes with a holistic recovery program. Adopt a philosophy based on what is true in the Universe.”
― Chris Prentiss, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery

“Whatever you now do, whatever you now believe, whatever your current circumstances may be, you are perfectly equipped and fully capable of fulfilling your needs and desires.”
― Chris Prentiss, Be Who You Want, Have What You Want: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life

“Negative emotions, like depression or anxiety, have been shown to affect our immune system. Stress impedes wound healing.”
― Chris Prentiss, Be Who You Want, Have What You Want: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life

“How do you think your body and mind would respond if you were surrounded by psychologists, psychiatrists, or drug and alcohol counselors who subscribed to the belief that "once an alcoholic or addict, always an alcoholic or addict" and who believed that your current stay in rehab would be one of many?”
― Chris Prentiss, Zen and the Art of Happiness

“By changing how you perceive things and how you act upon those perceptions, you will change your life.”
― Chris Prentiss, Be Who You Want, Have What You Want: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life