They Made Me An Addict

They Made Me An Addict They Made Me An Addict shows the journey of Moses, a young African American male who grows up fascinated by the street lifestyle and dismayed by its tragic results.. He decides to write a book about the streets from the inside out. The only way he knows how to do it is to hang with the thugs and do what they do and say what they say. He changes his church upbringing lifestyle to that of a hardcore juvenile delinquent. He says when he begins his quest, "I want the blood of the streets to flow through my veins so when I write about it, people can feel it." And we all feel it, as we follow Moses from birth to adult years through the streets of Newark, NJ and the dangerous world of drugs, cool, crime and violence, and his quest to make a difference.

Through the vivid, true stories of five people who journeyed into and out of addiction, a renowned neuroscientist explains why the "disease model" of addiction is wrong and illuminates the path to recovery. The psychiatric establishment and rehab industry in the Western world have branded addiction a brain disease. But in The Biology of Desire, cognitive neuroscientist and former addict Marc Lewis makes a convincing case that addiction is not a disease, and shows why the disease model has become an obstacle to healing. Lewis reveals addiction as an unintended consequence of the brain doing what it's supposed to do-seek pleasure and relief-in a world that's not cooperating. As a result, most treatment based on the disease model fails. Lewis shows how treatment can be retooled to achieve lasting recovery. This is enlightening and optimistic reading for anyone who has wrestled with addiction either personally or professionally.

The New York Times Bestseller What if everything you think you know about addiction is wrong? Johann Hari's journey into the heart of the war on drugs led him to ask this question--and to write the book that gave rise to his viral TED talk, viewed more than 62 million times, and inspired the feature film The United States vs. Billie Holiday and the documentary series The Fix. One of Johann Hari's earliest memories is of trying to wake up one of his relatives and not being able to. As he grew older, he realized he had addiction in his family. Confused, not knowing what to do, he set out and traveled over 30,000 miles over three years to discover what really causes addiction--and what really solves it. He uncovered a range of remarkable human stories--of how the war on drugs began with Billie Holiday, the great jazz singer, being stalked and killed by a racist policeman; of the scientist who discovered the surprising key to addiction; and of the countries that ended their own war on drugs--with extraordinary results. Chasing the Scream is the story of a life-changing journey that transformed the addiction debate internationally--and showed the world that the opposite of addiction is connection.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES and LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER “Brilliant . . . riveting, scary, cogent, and cleverly argued.”—Beth Macy, author of Dopesick, as heard on Fresh Air This book is about pleasure. It’s also about pain. Most important, it’s about how to find the delicate balance between the two, and why now more than ever finding balance is essential. We’re living in a time of unprecedented access to high-reward, high-dopamine stimuli: drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, sexting, Facebooking, Instagramming, YouTubing, tweeting . . . The increased numbers, variety, and potency is staggering. The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation. As such we’ve all become vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption. In Dopamine Nation, Dr. Anna Lembke, psychiatrist and author, explores the exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain . . . and what to do about it. Condensing complex neuroscience into easy-to-understand metaphors, Lembke illustrates how finding contentment and connectedness means keeping dopamine in check. The lived experiences of her patients are the gripping fabric of her narrative. Their riveting stories of suffering and redemption give us all hope for managing our consumption and transforming our lives. In essence, Dopamine Nation shows that the secret to finding balance is combining the science of desire with the wisdom of recovery.

2016 INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARDS - WINNER IN ADDICTION & RECOVERY 2016 NATIONAL INDIE EXCELLENCE AWARDS (NIEA)- WINNER IN ADDICTION & RECOVERY 2016 INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER BOOK AWARDS (IPPY)- BRONZE MEDAL — LITERARY FICTION 2015 FOREWARD REVIEWS INDIEFAB BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARDS HONORABLE MENTION FOR GENERAL FICTION 2015 USA BEST BOOK AWARDS FINALIST FOR GENERAL FICTION Randall Grange has been tricked into admitting herself into a treatment center and she doesn’t know why. She’s not a party hound like the others in her therapy group—but then again, she knows she can’t live without pills or booze. Raised by an abusive father, a detached mother, and a loving aunt and uncle, Randall both loves and hates her life. She’s awkward and a misfit. Her parents introduced her to alcohol and tranquilizers at a young age, ensuring that her teenage years would be full of bad choices, and by the time she’s twenty-three years old, she’s a full-blown drug addict, well acquainted with the miraculous power chemicals have to cure just about any problem she could possibly have—and she’s in more trouble than she’s ever known was possible.

A guide to all kinds of addiction from a star who has struggled with heroin, alcohol, sex, fame, food and eBay, that will help addicts and their loved ones make the first steps into recovery “This manual for self-realization comes not from a mountain but from the mud...My qualification is not that I am better than you but I am worse.” —Russell Brand With a rare mix of honesty, humor, and compassion, comedian and movie star Russell Brand mines his own wild story and shares the advice and wisdom he has gained through his fourteen years of recovery. Brand speaks to those suffering along the full spectrum of addiction—from drugs, alcohol, caffeine, and sugar addictions to addictions to work, stress, bad relationships, digital media, and fame. Brand understands that addiction can take many shapes and sizes and how the process of staying clean, sane, and unhooked is a daily activity. He believes that the question is not “Why are you addicted?” but "What pain is your addiction masking? Why are you running—into the wrong job, the wrong life, the wrong person’s arms?" Russell has been in all the twelve-step fellowships going, he’s started his own men’s group, he’s a therapy regular and a practiced yogi—and while he’s worked on this material as part of his comedy and previous bestsellers, he’s never before shared the tools that really took him out of it, that keep him clean and clear. Here he provides not only a recovery plan, but an attempt to make sense of the ailing world.

