"I've just found a whole new life,
and I never even hoped for that for the last thirty years...."
Robert had lived as a hermit in the hills of north Texas.
He drank vodka by the case and was armed at all times.

I met him while taping research interviews in Bonham, Texas. He had recently finished the three-week Peniston Protocol training at the Topeka VA hospital. The effects were immediate:

"I used to feel so slow, I was afraid to talk to people," he said, "Now I feel like I have a whole new brain. I almost feel like I know what people are going to say before they say it. Its like going in with a bad brain and coming out with a new one...."

Perhaps the best part is that Robert knows he did it himself. He was given no drugs, no hypnotherapy, no endless hours of meandering storytelling to expensive psychotherapists.

The following is an abstract from a scientific study published in "Medical Psycotherapyy: An International Journal" by Dr. Paul Kulkosky and Dr. Eugene Peniston. The article, Alcoholic Personality and Alpha-Theta Brainwave Training, reports the dramatic personality changes that took place among the group that received the alpha-theta brainwave training using the five-part Peniston-Kulkosky protocol.

For the study, there were three groups: two groups of chronic alcoholics and one group of nonalcoholics. Of the two alcoholic groups, one received the training, the other received traditional medical treatment for alcohol dependence (group psychotherapy and AA). All three groups were given "before and after" tests: first at the outset of the study before receiving any treatment; then again after the treatment was completed. I'll print the abstract here, with the reminder that this is from a professional journal. The personality traits listed are used as technical terms--don't take it personally. This is just a summary, but you may find it interesting.

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Medical Psychotherapy, 3:37-55, 1990. Alcoholic personality and alpha-theta brainwave training --
Eugene G. Peniston and Paul J. Kulkosky Veterans Administration Medical Center, Fort Lyon, CO 81038 and University of Southern Colorado, Pueblo, CO 81001

The Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) and the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16 PF) were employed to assess personality differences and changes among chronic alcoholics and nonalcoholic controls prior to and after either traditional medical treatment or alpha-theta brainwave training of the alcoholics.

On the MCMI prior to treatment, both groups of alcoholics showed significantly higher scores than nonalcoholics on scales measuring factors labeled schizoid, avoidant, passive-aggression, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, anxiety, and dysthymia.

On the 16 PF prior to treatment, both groups of alcoholics were sigificantly more affected by feelings, submissive, shy, apprehensive, and tense.

Administration of EEG alpha-theta brainwave treatment was accompanied by significant decreases in MCMI scales labeled schizoid, avoidant, passive-aggression, schizotypal, borderline, paranoid, anxiety, somatoform, dysthymia, alcohol abuse, psychotic thinking, psychotic depression, and psychotic delusion.

Alcoholics receiving standard [traditional] medical treatment showed significant decreases only in two MCMI scales, avoidant and psychotic thinking, and an increase in one scale, compulsive.

EEG alpha-theta brainwave treatment corresponded to significant increases in warmth, abstract-thinking, stability, conscientiousness, boldness, imaginativeness, and self-control. Alcoholics receiving traditional medical treatment showed only a significant increase in concrete-thinking.

These personality differences and changes in alcoholics are comparable to those previously reported with these instruments [as published in earlier studies about the effects of EEG neurofeedback training using the Peniston-Kulkosky sequenced protocol], and provide confirmatory evidence that the application of alpha-theta brainwave treatment produces fundamental changes in alcoholic personality variables. These changes may underlie the sustained prevention of relapse and absence of increases in beta endorphin levels in alcoholics receiving prolonged alpha-theta brainwave training.

Reprinted with permission of Hogrefe & Huber Publishers