Aristotle recognized the space in between choice and compulsion. I had an addiction to telling myself that I was okay via external validation before I developed the really profound symptoms of alcohol and other drug addiction. We have to meet it and address it and work with it if we are to grow and to change, he says. If you've got any last questions, please do add them in.
Carl Erik Fisher is a psychiatrist, bioethicist and recovering alcoholic who has spent years tracing the history of addiction. His new book is The Urge: Our History of Addiction, a sweeping study of the issue and an urgent call for a more expansive, nuanced and compassionate view of one of society's most difficult challenges. In conversation with Carl is physicist, oceanographer and science presenter, Helen Czerski.
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