#1148 Owen Flanagan: What Is It Like to Be an Addict?

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Sep 11, 2025

Owen Flanagan, a philosophy professor emeritus at Duke University, shares deep insights on addiction, drawing from his experience with alcoholism and benzodiazepines. He discusses the stigma surrounding addiction and its impact on recovery. Flanagan explores subjective realism, highlighting personal narratives and their importance in understanding addiction. He categorizes addicts as willing, unwilling, or resigned, questioning the balance of agency in recovery strategies. Innovative harm reduction approaches, like Amsterdam's Rainbow Group, offer hope and dignity to those struggling with addiction.

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ANECDOTE

Author's Personal Addiction Story

Owen Flanagan recounts his 20-year addiction to alcohol and benzodiazepines and that he's been clean for 18 years.
He wrote the book from both scholarly interest and personal duty to explain addiction's lived experience.

INSIGHT

Addiction As A Sliding Scale

Flanagan rejects a single definition and treats addiction as a sliding scale based on DSM criteria.
He ties severe addiction to multiple DSM symptoms rather than mere tolerance or dependence.

INSIGHT

Prefer Disorder Over Classic Disease

Flanagan prefers calling addiction a disorder linked to self-control failures rather than a classic disease.
He notes no single anatomical brain lesion explains addiction and emphasizes impaired agency.

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Dr. Owen Flanagan is James B. Duke Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Duke University. His work is in philosophy of mind and psychiatry, ethics, moral psychology, and cross-cultural philosophy. He is the author of several books, including What Is It Like to Be an Addict?: Understanding Substance Abuse.

In this episode, we focus on What Is It Like to Be an Addict? We first discuss what addiction is, and the concepts of disease, disorder, and dysfunction. We talk about social stigma and whether it works in fighting against addiction. We discuss whether addicts can stop being addicts. We talk about subjective realism, and why a subjective account of addiction is important. We also talk about willing, unwilling, and resigned addicts, and whether addicts are responsible for their own behavior. Finally, we talk about treatments for addiction.

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