Understanding Addiction

So here’s the resolution that occurred to me. The problem was that the learning curve that describes addiction onset is often unusually steep — what I’ve called accelerated learning. But the biographies I include in the book, and other tales of addiction sent my way, sometimes show a gradual onset — a period of coasting […] (Read the rest.)

Two posts ago I sent you a few paragraphs from the introduction to my new book. In that draft I said: This book makes the case that addiction results from the motivated repetition of certain thoughts and behaviors until they become self-perpetuating habits. Thus, addiction develops, and it can develop quickly, through a process I […] (Read the rest.)

Hi all. This is ridiculous. I’ve been back from South America for a month and have not yet returned to blogging. I haven’t even responded to many of the comments and sweet sentiments following the last post. Though I have skimmed through most of the dialogue and debate — with interest. I have so much […] (Read the rest.)

Hi you people! I haven’t forgotten about you. In fact I really miss you. This blog community has been like a second family to me, and I’ve gotten a lot of warmth and a lot of learning from communicating with you. As I mentioned last summer, I’ve moved to L.A. with my family — temporarily. […] (Read the rest.)

Now that the shock of it has passed, I’m left with a fog of sadness and anxiety, a sense of things being wrong in the world — more wrong than usual. Everyone loved Robin Williams. He gave so much of himself in his films and on-stage that we felt we knew him intimately. He was […] (Read the rest.)