In this book, Stanton describes how we are going wrong educating young people about drugs and alcohol, and how to prepare them to lead addiction free lives.

In a world where binge drinking, recreational and prescription drug abuse, chronic overeating and anorexia, and internet gambling and pornography are all too common among teens, it’s time to rethink conventional wisdom about addiction. We clearly need something more than “just say no.” This book is the alternative.

Parents are being misled—and disempowered.  So says Dr. Stanton Peele, author of the groundbreaking Love and Addiction, in this controversial but research-driven book.  Brainwashed by the constant refrains that addiction is a disease, that abstinence is the only solution, and that any drug or alcohol use requires treatment, society and parents aren’t being presented with the successful tactics they can use to make their children addiction-proof—and to keep them safe if they do use drugs or drink, as so many will.

Dr. Peele explains that, despite what parents have been told, it’s normal for most kids to try alcohol and drugs, and that the large majority will not become addicts or ruin their lives—if they are armed with real-life motivators to keep them addiction free: independence, critical thinking, responsibility, and the ability to enjoy life. In simple, clear terms, Addiction-Proof Your Child shows parents how to instill these qualities: by teaching children to take pride in achievement and other bedrock values, learning how to be calm questioners and tolerant listeners, fighting the urge to overparent, and (if the parents drink) teaching kids how to drink in moderation at home.

Addiction-Proof Your Child offers realistic options for parents who are tired of hearing depressing statistics and who want to make a difference in their children’s lives. Whether your child has never drunk a drop, has experimented with alcohol or drugs, or is already abusing them, this is the family’s go-to book for practical, helpful resources and techniques.

1. Parents – and schools – need a backup plan for “just say no” to drugs and alcohol. More than half of high school seniors have used an illicit drug; 85 percent of 20-year olds in the United States have drunk alcohol.  Providing safe rides is one way to protect them.
2. Since kids can abuse so many things – like food, Internet porn and gambling, and prescription drugs – parents must prepare kids to actively resist addiction. The fastest growing drugs of abuse are drugs kids can get from medicine cabinets, leading drug czar John Walters to announce, “We are the drug dealers.”
3. Typical drug education programs (like DARE) don’t work. Research shows DARE students do not take fewer drugs – several studies have found they take more than comparable students not exposed to DARE.
4. Parents are the most important influence on which kids become addicted. No genes cause people to become addicted; none prevent it – yet distinct personality outlooks characterize the worst substance-abusing kids.
5. The best antidotes to addiction are values kids learn at home. Kids who value achievement, care about themselves and others, and take responsibility for their actions are unlikely to abuse substances or to become addicts.
6. Let kids ride their bikes around the neighborhood and go downtown. The worst substance abuse is called dependence – our kids are the most dependent in history because they lack practice at managing their own lives.
7. Even if your family members have abused substances, your kids are unlikely to. Don’t saddle your children with the self-fulfilling prophecy that they are born addicts – the key for all children is to develop interests, confidence, and positive friends.
8. Teaching your kids to drink moderately at home is the best policy. Adolescents who do not drink at home with their parents are three times more likely to binge drink.
9. The large majority of substance-abusing youths quit on their own. Like Koren Zailckas, Author of Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood, did after drinking alcoholically for a decade from her early teens on.
10. AA is not for teenagers. Teaching kids they are lifetime alcoholics or drug addicts is counterproductive – as Zailckas says, “the brand 'alcoholic' prevents a lot of young people from reevaluating their relationship with alcohol.”
    

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