Understanding Addiction

Tomorrow, for my last publicity event in Toronto, I’m giving a talk at a Harm Reduction group. I don’t know that much about harm reduction as a philosophy or practice. I do know that I like the idea that there are many and varied paths to recovery, or maintenance, or whatever you want to call a relatively harm-free solution to addiction. (Read the rest.)

People have asked me how I feel about the Insite issue. Insite is a clinic in downtown Vancouver that provides a safe environment for junkies to shoot (their own) dope. The Supreme Court of Canada just overruled Harper’s attempt to shut it down. Did they do the right thing? Should we make it easier or harder for junkies to shoot up safely? (Read the rest.)

I’m nervous. I’m leaving for Toronto tomorrow for a publicity tour. The book is getting a lot of press, including a full-page article by Ian Brown in yesterday’s Globe. People seem to be grabbed by it. Some admire it. Some are shocked, even horrified, that this professor guy could ever have done such awful things. Some might feel both admiration and disdain. I don’t know for sure, but I’m about to find out. (Read the rest.)

In less than a week my book will be released. It’s called Memoirs of an Addicted Brain, and it recounts the story of my years of almost continuous drug taking and periods of intense addiction—interspersed with neuroscience, to help explain what was happening to me, why it was happening, and how it is that addictions are, in part, products of our biology. (Read the rest.)