Culture

Stanton Peele on How the Recovery Movement Hijacked 'Sobriety'

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Before Alcoholics Anonymous and the recovery movement hijacked the term, "sober" simply meant not being currently intoxicated. Now, sober is a state of being—one you can only achieve through total, lifelong abstinence if you ever drank alcoholically.

For recovery absolutists, no one recovers from alcoholism without giving up drinking forever. Nonsense, says Stanton Peele. Who are these self-appointed experts to tell everyone how they must achieve recovery?