About - The Clean Slate Addiction Site

All content on this website is written by me, Steven Slate, except where otherwise noted. I am a research fellow with the Baldwin Research Institute (BRI), an independent not-for-profit that develops solutions for people with drug and alcohol problems. My work entails observational research; analyzing diverse research/trials/data on drugs and addiction; developing educational content about drugs and addiction, written mainly for people with substance use problems; and conducting classes for people with substance use problems. This is my personal website, that I personally fund, and that I have been personally managing since 2010, when I was not employed by BRI, and should not be seen as an official website of BRI. This site is my personal passion project.

My most notable works are:

An essay challenging the brain disease model of addiction, which was first published here in 2010 and subsequently published in several textbooks between 2014 and 2018.
The 13th edition of The Saint Jude Program taught at the Saint Jude Retreats from 2014-2017. This was a revision of the text used at the retreats since the late 1990s, originally authored by Mark Scheeren.
The Freedom Model for Addictions: Escape the Treatment and Recovery Trap, published by BRI Publishing 2017. It’s available from most major booksellers, and taught privately at The Freedom Model Retreats. Co-authored with Mark Scheeren and Michelle Dunbar. This is the definitive statement of my views on addiction and how to overcome a substance use problem.
My 2016 TEDx Talk: Our Relationship to Addiction

Media inquiries as well as consulting and public speaking inquiries should be directed to: thecleanslateblog@gmail.com Please do not use this email address to make guest blog post requests or marketing inquiries. I will never host advertisements for any product or service that promotes the idea of a disease of addiction that can be medically treated. Nor will I republish any content that promotes such ideas.

I came into this specialty by the same route many other people do – I have a personal history of problems with drug use, which I eventually overcame. I am fascinated by my own path into and out of what is called “addiction and recovery.” I consider addiction and recovery to be powerful social constructs that, when believed in, distort the way we see and feel about our own behavior, and subsequently change our future behavior.

I consider most accepted wisdom about problematic substance use to be incorrect. While much of it is based on verifiable facts, the conclusions based on those facts are often wrong. For example, it is true that FMRI scans often show differences in the brains of people who fit the diagnoses for Substance Use Disorders (SUD, i.e. addiction). The conclusion that this proves the existence of a brain disease called addiction is not true. The brain disease model is just one interpretation of that brain scan data. Another conclusion based on this evidence, is that “addiction” is a learned habit, which includes neurological changes like other learned habits. I believe this conclusion, as it was the one I reached myself and published here in 2010. Since then, I’ve been gratified to find that others have reached similar conclusions, such as neuroscientist Marc Lewis.

So, I do not believe in a disease of addiction. I do not believe that people called addicts suffer “loss of control” and proceed to use substances involuntarily. I do not believe people “need treatment” in order to reduce or quit their substance use habits. I don’t even believe “some people need treatment,” as treatment hasn’t been shown to improve upon rates of unassisted quitting/moderation. All of what I’m saying here is backed up by much research, and what it amounts to is my conclusion that “addiction and recovery” are social constructs. There is no such thing as a state of involuntary repetitive substance use, or involuntary binge use of substances. So not only is there not a disease of addiction, there is no addiction, thus nothing to recover from.

What there is, is people who prefer to use substances in ways that are risky, costly, and socially unpopular. To enforce social norms, society has embraced the construct of a state of involuntary substance use called addiction. This allows people to intervene on substance users and say “you need treatment – this drug is controlling you, and you don’t even know it.” And because they are so despised for their preferences, many substance users embrace this construct, even if it conflicts with their own experience and they instinctively know it isn’t true. The disease and recovery constructs gain them forgiveness and acceptance, and even allow them to continue and excuse their unpopular usage patterns by calling further use “a relapse.” Further, people who feel conflicted about their use of substances are tempted to believe it’s all truly involuntary, because it comforts them. Many become full believers, and then it truly feels involuntary, they feel trapped, and their problems get worse. This is what I experienced myself.

I was a user of a wide variety of substances, and I definitely did so in extreme and costly ways that break accepted norms. Yet for the first few years I did this, I never once felt out of control. I even chose to use heroin daily for several periods during that time, punctuated by periods of ceasing to use heroin, without any professional help. I am not a superhuman; many people do this. However, I had an arrest which led to familial intervention, and to a stay in rehab. This changed me for the worse, as a began to feel addicted after rehab. This was followed by 5 years of cliched “junkie” behavior on my part, an increasing sense of powerless and hopeless, and several rounds of various treatments, and 12 step involvement. Most of my treatment experience was in methadone clinics. I truly felt addicted during this time, and continually got worse with every treatment.

