Understanding Addiction

Understanding Addiction PDF Author: Dr Charles Smith
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781737235200
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 140

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Book Description
In Understanding Addiction, doctors Smith and Hunt bring an important perspective to the subject of addiction

Understanding Addiction

Understanding Addiction PDF Author: Dr Charles Smith
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781737235200
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 140

Get Book Here

Book Description
In Understanding Addiction, doctors Smith and Hunt bring an important perspective to the subject of addiction

Understanding Addiction as Self Medication

Understanding Addiction as Self Medication PDF Author: Edward J. Khantzian
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 0742565513
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
Addictive behaviors beg for an informed explanation to guide patients, families, students, and clinicians through the maddening and often incomprehensible nature of the addictions. Too often addiction is perceived to be merely a moral weakness or purely a brain disease, ignoring the deep personal pain that can permeate the lives of the addicted. But taking an honest look at the underlying emotional or mental issues can more clearly illuminate not only the causes of the addiction, but also the cure. Doctors Edward J. Khantzian and Mark J. Albanese, leading researchers in the field of addiction, see addictions primarily as a kind of self medication—a self medication that can temporarily soothe anxiety or pain, but that ultimately wreaks havoc on the lives and health of both the addicted and their loved ones. With practical advice, compelling case studies, and nuanced theory drawn from their years in clinical practice, Doctors Khantzian and Albanese look at the core reasons behind many addictions and provide a pathway to hope. Understanding Addiction as Self Medication looks at a range of addictions, including alcohol and substance abuse, and clearly explains how to understand other addictive behaviors through the lens of the Self Medication Hypothesis. This book provides a much-needed guide to both understanding addictions and working towards healing.

Unbroken Brain

Unbroken Brain PDF Author: Maia Szalavitz
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1466859563
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER More people than ever before see themselves as addicted to, or recovering from, addiction, whether it be alcohol or drugs, prescription meds, sex, gambling, porn, or the internet. But despite the unprecedented attention, our understanding of addiction is trapped in unfounded 20th century ideas, addiction as a crime or as brain disease, and in equally outdated treatment. Challenging both the idea of the addict's "broken brain" and the notion of a simple "addictive personality," The New York Times Bestseller, Unbroken Brain, offers a radical and groundbreaking new perspective, arguing that addictions are learning disorders and shows how seeing the condition this way can untangle our current debates over treatment, prevention and policy. Like autistic traits, addictive behaviors fall on a spectrum -- and they can be a normal response to an extreme situation. By illustrating what addiction is, and is not, the book illustrates how timing, history, family, peers, culture and chemicals come together to create both illness and recovery- and why there is no "addictive personality" or single treatment that works for all. Combining Maia Szalavitz's personal story with a distillation of more than 25 years of science and research,Unbroken Brain provides a paradigm-shifting approach to thinking about addiction. Her writings on radical addiction therapies have been featured in The Washington Post, Vice Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, in addition to multiple other publications. She has been interviewed about her book on many radio shows including Fresh Air with Terry Gross and The Brian Lehrer show.

Drugs, Brains, and Behavior

Drugs, Brains, and Behavior PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Brain
Languages : en
Pages : 76

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Book Description


The Urge

The Urge PDF Author: Carl Erik Fisher
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525561455
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker and The Boston Globe An authoritative, illuminating, and deeply humane history of addiction—a phenomenon that remains baffling and deeply misunderstood despite having touched countless lives—by an addiction psychiatrist striving to understand his own family and himself “Carl Erik Fisher’s The Urge is the best-written and most incisive book I’ve read on the history of addiction. In the midst of an overdose crisis that grows worse by the hour and has vexed America for centuries, Fisher has given us the best prescription of all: understanding. He seamlessly blends a gripping historical narrative with memoir that doesn’t self-aggrandize; the result is a full-throated argument against blaming people with substance use disorder. The Urge is a propulsive tour de force that is as healing as it is enjoyable to read.” —Beth Macy, author of Dopesick Even after a decades-long opioid overdose crisis, intense controversy still rages over the fundamental nature of addiction and the best way to treat it. With uncommon empathy and erudition, Carl Erik Fisher draws on his own experience as a clinician, researcher, and alcoholic in recovery as he traces the history of a phenomenon that, centuries on, we hardly appear closer to understanding—let alone addressing effectively. As a psychiatrist-in-training fresh from medical school, Fisher was soon face-to-face with his own addiction crisis, one that nearly cost him everything. Desperate to make sense of the condition that had plagued his family for generations, he turned to the history of addiction, learning that the current quagmire is only the latest iteration of a centuries-old story: humans have struggled to define, treat, and control addictive behavior for most of recorded history, including well before the advent of modern science and medicine. A rich, sweeping account that probes not only medicine and science but also literature, religion, philosophy, and public policy, The Urge illuminates the extent to which the story of addiction has persistently reflected broader questions of what it means to be human and care for one another. Fisher introduces us to the people who have endeavored to address this complex condition through the ages: physicians and politicians, activists and artists, researchers and writers, and of course the legions of people who have struggled with their own addictions. He also examines the treatments and strategies that have produced hope and relief for many people with addiction, himself included. Only by reckoning with our history of addiction, he argues—our successes and our failures—can we light the way forward for those whose lives remain threatened by its hold. The Urge is at once an eye-opening history of ideas, a riveting personal story of addiction and recovery, and a clinician’s urgent call for a more expansive, nuanced, and compassionate view of one of society’s most intractable challenges.

