Clean
Subtitle: overcoming addiction and ending America's greatest tragedy
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Boston, MA
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 374
ISBN-13: 9780547848655
Description: Author David Sheff offers a new paradigm for dealing with addiction based on cutting-edge research and stories of his own and other families' struggles with--and triumphs over--drug abuse.

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. These facts are the foundation of Clean, a myth-shattering look at drug abuse by the author of Beautiful Boy. Based on the latest research in psychology, neuroscience, and medicine, Clean is a leap beyond the traditional approaches to prevention and treatment of addiction and the mental illnesses that usually accompany it. The existing treatment system, including Twelve Step programs and rehabs, has helped some, but it has failed to help many more, and David Sheff explains why. He spent time with scores of scientists, doctors, counselors, and addicts and their families to learn how addiction works and what can effectively treat it. Clean offers clear, cogent counsel for parents and others who want to prevent drug problems and for addicts and their loved ones no matter what stage of the illness they're in. But it is also a book for all of us -- a powerful rethinking of the greatest public health challenge of our time. - Author website.
Table of contents: title: America on drugs.; title: This is your brain on drugs; title: This is our nation on drugs; title: Why we use.; title: Everybody does it; title: Helping kids grow up; title: When drug use escalates.; title: Use becomes abuse, and abuse becomes addiction; title: Addicts aren't weak, selfish, or amoral--they're ill; title: Don't deny addiction, don't enable it, and don't wait for an addict to hit bottom--he could die; title: Intervention; title: Getting clean.; title: Finding treatment; title: Detox; title: Staying clean.; title: Beginning treatment; title: Primary treatment; title: Treating drug problems with drugs; title: Where does AA fit in?; title: Treating a chronic illness.; title: Treating dual diagnosis; title: Relapse prevention; title: Ending addiction.; title: The future of prevention and treatment; title: Fighting the right war; title: Epilogue; title: The Clean paradigm in 12 steps; title: Appendix : Just say know