Un-Addiction

Book excerpt: Contrary to popular belief, addiction isn't a conscious choice. It's a chronic illness, like diabetes or asthma, that responds to treatment and deserves compassion. And yet, too many people expect their loved ones to simply recover on their own without interventions. Drawing on peer-reviewed research and decades of expertise, Dr. Nzinga Harrison reveals the factors that predict one's risk for addiction: biology and heritability, childhood experience, physical environment, injuries and health conditions, discrimination, and cultural influence. With revelatory anecdotes and sobering data, Un-Addiction guides readers to unlearn what they think they know about substance use, undo stigma surrounding addiction, and uncover critical conversations that could end the epidemic.