The Freedom Model for Addictions: Escape the Treatment and Recovery Trap

Do you want an addiction – a lifelong diagnosis – or do you want to see yourself as having a habit that you can solve completely? Your answer tells you if The Freedom Model for Addictions is the answer you have been looking for.

The Freedom Model debunks the addiction disease concept as well as the idea that “recovery” is needed after you’ve decided to abstain or moderate your use. Much of the content within the book may surprise you, maybe even shock you. For example:

• Did you know addiction IS NOT a disease?
• Did you know the brain disease theory is not based on sound science and is actually a myth?
• Did you know that addictions are habits, just like many other habits, and that as such are quite easy to break once you know the facts?
• Does your gut tell you that treatment is just another money grab from those who are vulnerable, and that something is drastically wrong with the rehab industry as a whole?

If so, you’d be right – rehabs don’t work, and The Freedom Model tells you exactly why and how this Western cultural institution came to gain such power over people’s lives. For those immersed in the 12 step culture or in the rehab culture, this book provides a path out of those institutions, and into a much more empowered state of mind.

Our experience of researching drug and alcohol use and helping thousands with these issues for more than 30 years tells us people desire to be completely free from addiction. They also want to be free from the idea of being “in recovery” just as much. Neither of these options: addiction or recovery – have held great favor with the masses. In fact, the vast majority of people with drug and alcohol problems (more than 90%) don’t go to treatment nor do they enter the subculture of “recovery.” They simply move past their addictions, and they do so without any treatment whatsoever. Did you know that? This is the great untold story in treatment circles, but one we unearth for your benefit. This fact alone demonstrates just how normal it is to break habits that we no longer want in our lives. Let’s face it, people desire freedom; freedom to choose their own direction; freedom to move past habits that have them feeling trapped and in pain; freedom from the addict and alcoholic identity; freedom from the limits of 12 step culture and the drug and alcohol rehabilitation industry; freedom to be happier; freedom to move on past the struggles and challenges of life. The Freedom Model guides the reader on this path by offering the opposite of the treatment industry’s empty promises – it offers real freedom!

The Freedom Model is an approach that deconstructs the construct of addiction and recovery and all that surrounds these beliefs. By doing so, you can be completely free to move on in your life without those constructs holding you back and keeping you needlessly trapped in an endless addiction/recovery/addiction cycle. The Freedom Model renders addiction and recovery as completely obsolete and unnecessary in both your personal life and as cultural constructs that keep the masses blind to the solutions that exist within the individual. While The Freedom Model is a book, it is the research and the message contained on those pages that are the real solution to an individual’s struggles with drugs and alcohol.

Steven Slate Steven Slate joined Baldwin Research Institute in 2003 as a Program Instructor at the Saint Jude Retreat, where he also served as the Director and Trainer of new teaching staff. He currently serves as a Research Fellow of Baldwin Research, and as Senior Director of the Freedom Model Private Instruction division of Baldwin Research. His original writing on problematic substance use (at his website thecleanslate.org) has garnered praise from distinguished experts, and appeared in college textbooks on addiction and abnormal psychology from McGraw Hill and Greenhaven Press. Mark Scheeren Mark Scheeren began researching alcohol and drug use and the treatment industry in 1989. He then co-founded Baldwin Research Institute, Inc. and the Saint Jude Retreats, and is currently the Chairman of Baldwin Research. From 1989 through the spring of 2000 Mark lived with his guests at the retreat in an eleven year on-site observational study to fully understand the constructs of addiction and recovery and to build a solution to upend these destructive cultural constructs. Mark authored the first 12 editions of the St. Jude Program; the first non-12 step approach to addiction in the country. During these years Mark and his research mentor, Mr. Jerry Brown, also created and promoted the now famous “Treatment Doesn’t Work” public service campaign. Mark is also a leading authority and critic of the 12 step paradigm. The research conducted at Baldwin Research Institute and the Saint Jude Retreat’s has been reprinted in the Opposing Viewpoints Series as well as Issues that Concern You textbook series, and have also been featured in the Drugs and Society text as well. Mark has been featured in the New York Post, and OK magazine, among other publications as an addiction and treatment industry expert. Michelle Dunbar Michelle Dunbar has served as Executive Director of Baldwin Research Institute for the last 10 years. She joined Baldwin Research officially in 2002 working in the Guest Services office talking with families and individuals seeking help. During her tenure at BRI, Michelle has served as Director of Marketing and Guest Services, a Freedom Model Presenter and Director at the Twin Rivers Retreat, and as the Executive Director. Michelle wrote the Saint Jude Family Program and has worked with families extensively through her years with Baldwin Research.