New Books in Drugs, Addiction and Recovery

Even after a decades-long opioid overdose crisis, intense controversy still rages over the fundamental nature of addiction and the best way to treat it. With uncommon empathy and erudition, Carl Erik Fisher draws on his own experience as a clinician, researcher, and alcoholic in recovery as he traces the history of a phenomenon that, centuries on, we hardly appear closer to understanding—let alone addressing effectively. As a psychiatrist-in-training fresh from medical school, Fisher was soon face-to-face with his own addiction crisis, one that nearly cost him everything. Desperate to make sense of the condition that had plagued his family for generations, he turned to the history of addiction, learning that the current quagmire is only the latest iteration of a centuries-old story: humans have struggled to define, treat, and control addictive behavior for most of recorded history, including well before the advent of modern science and medicine. A rich, sweeping account that probes not only medicine and science but also literature, religion, philosophy, and public policy, The Urge: Our History of Addiction (Penguin, 2022) illuminates the extent to which the story of addiction has persistently reflected broader questions of what it means to be human and care for one another. Fisher introduces us to the people who have endeavored to address this complex condition through the ages: physicians and politicians, activists and artists, researchers and writers, and of course the legions of people who have struggled with their own addictions. He also examines the treatments and strategies that have produced hope and relief for many people with addiction, himself included. Only by reckoning with our history of addiction, he argues—our successes and our failures—can we light the way forward for those whose lives remain threatened by its hold. The Urge is at once an eye-opening history of ideas, a riveting personal story of addiction and recovery, and a clinician’s urgent call for a more expansive, nuanced, and compassionate view of one of society’s most intractable challenges.Carl Erik Fisher is an addiction physician and bioethicist. He is an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University, where he works in the Division of Law, Ethics, and Psychiatry. He also maintains a private psychiatry practice focusing on complementary and integrative approaches to treating addiction.Thomas Kingston is currently a Huayu Enrichment Scholar, studying Mandarin Chinese at National Cheng Kung University, as he finds himself in post MPhil and pre PhD limbo. He holds an MA in Pacific Asian Studies from SOAS, University of London and an MPhil in Philosophy from Renmin University of China. His research interests focus on the political and intellectual histories of nationalism(s), imaginaries and colonialism in the East and Southeast Asian context. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/drugs-addiction-and-recovery

Dead Weight: A Memoir in Essays (Northwestern UP, 2022) chronicles the improbable turnaround of a drug smuggler who, after being sentenced to eight years in state prison, returned to society to earn a PhD in creative writing and become the only tenured professor in the United States with seven felony convictions. Randall Horton's visceral essays highlight the difficulties of trying to change one's life for the better, how the weight of felony convictions never dissipates.The memoir begins with a conversation between Horton and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man statue in New York City. Their imagined dialogue examines the psychological impact of racism on Black men and boys, including Horton's separation from his mother, immediately after his birth, in a segregated Alabama hospital. From his current life as a professor and prison reformer, Horton looks back on his experiences as a drug smuggler and trafficker during the 1980s-1990s as well as the many obstacles he faced after his release. He also examines the lasting impact of his drug activity on those around him, reflecting on the allure of economic freedom and the mental escapism that cocaine provided, an allure so strong that both sellers and users were willing to risk prison. Horton shares historical context and vivid details about people caught in the war on drugs who became unsuspecting protagonists in somebody else's melodrama.Lyrical and gripping, Dead Weight reveals the lifelong effects of one man's incarceration on his psyche, his memories, and his daily experience of American society.Dr. Horton is a Professor of English at the University of New Haven. Jay Shifman is a vulnerable storyteller, a stigma-destroying speaker, and the founder of Choose Your Struggle podcast. A guy in long-term recovery, Jay is dedicated to ending stigma and promoting fact-based education around Mental Health, Substance Misuse & Recovery, and Drug Use & Policy. You can learn more about Jay at his links here.For more information, visit: https://jay.campsite.bio/ or find him on your favorite social media platform. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/drugs-addiction-and-recovery

