Books About Drug Addiction

This book is the companion to the award-winning HBO documentary of the same name. Both reveal a comprehensive view of the impact that drug addiction can have on addicts, their family members, the economy and society as a whole. The book also tries to dispel the stigma associated with addiction, describing how changes in the brains of addicts makes it almost impossible for them to quit on their own.

How does someone become addicted? In this second edition, Craig Nakken looks at the common factor involved in all addictions and explains how someone become an addict in the first place through a progression of stages. Nakken also outlines the necessary steps toward successfully recovering from drug and alcohol addiction.

Dr. Carlo C. DiClemente presents an overview of the prevailing and sometimes competing theories, data and approaches to preventing and treating addiction, and offers an explanation of how addiction develops and how it can be prevented. Using his "transtheoretical model," DiClemente offers addicts a path of change that preserves their dignity and offers them compassion.

Author Gerald G. May, a psychiatrist who works with addicts, outlines the "process of attachment" that he believes leads to addiction and describes the relationship between addiction and spiritual awareness. Dr. May examines addiction from the perspective of what he calls hope-filled "contemplative spirituality."

This book is written specifically for Christians who have developed an addiction and are trying to recover. Dr. Neil T. Anderson, founder of the Freedom in Christ Ministries, offers an alternative program of recovery from not only alcohol and drug addiction, but for those struggling with other addictions as well.

Craig Nakken describes how addiction can destroy the unity and purpose of families and couples, even after years of working to build a life together, but he also explains how families can put the "we" back into their relationship and begin the healing process. The book contains histories, personal stories and the research into addiction and families.

For many people with ADD, alcohol and drugs can temporarily reduce their symptoms and help them focus, but then the drinking and drugging become their own problems. Author Wendy Richardson examines the neuroscience behind the link between ADD and addiction and outlines a practical course of treatment. The book includes self-tests and checklist to help identify symptoms and behaviors.

Written by Sheryl Letzgus McGinnis and Heiko Ganzer, this book is aimed at young people who may be considering experimenting with drugs. It contains stories of parents who have been devastated by the lost of a child to the disease of addiction. It also examines the peer pressures children face, even at the middle school level.

Rod Colvin, who lost his own brother to prescription drug addiction, interviews people from all walks of life about how they obtained their drugs, their sources, and their denial that they are drug abusers because the drugs are legal. Colvin also examines what policies need to be developed to curtail the increasing prescription drug problem.

Harvard Medical School psychiatrist Lance M. Dodes examines the emotional roots and the behavioral patterns behind addiction -- anger, helplessness and shame, combined with a desire for immediate escape from those feelings. The book tries to dispel some myths surrounding addiction and offers practical tips and examples of treating addiction outside the traditional approaches.