Understanding Addiction

Hi all, This morning I finally had a chance to listen to our debate in Amsterdam from 9th January. And I find that we are not that far apart on some points, though we remain in opposite corners on others. When I posted the slides from my talk and described the evening’s dialogue, my impression […] (Read the rest.)

Two posts ago I promised to follow up on “what is addiction?” by supplying the missing piece. Anyone who has experienced addiction or  studied it knows that compulsion is that piece — the elephant in the living room. Here’s a quick review: A key aspect of addiction, as we experience it, is the urge to […] (Read the rest.)

This guest post addresses a complex and emotionally-loaded issue: the link between pharmaceutical opiates (and the questionable way they’ve been advertised and marketed) and the current “opioid crisis” or overdose epidemic. Nick does a splendid job of recounting key milestones and contextualizing them within the history of Big Pharma. Before getting to this post, I […] (Read the rest.)

The talk I gave in Amsterdam had the title, “A Brain Disease or What?” This post is about the or what? But in attempting to define addiction, I come up with three words, rather than one: Habit Relationship Narrative …and these words have to work together to explain what addiction is. The idea that addiction […] (Read the rest.)

So many of you have asked how it went last night, I thought I’d try to give you my take on it, right here. In a nutshell, it went very well. After working for days (sweating, obsessing, etc) on my Powerpoint presentation, Isabel forced me (don’t ask me exactly how) to redo the whole thing […] (Read the rest.)