Here’s some more “filler” while I prepare my next post. But I hope it’s worth the read. The Fix, which seems to be the most popular addiction/recovery magazine out there, published a Q&A interview about my book – how I wrote it, what I was trying to say, and how it changed my life. Walter Armstrong, the deputy editor at The Fix, asked some really good questions, and I hope I gave him some really good answers.
Walter seemed like a good guy: patient, tuned in, and empathic. Maybe those goes with the job. I had the strongest temptation to ask him whether he himself had been there and back. But I held my tongue on that one.
Walter clearly liked the book. Here are some of his very generous words:
Lewis’ twin expertise as a longtime addict and a brain scientist enabled him to produce a memoir mapping, in remarkably lucid and vivid detail, entirely new ground. Weaving together his objective accounts of drugs’ effects on the brain with descriptions of his mind’s subjective experience, he brings to light how the very shape of intoxication on one substance or another mirrors the shape of the specific chemical reactions taking place inside your skull.
These pioneering observations fit effortlessly into the overall narrative, which is as over-the-top suspenseful as David Carr’s classic The Night of the Gun.
And here’s the link to the interview. Take a look, and while you’re at it check out some of the other features of this unusual publication. There’s some rough stuff on these pages. Heavy-duty addicts bearing their souls, and blazing arguments about the pro’s and con’s of this and that treatment approach. Lots to learn and quite a few surprises.
My next real post is…..almost ready.
Informed by unparalleled neuroscientific insight and written with his usual flare, Marc Lewis’s The Biology of Desire effectively refutes the medical view of addiction as a brain disease. A bracing and informative corrective to the muddle that now characterizes public and professional discourse on this topic.” —Gabor Maté, M.D., author of In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction
Marc,
That’s a fine interview, and an interesting site. I hope it pays off
in your getting the kind of attention and interest that you want.
Best,
nik
Thanks, nik. The buzz keeps spreading, through media of all kinds, and yes, it helps. By the way, check out George Stroumboulopoulos on CBC tonight. That interview is finally going to see the light of day.
Cheers,
Marc
So far, so good. But yes, Walter was incredibly generous in his review. I guess the guy knows a LOT about addiction.
Hi Marc,
I’ve been checking out this site for awhile now. The article about your book actually led me to your blog! I really like how The Fix presents a multifaceted view of addiction.
The diverse array of writers have definitely given me something the think about on more then one occasion.
Yes, I’ve just really started exploring it myself. It seems like a goldmine of information and opinions. And there’s nothing else quite like it.
Welcome to my blog!
Hi Marc,
The Fix.com website is how I found your site. After reading your interview I came to check out the ‘rest of the story.’
Good luck with this book and the one you are working on. I am definitely interested in corresponding with you and telling my story.
Thanks for tuning in. I seem to be getting a lot of traffic from The Fix, and that’s very welcome. I appreciate these new voices joining our dialogue. And if you want to volunteer your “story”, please send me a note using the Contact field linked from the top of this page.
Cheers,
Marc
I just ordered your book and am looking forward to it! I’ll keep reading around here in the meantime.
Sounds great. Hope you like the book!