This is Annie Grace and you're listening to this naked mind podcast where without judgment,

pain or rules, we explore the role of alcohol in our lives and culture.

Hi, this is Annie Grace and welcome to this naked mind podcast. Today is a first because it is the first time I've had somebody on the podcast for the second time, but it's been hugely requested to have Dr.

Jackie Dr. Eddie Jeffy back and of course it is always pleasure to talk to you. So thank you. Welcome back. Wow. I feel even more on it. I didn't realize that and so thank you. Thank you for making me the first second appearance.

First second appearance. Yeah. Well, I think that you know the one that we did before just has gotten over and over. We send it to people. People have questions about all sorts of stuff and all track so and stuff like that. And it's been just such a popular episode. And I thought, especially with your new book coming out, it would be awesome.

To have you back and chat. Yeah, I always fun to talk to you. So what is going on? Why don't you, why don't you start actually with the book because I think that this is probably one of the most like fascinating things that's happening right now.

Yeah. Oh, thank you. So I wrote this book, the abstinence myth. You know, I've been wanting to write a book forever. I mean, I was talking to you about it when we met. I don't even know when that was at this point, but at the harm reduction conference.

And it was pregnant. So it was definitely almost two years ago. Yeah. Yeah.

It's crazy. Tom flies. But we, when we met, I was already for years. I'd been modeling on one idea for a book, but I, you know, I honestly, I didn't want to create another in my field and kind of the academic world of addiction.

There are all these tones, all these 350 page books that explore the meaning of addiction and what it is. And I didn't really want to do that. I wanted to create something that would be useful for people that they could pick up. This thing is like 120 pages.

It started as 500 pages. Thankfully, my editor helped me cut it down. But I wanted to create something that was really, really useful for people. And then the other thing, as you know, for the work that I've done in first conversation, we ever had sitting on the floor there in San Diego.

The thing that I wanted to make clear that people understood right off the bat is just how anti the status quo I am. And so we ended up calling the book the abstinence myth.

And I, you know, I couldn't really be much clear about some of the problems that I have with the field in them. But it's a, it's a mix between like the academic view of where addiction has gone out and actionable.

Every chapter ends with exercises and there's a three, three principal nine step kind of plan for people to follow along. If they want to get help with their struggles and whether those struggles are with alcohol drugs, food, sex, gambling or anything in between. So I'm really excited about it.

So the title is, I mean, it's basically like a little bit in sindie area and in the community because you're basically saying that abstinence is a myth. So why, why do you say this?

So there are a lot of different reasons. There are kind of three different myths that I really talk about in the book primarily. The first one is the myth of abstinence as the starting point for recovery.

And I think it's one of the most unfortunate things and I will scream this from every, you know, rooftop that I get and I use my, use my soapbox to save us as many times as possible because we have grown up to understand that it's a necessity that like if you're not willing to commit to abstinence, you're not ready for recovery.

And people literally will tell others who want to go to rehab, who want to get help come back when you're ready to quit.

The problem with that is and I, you know, I didn't bring charts or anything like that for sharing screen, but you've seen this stuff with new study just came out.

We are losing more and more people every year. And that trend has been ongoing for decades. And so my point that I make to a lot of people is, look, I don't care what you believe in.

The current system isn't working. Period. If we're, if more people are dying from drug addiction every single year, we have to change something and we have to stop blaming them. And I put the way I talk about in the book, I put placing abstinence as what I call the guard at the gate for recovery as one of the first problems that we need to stop.

And I know even corporate, I know even corporate that into your work as well.

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