Understanding Addiction

…by April Wilson Smith… I used to hate the word “recovery.” To me, it was a mark of shame, stating that I was permanently damaged and different from “normies,” as they call people without substance use problems in AA. Recovery signified a lifetime of isolation, avoiding social events and going to dull nightly meetings where […] (Read the rest.)

…by Jenny Valentish… Not everyone enjoys the label ‘sober’. I personally don’t call myself an ‘alcoholic’ or ‘identify as an addict’. I’m also far too English to use a dramatic phrase such as ‘in recovery’. In my book, Woman of Substances: A Journey Into Addiction and Treatment, I don’t call myself ‘sober’ either, partly because […] (Read the rest.)

The relationship between addiction and emotional anguish — primarily anxiety and depression — is well known. When we look for root causes of addiction, we inevitably ask why so many people are suffering. Here I reflect a bit, and link to a mind-blowing video, on suffering and evolution. Why is it so hard? Why is […] (Read the rest.)

…by Matt Robert… We interrupt this broadcast for an important announcement from the fake news channel.  If you haven’t already heard, you are a worthless piece of shit who doesn’t have any business having a happy life, so you should just give up, say fuck it and use. You should just give up and settle […] (Read the rest.)

As neuroscience explodes with new ideas, new technologies, and new findings, ordinary people have a hard time absorbing the information that emerges. We are learning more details about networks in the cortex responsible for different kinds of thinking, reflecting, observing, and we know about regions lying beneath the cortex responsible for emotion and motivation. What […] (Read the rest.)