Further Reading — Chapter 33: Addiction, Compulsion, and Recovery

Foundational Academic Sources

Volkow, N. D., & Li, T. K. (2004). Drug addiction: The neurobiology of behaviour gone awry. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 5(12), 963–970. Nora Volkow's accessible overview of the neuroscience of addiction — covering the mesolimbic dopamine system, sensitization, tolerance, and the role of the prefrontal cortex. One of the clearest primary-source expositions of the brain disease model from its leading researcher. Freely available through many libraries.

Miller, W. R., & Rollnick, S. (2012). Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change (3rd ed.). Guilford Press. The definitive clinical text on motivational interviewing — covering the theoretical foundations, the four core processes (engaging, focusing, evoking, planning), and the evidence base. The standard reference for practitioners and advanced readers.

Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D. F., Spitz, A. M., Edwards, V., ... & Marks, J. S. (1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245–258. The original ACE study demonstrating the dose-response relationship between childhood adversity and adult health outcomes — including substance use disorders. Essential for understanding why trauma history is the most important contextual factor in severe addiction.

Meyers, R. J., & Wolfe, B. L. (2004). Get Your Loved One Sober: Alternatives to Nagging, Pleading, and Threatening. Hazelden. The accessible companion to the CRAFT (Community Reinforcement and Family Training) approach — presenting the evidence-based communication and reward strategies for family members. More readable than the clinical text; directly applicable by non-clinicians.

Books for General Readers

Hari, J. (2015). Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs. Bloomsbury Publishing. Johann Hari's investigation of addiction and drug policy — covering the history of drug prohibition, the devastating consequences of criminalization, the rat park research, and the argument that connection is the antidote to addiction. Compelling narrative journalism; the social-environmental model of addiction is presented accessibly. Not a clinical text, but essential reading for anyone who wants to understand addiction at the policy and cultural level as well as the individual level.

Sheff, D. (2008). Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction. Houghton Mifflin. A father's memoir of his son's methamphetamine addiction — frank, compassionate, and free of the sentimentality that undermines many addiction memoirs. The family's experience illustrates the reorganization of the family system, the helplessness of bystanders, and the non-linear nature of recovery. Read alongside Nic Sheff's companion memoir Tweak for both perspectives.

Fletcher, A. M. (2013). Inside Rehab: The Surprising Truth About Addiction Treatment — and How to Get Help That Works. Viking. An investigation into the U.S. addiction treatment industry — what the evidence says, what happens in actual treatment settings, and what to look for in effective programs. Useful for anyone navigating treatment options for themselves or a family member.

Gabor Maté, G. (2008). In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. North Atlantic Books. A physician's account of treating patients with severe addiction in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside — including their almost universally traumatic histories and the psychosocial context of severe addiction. Integrates neuroscience with deep compassion and the trauma-informed perspective. The most important book for understanding why addiction is, at the individual level, a response to pain — and what treatment needs to address as a result.

Carr, A. (2015). Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking (revised ed.). Arcturus Publishing. Despite its cheesy title, Allen Carr's approach to smoking cessation is based on a specific insight about the nature of nicotine addiction — that much of the difficulty of quitting is psychological (the belief that cigarettes provide genuine relief) rather than purely pharmacological. Used successfully by millions; worth understanding as an example of how reframing the function of a substance can change the motivation to use.

On Medication-Assisted Treatment

McLellan, A. T. (2017). Substance misuse and substance use disorders: Why do they matter in healthcare? Transactions of the American Clinical and Climatological Association, 128, 112–130. A clear clinical review of substance use disorder as a chronic health condition — covering the evidence for medication-assisted treatment, the evidence against the acute-care model, and the implications for healthcare system design. Addresses the stigma against MAT directly.

On Behavioral Addictions

Alter, A. (2017). Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked. Penguin Press. Adam Alter's analysis of how technology products and social media platforms deploy the principles of behavioral psychology to produce compulsive use — covering variable-ratio reinforcement schedules, the attention economy, and the features of behavioral addiction more broadly. Essential for understanding why technology use develops a compulsive quality even in people with no substance use problems.

On Recovery

White, W. L. (2009). The Mobilization of Community Resources to Support Long-Term Addiction Recovery: A Primer for Addiction Counselors and Recovery Coaches. Great Lakes Addiction Technology Transfer Center. A practical overview of recovery management approaches — the shift from acute treatment to long-term recovery support. Technical but accessible; the chronic disease management framework is clearly articulated.

The Character Reading Lists

Jordan is working through: - Irresistible (Alter) — reading it through the lens of his work behavior and the compulsive checking; annotating the sections on variable-ratio reinforcement with observations from his own experience; shared the chapter on the attention economy with Dev - In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts (Maté) — Dr. Nalini recommended it after the session about the compulsive edge; reading the early chapters about the Downtown Eastside slowly; finding Maté's compassion both challenging and clarifying

Amara is working through: - Chasing the Scream (Hari) — reading it partly for the policy context (her clinical work sits at the intersection of individual and systemic factors) and partly for Hari's treatment of connection as the antidote; the Vietnam veterans chapter circled and annotated - Beautiful Boy (Sheff) — brought it to therapy; Dr. Liang's observation: "Reading the father's perspective may be giving you a language for what it was like to watch Grace from the outside, looking in." Amara: "I hadn't thought of it that way." She finished it in four days.