Understanding Addiction

Since well before the War on Drugs, we’ve been taught to “just say no.” Today we know the pitfalls of pure prohibition and denial. We know the value of “just saying yes” to sobriety instead. Still, especially during the period of craving that follows quitting, we do have to say No to ourselves. Perhaps many […] (Read the rest.)

I recently came across a paper in Addiction Biology called “Recent updates on incubation of drug craving: a mini-review.” The studies summarized here show that drug craving increases progressively for weeks after we stop using. And by “we” I mean rats, mice, and humans, all experimental subjects in this review. Since many of my readers […] (Read the rest.)

Here’s a brief Q&A hosted by a website called 52 Insights. It’s quite a spiffy site, with interesting authors and speakers presenting their views on popular culture, science, politics, and so forth. My piece is about my personal history, my book, habit versus willpower, and a bit about the War on Drugs. Here’s a longer […] (Read the rest.)

…by Lynn K. Thorsen… Out of the blue I found this poem in my inbox this morning. I contacted the author, Lynn, and she gave me permission to publish it here. You will see why I had to share it with you. ……………….. Top Ten (Reasons I Addicted Myself to Heroin)   Because when I […] (Read the rest.)

I got back Saturday from a 3-week extravaganza: first the Nobel conference on Addiction, then two weeks as a visiting prof at Gustavus College, and then a week in Toronto, catching up with relatives and friends, hanging out with my daughter, and doing about one talk per day on…you know, addiction not being a disease, […] (Read the rest.)