The first book on alcohol in pre-modern India, James McHugh's An Unholy Brew: Alcohol in Indian Religion and History (Oxford UP, 2021) uses a wide range of sources from the Vedas to the Kamasutra to explore intoxicating drinks and styles of drinking, as well as sophisticated rationales for abstinence found in South Asia from the earliest Sanskrit written records through the second millennium CE.Raj Balkaran is a scholar, educator, consultant, and life coach. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/drugs-addiction-and-recovery

Kile M. Ortigo's Beyond the Narrow Life: A Guide to Psychedelic Integration and Existential Exploration (Synergetic Press, 2021) addresses major issues that arise from the psychospiritual and therapeutic use of psychedelics. It describes a core structure that psychedelic journeys exhibit, and share, with classic mythologies; religious traditions; and spiritual practices. Its method is to integrate findings from cognitive-behavioral therapy, Jungian depth psychology, existential philosophy, compassion and mindfulness practices, comparative mythology, pop culture, film, and scientific understandings of the cosmos. The book also includes exercises designed to guide readers through the profound questions raised by diverse individual journeys of change and growth. Steve Beitler’s work in the history of medicine focuses on how pain has been understood, treated, experienced, and represented. Recently published articles examined the history of opiates in American football and surveyed the history of therapeutic drugs. He can be reached at noelandsteve@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/drugs-addiction-and-recovery

According to the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics, since 2000, the United States has experienced over 700,000 deaths due to drug overdose. Addiction and substance use disorders are at the root of this enormous loss, and about half of people who struggle with substance use disorder will experience some mental health disorder during their life. And vice versa—many individuals struggling with mental health disorders also struggle with various forms of addiction.Carl Erik Fisher, author of The Urge: Our History of Addiction (Penguin Press, 2022), has expertise in law, ethics, and policy related to psychiatry and neuroscience. His personal struggle with addiction in combination with his professional expertise converges to help us understand the forces that have shaped addiction throughout our history. On this episode of POTC, Carl and Yael discuss the social contingencies and historical contexts that lead to addiction, substance use disorder, and co-morbid mental health issues. Join us in this episode to learn more about commonly held beliefs about addiction, prescribers’ blind spots to certain medications, and much much more! Yael Schonbrun is a licensed clinical psychologist who wears a number of professional hats: she a small private practice specializing in evidence-based relationship therapy, she’s an assistant professor at Brown University, and she writes for nonacademic audiences about working parenthood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/drugs-addiction-and-recovery

Ben Westhoff is an award-winning investigative journalist whose best-selling 2019 book Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic (Grove Press, 2019), was one of the first to take fentanyl seriously as both a social phenomenon and a national threat. Since its release, Westhoff has become a policy expert, advising top government officials on the fentanyl crisis, and continuing to follow the story on his Substack account. The author of two previous nonfiction books and numerous articles in outlets like the Atlantic, The Guardian, and the Wall Street Journal, Westhoff’s fourth book, Little Brother: Love, Tragedy, and My Search for the Truth comes out this spring.Emily Dufton is the author of Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America (Basic Books, 2017). A drug historian and writer, her second book, on the development of the opioid addiction medication industry, is under contract with the University of Chicago Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/drugs-addiction-and-recovery

Kenneth Anderson is the author of Strychnine and Gold, a two-volume history of the “untold story of addiction treatment in the United States.” Anderson knows what he’s talking about when he discusses substance use and treatment–he holds multiple master’s degrees, including one in psychology and substance use disorders, and has worked in the field of addiction treatment for over twenty years as the founder and CEO of the HAMS Harm Reduction Network, the first worldwide harm reduction-based support group specifically for people who drink alcohol. The author of two previous books about alcohol harm reduction, Anderson is a regular presenter at the National Harm Reduction Conference, and has been a guest speaker at the Harlem Hospital Harm Reduction Program, the New School for Social Research, NYU, and the Drug Policy Conference, among other venues.Emily Dufton is the author of Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America (Basic Books, 2017). A drug historian and writer, her second book, on the development of the opioid addiction medication industry, is under contract with the University of Chicago Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/drugs-addiction-and-recovery

