3/29/98

Mr. Bill Moyers
Thirteen/WNET
356 West 58th Street
New York, NY 10019

Dear Mr. Moyers:

I congratulate you for what you are trying to do concerning addictions. I particularly appreciate your taking the personal risk of exposing yourself and your family to possible public humiliation and scorn by the anti-addict people who are quite numerous. There is no question that we need a quantum change in our societal attitudes about addictions. However, this change must occur in the context of the correct paradigm of addictions.

I myself have been an addict in A.A. recovery for over 20 years and have been studying addictions seriously for about 7 years. I watched you and your family interviewed on Oprah, MSNBC, and Larry King. I have also seen your web site and your PBS shows on addictions. You have a fairly good grasp of the present addiction paradigm. I also watched you struggle with the answers to several questions asked of you by interviewers. The reason for your inability to answer the difficult questions, especially the ones such as, "Why do some people end up addicts and others do not?" is that the addiction paradigm you have bought into can't answer these questions. I heard your answers concerning what you consider the etiology of addictions, THE HIJACKED BRAIN, and all the biology surrounding this concept. This concept, however, doesn't hold water. The basic biology is correct, but the implications of that biology are completely missed. This concept cannot and never will be able to explain many animal experiments, many human addiction experiences and occurrences, and especially the true nature of addictions. For example, why do certain inbred strains of mice and rats always become addicted when exposed to mood-altering drugs and other strains never get addicted when exposed to the same drugs? Why aren't the brains of all strains of rodents hijacked? Why don't all humans who get physically addicted to opiates (when treated with them for chronic painful conditions), for example, remain addicts after they get off the medications? Some of them will, but most won't. (The ones that will, have the disease which my paradigm explains while their paradigm doesn't.) Why aren't all their brains hijacked? The nature of the physiology of the brain prior to the experience is the key to these answers, not the nature of the physiology of the brain after the experiences. Moreover, the "hijacked brain" concept certainly doesn't fit with all the other non-substance addictions such as gambling addiction, "compulsive" overeating, sex addiction, self-mutilation, workaholism, shopping addiction, religion and superstition addiction, people addiction (so-called co-dependency), and many more. What hijacked these peoples' brains? Addicts' brains are hijacked all right, but not after the first drug use. It happens way before that. The reality is that the brains of all addicts were "hijacked" at conception. My paradigm, as defined and discussed in my book, explains all these addictions and simply answers all the questions that the old paradigm can't deal with without imposing some preposterous "environmental" and "psychobabble" hocus pocus. The realities of addictions are just not part of the current paradigm promulgated by your experts.

You have just entered the field of addictions, Mr. Moyers, and don't realize that the current paradigm, despite the new neurobiology, is 60 years old, and its conceptual deficiencies have resulted in the present mess we are in concerning addictions. Bill Wilson introduced the biological disease concept in 1939. However, when used within the context of the present etiological and conceptual paradigm, this biological disease model becomes perverted. This perversion results in incorrect "treatment," precarious recovery, and incorrect public attitudes and policies. As a matter of fact, by continuing to perceive the addict as someone needing to be changed, either by "medications," therapy, or even genetic engineering, well meaning people using this paradigm will continue to damage all addicts and their families, even those in recovery. Within this incorrect paradigm, the addicts will continue to damage themselves as well, for the same reasons, in very subtle and insidious ways. The present paradigm is actually responsible for the dismal success rate for all addicts and for the high incidence of relapse, even in recovering people. Recovery, except in rare and fortunate people (about 5% of addicts), is tenuous when based on the present paradigm. Despite efforts of people like you, this rate of success has not budged over the past 20 to 30 years. This is because these efforts are being wasted using the current paradigm. A.A. made a good start on real recovery, but the conceptual context, or the paradigm in which it is used, needs to be changed. My paradigm uses the same neurobiology, but in a completely differently way. As you will see in the material I enclosed, which is developed more thoroughly in my book, the neurological organs where the neurotransmitters work have a more significant role in addictions than thought today.

