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There are three main factors to predicting someone's risk for addiction. They are called the biopsychosocial model. In this episode, we define addiction and explain what that means for doctors, patients, and those suffering from addiction.
Addiction is treatable. Treatment works. People recover.
This episode refers to several resources, which are listed below.
Unbroken Brain
Maia Szalavitz
Challenging both the idea of the addict's “broken brain” and the notion of a simple “addictive personality,” 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.
Buy it on Amazon.
The Biology of Desire
Marc Lewis
Through the vivid, true stories of five people who journeyed into and out of addiction, Marc Lewis, a renowned neuroscientist explains why the "disease model" of addiction is wrong and illuminates the path to recovery.
Buy it on Amazon.
Dopesick
Beth Macy
In this masterful work, Beth Macy takes us into the epicenter of America's twenty-plus year struggle with opioid addiction. From distressed small communities in Central Appalachia to wealthy suburbs; from disparate cities to once-idyllic farm towns; it's a heartbreaking trajectory that illustrates how this national crisis has persisted for so long and become so firmly entrenched.
Buy it on Amazon.
American Pain: How a Young Felon and His Ring of Doctors Unleashed America’s Deadliest Drug Epidemic
John Temple
American Pain chronicles the rise and fall of a game-changing pill mill, and how it helped tip the nation into its current opioid crisis, the deadliest drug epidemic in American history.
Buy it on Amazon.
Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America's Opioid Epidemic
Barry Meier
In Pain Killer, Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times reporter Barry Meier exposes the roots of the most pressing health epidemic of the twenty-first century. Powerful narcotic painkillers, or opioids, were once used as drugs of last resort for pain sufferers.
Buy it on Amazon.
Clean
David Sheff
A myth-shattering look at drug abuse and addiction treatment, based on cutting-edge research. Addiction is a preventable, treatable disease, not a moral failing. As with other illnesses, the approaches most likely to work are based on science — not on faith, tradition, contrition, or wishful thinking.
Buy it on Amazon.