Police put Eric Garner in a fatal chokehold for selling cigarettes on a New York City street corner. George Floyd was killed by police outside a store in Minneapolis known as “the best place to buy menthols.” Black smokers overwhelmingly prefer menthol brands such as Kool, Salem, and Newport. All of this is no coincidence. The disproportionate Black deaths and cries of “I can’t breathe” that ring out in our era — because of police violence, COVID-19, or menthol smoking — are intimately connected to a post-1960s history of race and exploitation.In Pushing Cool: Big Tobacco, Racial Marketing, and the Untold Story of the Menthol Cigarette (U Chicago Press, 2021), Keith Wailoo tells the intricate and poignant story of menthol cigarettes for the first time. He pulls back the curtain to reveal the hidden persuaders who shaped menthol buying habits and racial markets across America: the world of tobacco marketers, consultants, psychologists, and social scientists, as well as Black lawmakers and civic groups including the NAACP. Today most Black smokers buy menthols, and calls to prohibit their circulation hinge on a history of the industry’s targeted racial marketing. In 2009, when Congress banned flavored cigarettes as criminal enticements to encourage youth smoking, menthol cigarettes were also slated to be banned. Through a detailed study of internal tobacco industry documents, Wailoo exposes why they weren’t and how they remain so popular with Black smokers.James West is a historian of race, media and business in the modern United States and Black diaspora. Author of "Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr.: Popular Black History in Postwar America" (Illinois, 2020), "A House for the Struggle: The Black Press and the Built Environment in Chicago" (Illinois, 2022), "Our Kind of Historian: The Work and Activism of Lerone Bennett Jr. (Massachusetts, 2022). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/drugs-addiction-and-recovery

Amy C. Sullivan explores the complexity of America’s opioid epidemic through firsthand accounts of people grappling with the reverberating effects of stigma, treatment, and recovery. Taking a clear-eyed, nonjudgmental perspective of every aspect of these issues—drug use, parenting, harm reduction, medication, abstinence, and stigma—Opioid Reckoning: Love, Loss, and Redemption in the Rehab State (U Minnesota Press, 2021) questions current treatment models, healthcare inequities, and the criminal justice system.The oral histories associated with Opioid Reckoning will be archived with the University of Minnesota's Social Welfare History Archives. Learn more at the Minnesota Opioid Project.Claire Clark is a medical educator, historian of medicine, and associate professor in the University of Kentucky’s College of Medicine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/drugs-addiction-and-recovery

In Empires of Vice: The Rise of Opium Prohibition across Southeast Asia (Princeton University Press, 2020) Diana Kim situates the regulation of vice at the heart of colonial state building. Through a layered comparison of opium prohibition in Burma, Malaya and Vietnam she shows how petty bureaucrats told stories to one another about opium that incrementally transformed into official problems, which those same bureaucrats and their successors had to solve. Prohibition did not come through grand decisions and decisive moments in old European metropoles and new international organizations so much as it did via accumulated observations and interpretations by thousands of “bad ethnographers” in the British and French imperial civil services.Empires of Vice won the Giovanni Sartori Best Book Award, Qualitative Methods Section of the American Political Science Association, and got honourable mentions from the committees for the Charles Taylor Book Award, Interpretive Methodologies and Methods section of APSA, and the Allan Sharlin Memorial Award, Social Science History Association.This is the fifth episode of New Books in Interpretive Political and Social Science to featuring an exemplary monograph in interpretive political or social science. The others are Natasha Behl on Gendered Citizenship, Lisa Wedeen on Authoritarian Apprehensions, James Scott on Against the Grain, and Sarah Wiebe on Everyday Exposure. To download or stream episodes in the series, please subscribe to our host channel: New Books in Political Science.Nick Cheesman is an associate professor in the Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University. He is a committee member of the Interpretive Methodologies and Methods group and co-convenes the Interpretation, Method, Critique network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/drugs-addiction-and-recovery