James Frey's One True Thing - Successfully Overcoming Alcohol Addiction

Written by Stanton Peele

Not surprisingly, Frey simply despises AA. When told that the only alternative to AA is relapse and death, Frey declares: "I'd rather have that than spend my life in church basements listening to people whine and bitch and complain. . . . It is the replacement of one addiction with another." Frey expresses objections that many - a silent majority - of alcoholics and addicts feel towards AA and its steps. This is why so many people desert AA and fail at treatment programs. These people simply don't feel that the best way to change is to decide that they are powerless, turn themselves over to God, and participate in group confessionals.

Such people, like Frey, would obviously do better in therapy programs that did not require them to spend most of their emotional energy struggling to accept precepts that contradict their own instincts about what will make them better. Disagreeing with the 12 steps should not disqualify people from receiving treatment and support in overcoming an addiction. Atheists deserve help too! As it is, objections like Frey's to treatment are not only ignored - they are labeled "denial," a symptom of the disease that is to be overcome.

Why Do People Ignore Frey's Anti-AA, Anti-Disease, and Anti-Treatment Message?

Most people are so prejudiced in favor of - or just don't recognize any alternative to - 12 steps and AA, they don't hear Frey's negative attitudes towards this approach. AA is the most successful combination of a social movement/public relations organization in twentieth century America . It has cornered the addiction treatment market - indeed, its 12 steps have been applied to virtually every unhealthy habit Americans can have. On top of this, it may be that Frey laid on his sensationalistic "accounts" of debauchery and mayhem so thick that most readers were distracted from his critique of 12-step therapy.

Furthermore, Frey began to downplay his anti-AA and anti-treatment philosophy. When Frey appeared on John Stossel's anti-treatment special on ABC ("Help Me, I Can't Help Myself") with one of us (SP) in April 2003, he ridiculed the 12 steps. But when Frey appeared on Oprah after being selected for her book club in the fall of 2005, he seemed to change his tune. Viewers were unable to discern that he differed from the typical recovering addict. As one viewer we know reported, "When I saw him on Oprah on the original book club appearance, I figured he was an AA member because he was shown doing things like going around apologizing to people from his drunk days, which I thought was straight from the AA playbook."

The Smoking Gun describes how Frey "traveled to a Minnesota clinic and gave an on-camera pep talk to Sandie, a viewer who checked herself into rehab after learning about Frey's book . . . . 'If I can do it, you can do it,' Frey told her." Thus Frey helped television to prod people to enroll in the kind of treatment he rejected, undercutting the mission he outlined at the Random House web site:

I survived my addictions. I lived through them and past them. I did not do it the way most are told is the only way. I did not use God or a Higher Power or a Twelve Step Group of any kind. I used my will, my heart, my friends, my family. Most people who use God or a Higher Power or a Twelve Step Group fail. There is another way that might work. It worked for me. I want to share it. I hope it works for others.

Frey's Greatest Failure

There is one other reason James Frey's views about addiction and treatment have not had a big impact, despite his book's overwhelming success. He doesn't believe them totally himself. After all, Frey is a guy who wasted a lot of time taking drugs and drinking, thereby violating his own values of self-reliance and wanting to be a contributing member of society. Thus the two parts of Frey's book - the outlandish claims about his drunken and drugged behavior, and his fearlessness in turning to himself for a cure - are at war with each other.

We can view Frey's addictiveness as really his own acceptance in a part of him of the AA message he felt that he had to reject. How else are we to interpret Frey's various descriptions in the book of "the great and terrible rock" (crack):

Give me more please give me more I want need have to have more. I'll give my life heart soul money future everything please give me more. I want need have to have more. Give me more and I'll give you everything. Give me more and I'll do whatever you want.

In order to justify his own past behavior, Frey simply restates the disease prophecy: "I was weak and pathetic and I couldn't control myself." But, as he embarked on his own self-cure through the unique approach of exposing himself to the temptation of drugs and alcohol without using, it turned out at some point he did have the motivation to control himself. "I have a decision to make. It is a simple decision. It has nothing to do with God or Twelve of anything other than twelve beats of my heart. . . . Yes or no."

That the crucial, original part of Frey's book - the heartfelt and accurate part - has not been heard indicates how difficult it is to break the AA hegemony in the United States . The worst thing about AA - and the experience Frey underwent at Hazelden - is its denial of the existence of valid alternative paths to ending addiction. We have reached an impasse until more people who end their addictions quietly, on their own terms, come forward to reveal their personal experiences. But, in order to do that these silent veterans of addiction would have to violate what likely led them to their own brand of recovery: they value their privacy and they want to develop a meaningful life separate from a therapy program. Such people do not feel an urge to proselytize.

Frey's moral failings have undercut his ability to promote self-cure of addiction. It will take a stronger person than Frey - perhaps many such people - to fight the monolithic American treatment system. Frey has lost the claims of authority and authenticity to assert what he really believes - that America 's ineffective drug and alcohol treatment, as well as its cultural wellsprings, are limited by religious beliefs and drug bogeymen.

next: Love and Addiction - 2. What Addiction Is, and What It Has to Do with Drugs
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