What Is It Like to Be an Addict?

In this book, Owen Flanagan offers a state-of-the-art assessment of addiction science and proposes a new ecumenical model for understanding and explaining substance addiction.

He argues that substance addictions comprise a heterogeneous set of 'psychobiosocial' behavioral disorders, influenced by multifarious cultural, social, psychological, and neural features.

Flanagan explores the ways addicts can take responsibility for their addiction, the role of shame in healing, and the collective shame society bears for its indifference to the psychological and social causes of addiction.

The book provides new insights for understanding and treating addiction, integrating the sciences with a sophisticated view of the consciousness-brain/body relation.