Understanding Addiction

Just got back from the US the day before yesterday, and I’m mostly trying to reset my body clock, nine hours ahead of where it was in California, or maybe behind, or is it ten hours with Daylight Savings…? I haven’t quite got it worked out. Anyway, just this morning it occurred to me that […] (Read the rest.)

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.)