Anne Wilson-Schaeff - When Society Becomes an Addict

An Incisive Analysis of the Pervasive System of Addiction in Western Society Today

Anne Wilson Schaef sounds an alarm that sends shock waves to the solar plexus. Her timely and brilliantly illuminated thesis that we are all victims of an addictive system that is sapping our aliveness is sure to be hotly debated by therapists, clergy, and politicians. Schaef writes in a healing spirit that is a rare and refreshing blend of heart, gut, and intellect. The formidable accomplishment of When Society Becomes an Addict is that it tells us simply and truly, individually and as a nation, why we are where we are.

Harvey Vincent, director; drama coach, actor; writer

In her runaway bestseller Womens Reality Schaef gave shape and form to the prevalent system within our culturethe white male systemand described it as a world-view that dominates our society and dictates the behavior of men and women alike. Here she defines that system as addictive and with startling clarity articulates its devastating effects on our collective emotional, physical, and spiritual health.

While many writers have acknowledged the pervasiveness of addiction, Schaef is the first to identify it as the underlying malaise of our culture. Her thesis is both simple and profound. We operate in addictive ways, she says, because we live in a society that functions as an addict.

In this remarkable synthesis of feminist, chemical dependency, and mental health theories, Schaef introduces the addictive process, explores its attributes, and points the way to functioning outside the system. She discusses substance addictions (alcohol, drugs, nicotine, caffeine, food), process addictions (accumulating money, gambling, sex, work, religion, worry), and relationship addictions (unhealthy relationships that are, in fact, the norm in our society).

When Society Becomes an Addict is a powerful and convincing argument for abandoning a system in which self-centeredness, dishonesty, the illusion of control, and constant crises are the norm. By identifying the addictive system, Schaef diffuses its power over us and reveals how we can begin to function as whole and healthy people in life-affirming ways.

Anne Wilson Schaef, Ph.D., is well-known as a psychotherapist, writer, lecturer, workshop leader, and teacher. She consults with schools and universities, mental health and treatment centers, industry and business, and trains health care professionals throughout the world in Living Process Therapy, a method she personally developed. Dr. Schaef is the author of Womens Reality and Co-Dependence. She lives in Boulder, Colorado, with her family.

ISBN 0-06-254812-3

Another breakthrough book by Anne Wilson Schaef. This time, with startling honesty, she takes us to the heart and soul of our addictions as a society and as individuals.

Dr. Ken Druck, author of The Secrets Men Keep

This is an antidote to the systemic poisons that threaten to overwhelm us. A much-needed reflection during these times when the evening news is filled with drug overdoses, family violence, workaholism, cults, faddish cravings, and compulsive, driven politics When Society Becomes an Addict moves the reader again and again to Aha, yes! recognitions of our deeply human vulnerability to addiction [It] can help us to reform ourselves, our corporate cultures, and our public policies This important book provides a grid on which we can plot, observe our behavior, and begin the task of reshaping this lethal game that drives our culture.

Madonna Kolbenschlag, author of Kiss Sleeping Beauty Good-Bye

Anne Wilson Schaef not only confronts us with a new model for understanding ourselves and our world in a new way, but she also offers help in shedding addict patterns of behavior in both our individual and societal lives.

Robert McAfee Brown

Anne Wilson Schaef has a brilliant talent for seeing the connections in complex systems of human behavior and interpreting those patterns in the language of everyday experience In this book she breaks down the barriers between the personal and the political and shows the parallels between patterns of pathological behavior in private addiction and those that pervade our public, social, and political life.

Rosemary Radford Ruether, author of Sexism and God-Talk

Anne Wilson Schaef has profoundly explicated the evolutionary devastation we as a human family are currently experiencing in addictive patterns of living that are devoid of spiritual significance Here is a landmark work that gives us clarity and specific guidelines about the process of whole-system recovery.

Jacquelyn Small, author of Transformers, the Therapists of the Future

In Womens Reality, Anne Wilson Schaef did an amazing job of bringing together much feminist thinking. She expanded our consciousness and brought us home to our own ground of being. In her latest work, When Society Becomes an Addict, Schaef moves beyond the homecoming celebration and makes new space for all to grow.

Dagmar Celeste, First Lady of Ohio

Schaef draws together diverse insightsfrom psychotherapy, social criticism, and the people experience of groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Gamblers Anonymousto show how a different life is possible, how healing can happen, and how a different world can be shaped.

Elizabeth Dodson Gray, author of Green Paradise Lost and Patriarchy Is a Conceptual Trap

Anne Wilson Schaef is a brilliant observer of the layers of behavior that many of us have not yet seen. Her new book is a breakthrough into new layers of seeing and naming.

Linda L. Moore, psychologist and author

We read with great pleasure When Society Becomes an Addict by Anne Wilson Schaef. She clearly answers questions we have all known but have been afraid to ask. As members of a whole family system that opted for recovery, we can only say thank you for affirming our own lives and beliefs.

Jess Lair and Jacqueline Lair, authors of I Dont Know Where Im GoingBut I Sure Aint Lost

Our addictions personally and culturally are killing us. At last someone has had the wisdom and the courage to name our diseaseand to offer some guidelines for recovery. Americans individually and collectively would do well to heed Anne Wilson Schaefs message.

Nancy A. Hardesty, author of All Were Meant to Be: Biblical Feminism Today

Harper & Row, Publishers, San Francisco
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WHEN SOCIETY BECOMES AN ADDICT. Copyright 1987 by Anne Wilson Schaef. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022. Published simultaneously in Canada by Fitzhenry & Whiteside, Limited, Toronto.

ISBN 0-06-254812-3

There are many people and processes to acknowledge in the coming into being of this book. This process has been a long labor and a difficult birth. This book is really my second and it is coming out third. In the process of writing this book, I have become a writer, a re-writer, and an editor for which I will be eternally grateful. I want to thank the persons who have nurtured me along this path. Diane Fassel and John Reed have provided encouragement, support, and tough criticism when most needed. The process network and the trainees have given freely of their ideas, their experiences, and themselves. They and the participants at the intensive workshops have freely shared their lives with me for which I am deeply honored. Ugis Pinka, Carolyn Schrodes, and Carol Barrett have helped me become a writer, and Beth and Roddy, my grown children, continue to say, Go for it. Mom.