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER From renowned mental health expert and speaker Dr. Gabor Maté, this acclaimed, bestselling guide provides insight into the mind-body link between illness and health, and the critical role that stress and our emotional makeup play in an array of common diseases. In this accessible and groundbreaking book—filled with the moving stories of real people—medical doctor and bestselling author Gabor Maté shows that emotion and psychological stress play a powerful role in the onset of chronic illness, including breast cancer, prostate cancer, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease and many others. An international bestseller translated into over thirty languages, When the Body Says No promotes learning and healing, providing transformative insights into how illlness can be the body's way of saying no to what the mind cannot or will not acknowledge. With great compassion and erudition, Dr. Maté demystifies medical science and empowers us all to be our own health advocates.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From a renowned behavioral neuroscientist and recovering addict, a rare page-turning work of science that draws on personal insights to reveal how drugs work, the dangerous hold they can take on the brain, and the surprising way to combat today's epidemic of addiction. Judith Grisel was a daily drug user and college dropout when she began to consider that her addiction might have a cure, one that she herself could perhaps discover by studying the brain. Now, after twenty-five years as a neuroscientist, she shares what she and other scientists have learned about addiction, enriched by captivating glimpses of her personal journey. In Never Enough, Grisel reveals the unfortunate bottom line of all regular drug use: there is no such thing as a free lunch. All drugs act on the brain in a way that diminishes their enjoyable effects and creates unpleasant ones with repeated use. Yet they have their appeal, and Grisel draws on anecdotes both comic and tragic from her own days of using as she limns the science behind the love of various drugs, from marijuana to alcohol, opiates to psychedelics, speed to spice. With more than one in five people over the age of fourteen addicted, drug abuse has been called the most formidable health problem worldwide, and Grisel delves with compassion into the science of this scourge. She points to what is different about the brains of addicts even before they first pick up a drink or drug, highlights the changes that take place in the brain and behavior as a result of chronic using, and shares the surprising hidden gifts of personality that addiction can expose. She describes what drove her to addiction, what helped her recover, and her belief that a “cure” for addiction will not be found in our individual brains but in the way we interact with our communities. Set apart by its color, candor, and bell-clear writing, Never Enough is a revelatory look at the roles drugs play in all of our lives and offers crucial new insight into how we can solve the epidemic of abuse.

Understanding Addiction By: Sadie Petersen Understanding Addiction: Behind the Scenes isn’t going to be like that nagging uncle telling you to kick your son out on the streets. It’s not going to tell you what you should and shouldn’t do about your sister, grandson, daughter, mom, brother, or best friend’s addiction, either. It’s not going to hammer you with statistics and big words about addiction that make no sense, or stuff a bunch of scientific jargon down your throats. What author Sadie Petersen does provide you with is some REAL personal stories about her own life and experiences, real struggles addicts might be afraid to tell you themselves, and some REAL advice and “answers,” by giving you a look behind the scenes of drug addiction. This book is about helping you, and so many others like you, to take a deeper look inside drug addiction by providing a better understanding of this lifestyle through different perspectives, and to help you find the peace and understanding for which you might be searching. It is Petersen’s goal that, after reading her book, every reader will leave with the ability to think objectively and critically about the severity that comes with addiction, and learn how to apply their own behaviors in situations that may arise with their loved one’s addiction. Petersen hopes her audience WILL understand this lifestyle more clearly after reading her story and be able to apply it to their own lives to create improved outcomes for the long run. There are no RIGHT answers in dealing with drug addiction. But, with ten plus years of experience within this lifestyle, Petersen has found her peace with it, and she knows you can, too!

Academic research in alcohol addiction presents diverse results and subject inadequacies. This study identifies conscience and its influence through spirituality on successful recovery as promoting unity and adequacy in the field. The purpose of the study is to analyze the relationship between conscience, spirituality, and recovery from alcohol addiction. This threefold framework underlines the conceptual importance of cognition, affect, behavior, spirituality, and character in addiction studies. Narrative analysis (NA) is employed for designing the present research. It is utilized for collection, examination, and formulation of the results derived from the participants' stories. Semi-structured interviews are used within the NA framework to provide the data from the twelve participants. The latter are selected as a homogeneous group based on characteristics of their addiction, spirituality, and recovery. The analysis of narratives defines conscience with its cognitive, emotive, and conative elements as related to spirituality. The conscience's nature and functioning undergo deterioration during addiction and complete rejuvenation through participants' spiritual transformation of a transcendent divine experience. Spiritually empowered conscience supports progressive recovery from alcohol addiction. The conscientious approach to self, life, and others is shaped by virtue and spiritual commitment.