"A tour de force, a spectacular effort of research and understanding. This book gives us the courage to bypass disease notions to deal with intrapsychic, family system, and social and cultural dynamics in addiction." (David Cook, Counseling and Psychological Services, University of Wisconsin)

"The Meaning of Addiction presented a new paradigm of addiction. The field has since become more open to the kind of complex, contextual view of addiction and compulsive behavior that it presents. Nonetheless, it remains the classic source for expressing this point of view." (Archie Brodsky, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School)

"Peele's theory of 'addiction as an experience' in The Meaning of Addiction remains a pathbreaking one that offers readers an accessible and empowering understanding of their own experiences, desires, and addictions. For understanding addictions, Peele is in my view (and for my courses on this subject) still the source of all sources." (Richard J. DeGrandpre, Department of Psychology, St. Michael's College, Burlington, Vermon)

"Stanton Peele's books have been instrumental in helping me understand my own underlying causes of addiction and how, however well-intentioned the 12-step model is, it led me to focus on the wrong aspects of addiction." (Marianne Gilliam, author, How Alcoholics Anonymous Failed Me)

"Offers a thought-provoking, insightful, and controversial perspective on the etiology of addictive behaviors. Peele challenges the biological model and provides an important alternative view on addictive behaviors. The Meaning of Addiction should be required reading for students and professionals alike." (Kim Fromme, Department of Psychology, University of Texas)

"Given the extraordinary, but largely unsubstantiated, confidence that many in both the public an professional ranks have in simplistic conceptualizations of addictive behavior, it is reassuring that sophisticated and provocative alternatives such as those proposed by Stanton Peele in The Meaning of Addiction surface from time to time. It offers hope for constructive change by putting reason an choice back into the addiction formula." (Alan R. Lang, Department of Psychology, Florida State University)

"This is a book to be read slowly, to be taken seriously, and to be debated hotly by every professional in the field. This whole subject is one of the major medical political and society problems of our civilization, and we seem unable to find any workable solution." (John A. Owen, Jr., M.D., Professor of Internal Medicine, University of Virginia School of Medicine)