I ended this cycle when I finally rejected the idea that I had the disease of addiction that would haunt me for the rest of my life. I got back into the mind-set of knowing that in fact I was always choosing my substance use, and that I could choose to stop it whenever I wanted. The folks at BRI were the ones who showed me how to do this.

Hopefully you can see by the brief overview of my experiences that I’m not denying that people have serious substance use problems, and that they do often feel “out of control.” However, I am denying that this is because of a genuine disease of addiction, or a genuine state of involuntary behavior. We feel we need substances because of the way we see substances and the way we see ourselves. We feel we have a disease and that our desire for and use of substances is involuntary because people teach us to see ourselves this way, and because it is convenient.

I hope you can also see that I am not against help. I work helping people. I do it because I love to do it, and I think it is effective. But what I do not believe in, is convincing people that they have a fake disease, and helping them by pretending to medically treat that disease.

Though I don’t believe in addiction treatment as a real or effective solution to the ongoing desire for and extreme use of substances, this does not mean I am against treatment for drug related medical problems. I am in full support of treatment for real medical problems, such as withdrawal syndromes, liver diseases, infections, injuries, strokes, and all of the other medical problems that can be caused by “addiction.”

I chose the name of my website because my last name is Slate, and so it makes for a convenient pun. In my own experience, I had to “wipe the slate clean” of all the beliefs that made me feel addicted. That is, I had to let go of addiction and recovery mythology. I had to embrace the truth that I had always been freely choosing to use substances, even when my choices became very costly and regrettable. I also had to face the fact that I chose to believe the nonsense taught to me by the treatment/recovery industry. I needed to do this to finally feel empowered to change my desire for and use of drugs. The term “clean” as associated with substance use usually means being fully abstinent of all drugs including alcohol. I do not use that word in my website title to present myself as “clean.” My successful quit was in early 2002, and I chose abstinence for more than 4 years after that point. Then I decided I would drink “like a normal person” in late 2006, and have been a moderate alcohol user ever since.

I do not hold anti-drug views, and there are no exceptions to this for me. I don’t believe that any drugs are as bad, or as good as most people make them out to be. I believe there is a lot of hype and misinformation around drugs, and that declaring them bad in blanket statements is wrong. Drugs are good or bad to the degree that a person’s use of them enriches or harms their life and pursuit of happiness. Further, I don’t think anyone can gauge this other than the individual user theirself. It’s all in how you use them and what your goals are. I am in favor of full legalization of all drugs for adults 18 years or older. I believe that most harms come from black market conditions created by prohibition, and the other legal consequences of prohibition.

I reject the false dichotomy/debate between whether “addiction is a disease or a moral failing.” I do not see the unpopular behavioral patterns we refer to as “addiction” as being either a moral failing or a disease. I see those behaviors as the free expression of an individual’s preferences. I seek only to bring awareness of this fact to those who’ve been diagnosed with the fake disease of addiction, so that they may stop believing addiction mythology, feel free once again, and make whatever substance use choices bring the most happiness into their lives. They shouldn’t be hindered with falsehoods. Nor they should they be hindered by other people’s judgments that their substance use is bad or immoral. I consider the diagnosis of addiction to be a moral judgment in and of itself. If telling people their substance use is bad or morally wrong were enough to remove their desire for destructive levels of use, then we’d have no “addiction.” Desire, however, is a product of our own deeply held beliefs about our options. The only way our desire changes is if we change our own views of our options at a deep level – that is, by exercising our own judgment to reassess things. Moreover, it matters little whether a substance user sees their own habit as bad or immoral. Many do, and yet they continue the same patterns. What matters is whether they see it as their best available option or not. Again, they have to arrive at this internally, and can’t just force someone else’s judgment deep into the part of their mind that creates the desire for substance use.

Hopefully you can also glean from the above paragraph that I do not view “addiction” as a matter of “willpower” or any other kind of strength or lack thereof. It is a matter of judgment and decision-making. We are motivated to do what we see as our best option. Only we can change how we see our own options. This doesn’t take strength. It just takes carefully reassessing our options.

© Steven Slate and The Clean Slate Addiction Site, 2010-2019. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this written material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Steven Slate and The Clean Slate Addiction Site with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Be cool and don’t straight up steal my writing – but feel free to quote and credit me!