A thought-provoking, industry-minded, and polarizing perspective on the neurocircuitry of human desire and compulsion.
An argument against classifying addiction as a chronic “brain disease.”
Armed with scientific data and plenty of case studies, developmental neuroscientist and former addict Lewis (Memoirs of an Addicted Brain: A Neuroscientist Examines His Former Life on Drugs, 2012) enters the ongoing addiction nomenclature debate with an intellectually authoritative yet controversial declaration that substance and behavioral dependencies are swiftly and deeply learned via the “neural circuitry of desire.” The author blames the medical community for developing a disease-model juggernaut derived primarily from clinical data rather than biological and psychological research on brain changes and altered synapses. Lewis believes this conceptualization pegged the affliction as a disease instead of what he deems a “developmental cascade and a detrimental result of habitual behaviors.” As increasing numbers of medical communities have embraced the addiction model this way, he writes, treatment methodologies often become ineffective as well. Lewis further criticizes the Alcoholics Anonymous strategy and its emphasis on an addict’s ability to surrender to their “powerlessness” over a compulsion rather than promoting personal empowerment toward self-sustainability. Once past a somewhat overly clinical neuroscientific discussion on the brain’s plasticity, Lewis introduces biographical testimonies of Americans struggling with addiction that both humanize and reinforce his standpoint. Awash in the separate throes of heroin, methamphetamine, opiates, alcohol, and binge-eating compulsions, the cases are complemented with uplifting updates on their sobriety efforts, which the author prefers to call a “developmental journey” toward recovery. Lewis’ statement that addiction is “uncannily normal” likely stems from his experiences as a former narcotic addict who overcame a decadelong drug habit at age 30. While definite fodder for debate, the author remains firm in his belief that in order to fully process the addiction spectrum, we must “gaze directly at the point where experience and biology meet.”
A thought-provoking, industry-minded, and polarizing perspective on the neurocircuitry of human desire and compulsion.Pub Date: July 14, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61039-437-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
Change the world? Perhaps not, but Sheldrake hopes that his proposed experiments will change the way science views the relationship of mind and matter. Former Cambridge University biologist Sheldrake (The Rebirth of Nature, 1991) groups his experiments into three categories. The first group (on pets that ``know'' when their owners are due to return home, on homing pigeons, and on the ``group mind'' of termite colonies) is in essence examinations of whether animals have extrasensory perception. A second group (on whether people can detect someone staring at them and on feeling in phantom limbs of amputees) looks at the same question in relation to human beings. A third group questions two fundamental assumptions of science itself: the possible variability of such constants of nature as the speed of light and the possible effect of a scientist's beliefs on the results of an experiment. Each experiment is prefaced with a description of the phenomenon in question; then Sheldrake proposes an experiment (or set of experiments) designed to test the existence of the phenomenon. Most (though not all) of the experiments could be done at fairly low cost by amateurs. While the author does not claim to know what the results will be, he clearly hopes that his experiments will produce evidence that the current scientific worldview has missed something important. Still, the one experiment he claims to have conducted (on pigeon homing) can hardly be called a success. And while Sheldrake presents himself as a genuine seeker after truth, he often appears to be taking potshots at scientific ``orthodoxy'' more on general principles than because he has a viable alternative. It is hard to deny that there are phenomena that current science cannot explain, although much of the evidence Sheldrake presents for them is on the level of anecdote or folklore. Maybe this book will spur someone to settle these questions once and for all.
Pub Date: Sept. 12, 1995
ISBN: 1-57322-014-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Call it a long shot, a miracle even, but Winston (The Biology of the Honey Bee, not reviewed) manages to shape the art and science of pest management into a fascinating subject. Pests eat our homes and crops and clothes, they transmit disease, they plague our skin, hair, and digestive tracts. They have bugged us from day one: The ancient Syrians exorcised scorpions from Antioch, Sumerians deployed elemental sulphur to control mites, and the Romans drained swamps to oust mosquitoes and their ilk. Today chemicals—pesticides, herbicides, fungicides—rule in humankind's ``modern war against nature,'' in which insects are a prime enemy. And, Winston asserts, ``it is time to reconsider the terms of engagement.'' Why? Because chemicals attack a pest's nervous system, which (unfortunately) resembles our own rather closely. The consequences: The author cites one million cases, worldwide, of human pesticide poisoning annually (and 20,000 fatalities among those). Moreover, pest resistance to chemicals is growing even as the chemicals continue to decimate natural predator populations essential to the earth's balance. Winston suggests various remedies for our faulty attitudes and strategies. He challenges and critiques our assumptions about pests, too: Does that single cockroach scuttling around the kitchen really demand an application of Malathion, or does our paranoia deserve some doctoring? As alternatives to dangerous chemical weapons, he proposes biologically based programs that consider (and benignly maneuver) the facts of insect ecology and behavior: sterile insect release, pheromone spraying, and genetic engineering. Winston recommends that chemical pesticides can be used, but only as a last resort; that pest management should indeed manage—but not eradicate- -pests; and that perhaps only the most damaging pests should be managed at all. Like a new Rachel Carson for the new millennium, Winston delivers a nontoxic dose of much-needed common sense.
Pub Date: Nov. 20, 1997
ISBN: 0-674-60541-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harvard Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
