Addiction: A Disorder of Choice
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.30 (829 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0674057279 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 216 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-09-01 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
This is a rich book that reverberates far beyond the field of addiction studies. Mr Heyman shows that this is wrong--or at least that this is the wrong way of getting at the problemMaybe nobody would choose to be an addict. Who is right? In a magnificent new book, Addiction: A Disorder of Choice, Gene M. Not that he views addiction as independent of the brain--no serious person could even entertain such a claim. The book has the potential to revolutionize the behavior of anyone involved in the co
In a book sure to inspire controversy, Gene Heyman argues that conventional wisdom about addictionthat it is a disease, a compulsion beyond conscious controlis wrong. But just as there are successful dieters, there are successful ex-addicts. Most of us avoid becoming drug dependent, not because we are especially rational, but because we loathe the idea of being an addict.Heyman’s analysis of well-established but frequently ignored research leads to unexpected insights into how we make choicesfrom obesity to McMansionizationall rooted in our deep-seated tendency to consume too much of whatever we like best. He shows that drug use, like all choices, is influenced by preferences and goals. If drug addicts typically beat addiction, then non-addicts can learn to control their natural tendency to take too much.. But what ends an addiction?At the heart of Heyman’s analysis is a startling view of choice and motivation that applies to all choices, not just the choice to use drugs. Drawing on psychiatric epidemiology, addicts’ autobiographies, treatment studies, and advances in behavioral economics, Heyman makes a powerful case that addiction is voluntary. As wealth increases and technology advances, the dilemma posed by addictive drugs spreads to new products. The conditions that promote quitting a drug addiction include new information, cultural values, and, of course, the costs and benefits of further
. Heyman is a research psychologist at McLean Hospital and a Lecturer in Psychology at Harvard Medical School. Gene M
"Fascinating, but unnecessarily academic" according to Ryan C. Holiday. The study of addiction is complicated by a number of problems. Like sociology, it tends to be dominated by people with strong personal or political positions that ultimately prevent it from being as objective as it should be. For instance, it is not uncommon for addicts to go straight from recovery to working in rehab clinics o. "No, Virginia, addiction isn't a disease" according to Marcus Tulius. I have worked with drug and alcohol addicts for a number of years and am well-acquainted with the commonly-held wisdom that addiction is a disease. I'm also aware that addiction treatment is growing rapidly and is already a multi-billion dollar industry, so there are many people with a vested interest in continuing the disease . "Facts triumph" according to W. Cheung. This book is short in absolute terms (well short of 200 pages) but at times it takes a sufficiently slow pace in order to present data and facts as tightly as possible, so as to convince the reader that: drug addiction is a matter of the individual making ultimately irrational and harmful deicisions based on a mode of thinking