The biology of addictions, as you have been instructed by your experts, is quite correct, but how this biology functions in the human brain and the implications of this function in explaining most behaviors of addicts before, during, and after (even recovery or when abstinent) active addictions is way off. Your experts are working with the wrong global concept, or put in another way, the wrong paradigm of addictions. It's not their fault. They just haven't thought about all the issues concerning addictions and honestly admitted where their paradigm falls short. They just don't know what addictions really are. Some addiction experts have been honest about their shortcomings, however, and I quote from chapter 8, of Substance Abuse-A Comprehensive Textbook," ed. by Joyce Lowinson, M.D. (This book is the bible of the present paradigm). The following are the opening statements by the authors of the chapter: "Unraveling the etiology of substance abuse continues to be a challenge. There have been many technological advances in understanding the chemistry of human behavior, including the highly significant discovery of opiate receptor sites and endorphins, as well as other neurotransmitter systems. However, the substance abuse field continues to be in a preparadigm stage of development, suggesting a lack of agreement between theory and treatment. Sederer notes: [To set foot into the field of psychiatry (or the addictions) is to encounter an overwhelming mass of clinical data, hypothetical notions, and theoretical constructs. Dopamine mingles with denial, and serotonin with symbiosis. Defenses and divorce appear as meaningful, and influential, as gamma aminobutyric acid and the endorphins. Urban drift, ego-deficits, and ventricular enlargement may be found rubbing conceptual shoulders.]" In other words, the field of psychiatry and addictions is one big mess! Their paradigm fails to explain much real stuff about addictions, and they know it but they can't see beyond their paradigm and are, thus, unable to conceive of the true disease of addictions. To put it simply, they are stuck in the old paradigm, which I call the "psychological/superstitious/religious paradigm." This paradigm views addictions as part genetic "vulnerability", part psychological, part immorality, part sociological, part environmental and mostly about "bad" choices. This view is wrong! And, what is worse, instead of causing the beneficial effects you would like it to have on our fellow addict brothers and sisters and society, this paradigm actually perpetuates all the current problems and damage existing today concerning addicts and addictions. Believe it or not, this paradigm actually keeps most people out of recovery! This is because it actually maintains the stigmatization of addicts and addictions and demonizes them and their drugs as well!

The paradigm that I have developed (I include my book proposal which discusses many of these items) includes all the good biology that exists today, which you discuss very well in your material, but goes on to present a functional part of the brain where this biology works and inexorably produces addictions of all kinds as well as the self- and situational evaluation and decision-making difficulties that all people with this disease experience. My paradigm answers all the questions a true addiction paradigm needs to answer. My paradigm leads to the changes you want to occur for all addicts and their families-your family and my family. My paradigm, when fully understood and appreciated by society, leads to the destigmatization of addicts, which allows all addicts to come out of their closets, not just the wealthy or fortunate ones, and breathe the fresh air of shameless honesty and recovery. The present paradigm has not led to these changes and never will, no matter how hard it tries. In actuality, the present paradigm only makes things worse. The present paradigm will always blame the victim, the addict, and will always demonize the drugs, perpetuating the drug war, an abomination to addicts and to our society, a true genocide right here in our own country.

I believe that, as a journalist with integrity, you will appreciate the need to hear and present all sides of an issue. Consequently, I sincerely request that you review the material I have enclosed and interview me so that I might have the opportunity to present my paradigm. Then you will have a better and more complete concept of addiction and be able to answer the question concerning your own family and yourself, which you are unable to answer today. I also believe that the view that I propose will put you in a better position to advocate for policy changes for addicts of all kinds.

Sincerely Yours,

Dan F. Umanoff, M.D.

PS: I have a complete book on this material. It discusses my paradigm in detail. I would be honored for you to read it.