Addiction
Subtitle: a disorder of choice
By: Gene M. Heyman.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 200
ISBN-13: 9780674032989
Subjects: Drug addiction; Compulsive behavior
Description: "In a book sure to inspire controversy, Gene Heyman argues that conventional wisdom about addiction - that it is a disease, a compulsion beyond conscious control - is wrong. Drawing on psychiatric epidemiology, addicts' autobiographies, treatment studies, and advances in behavioral economics, Heyman makes a powerful case that addiction is voluntary. He shows that drug use, like all choices, is influenced by preferences and goals. But just as there are successful dieters, there are successful ex-addicts. In fact, addiction is the psychiatric disorder with the highest rate of recovery. But what ends an addiction?"--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Responses to addiction; title: The first drug epidemic; title: Addiction in the first person; title: Once an addict, always an addict?; title: Voluntary behavior, disease, and addiction; title: Addiction and choice; title: Voluntary behavior : an engine for change.