Understanding Forgiveness and Addiction

Understanding Forgiveness and Addiction PDF Author: Jon R. Webb
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429575831
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
This book integrates and synthesizes numerous empirically supported positive psychological constructs and psychotherapeutic theories to help understand addiction and facilitate recovery through the lens of forgiveness. Proposing forgiveness as an alternative and critical tool to understanding the process of addiction and recovery, whether in the context of substance use, compulsive behavior, and/or suicidal behavior, the book discusses multiple theoretical points of view regarding the process of forgiveness. Additionally, foundational theories underlying the process of recovery, the psychological and spiritual nature of forgiveness, and the nature of the association of forgiveness with health all receive detailed coverage. Considerable attention is also paid to the extant empirical support for the association of forgiveness with addiction and recovery. The text’s comprehensive integration of theory, research, and clinical application, including guidelines regarding forgiveness as a treatment for recovery from addiction, provide a roadmap forward for addiction counselors and other recovery specialists.

Ending Discrimination Against People with Mental and Substance Use Disorders

Ending Discrimination Against People with Mental and Substance Use Disorders PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309439124
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 171

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Book Description
Estimates indicate that as many as 1 in 4 Americans will experience a mental health problem or will misuse alcohol or drugs in their lifetimes. These disorders are among the most highly stigmatized health conditions in the United States, and they remain barriers to full participation in society in areas as basic as education, housing, and employment. Improving the lives of people with mental health and substance abuse disorders has been a priority in the United States for more than 50 years. The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 is considered a major turning point in America's efforts to improve behavioral healthcare. It ushered in an era of optimism and hope and laid the groundwork for the consumer movement and new models of recovery. The consumer movement gave voice to people with mental and substance use disorders and brought their perspectives and experience into national discussions about mental health. However over the same 50-year period, positive change in American public attitudes and beliefs about mental and substance use disorders has lagged behind these advances. Stigma is a complex social phenomenon based on a relationship between an attribute and a stereotype that assigns undesirable labels, qualities, and behaviors to a person with that attribute. Labeled individuals are then socially devalued, which leads to inequality and discrimination. This report contributes to national efforts to understand and change attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that can lead to stigma and discrimination. Changing stigma in a lasting way will require coordinated efforts, which are based on the best possible evidence, supported at the national level with multiyear funding, and planned and implemented by an effective coalition of representative stakeholders. Ending Discrimination Against People with Mental and Substance Use Disorders: The Evidence for Stigma Change explores stigma and discrimination faced by individuals with mental or substance use disorders and recommends effective strategies for reducing stigma and encouraging people to seek treatment and other supportive services. It offers a set of conclusions and recommendations about successful stigma change strategies and the research needed to inform and evaluate these efforts in the United States.

Out of the Shadows

Out of the Shadows PDF Author: Patrick Carnes
Publisher: Hazelden Publishing
ISBN: 1568386214
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Out of the Shadows Third Edition

Understanding and Treating Sex Addiction

Understanding and Treating Sex Addiction PDF Author: Paula Hall
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415691907
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Sex addiction is on the increase - in the media as well as in the therapy room. But while more and more people seek help for their compulsive sexual behaviours, there is still confusion and debate about whether the condition even exists. Understanding and Treating Sex Addiction explains why an increasing number of people are inadvertently finding their lives devastated by their sexual behaviours. It explores the latest scientific understandings and research into why pornography, cyber sex, visiting sex workers, fetishes and multiple affairs can come to control some people's lives to the point that they can't stop. It explains how sex addiction is not a moral issue, as some assume, but a health issue that we as a society need to start taking seriously. Throughout the book are the revealing statistics from the UK's latest survey on sex addiction. Three hundred and fifty people who struggle with this condition have bravely and candidly shared their experience for the benefit of their fellow sufferers and those who choose to help them. This book contains support and advice for both the clinician and for those who suffer from sex addiction. As well as practical guidance and techniques for stopping compulsive behaviours and preventing relapse, there is also a thorough exploration of the deeper underlying causes and how these must be addressed.

Understanding and Helping an Addict (and Keeping Your Sanity)

Understanding and Helping an Addict (and Keeping Your Sanity) PDF Author: Andrew Proulx
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN:
Category : Addicts
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
To solve a problem one must first understand the problem. Unfortunately, that's hard to do with addiction and alcoholism because it makes no sense. Why do people keep on with their substance use when it's ruining their life and making them miserable? In this important book, medical doctor and addiction survivor Dr. Andrew Proulx--a leading expert on addiction psychology--explains the effects of addictive substances on the brain and mind, and why addicts and alcoholics behave the way they do. He then goes on to explain exactly how form a bond with an addicted loved one and to use this bond to help the addict to move to a willingness and mental readiness to accept the help they need. He then explains your role in your loved ones treatment and subsequent recovery and relapse prevention. Dr. Andrew provides guidance for loved ones of addicts to remove themselves from the addict's circle of chaos and to take a different approach to helping the addict that's more effective, and also allows them to take back their own life and sanity. -- Adapted from page [4] cover.