By Grand Rapids Public Library
You don’t have to look very far to find instances of the destruction addictions can wreck. There have been plenty of them close to home, but the worst was perhaps forty-five years ago when my uncle and next door neighbor killed his brother and then fatally shot himself one afternoon. I’ve always wondered if his long time drinking didn’t have a hand in that tragedy. But many people drink, use, and get violently angry, without completely destroying their life — what causes the change from “social drinker” to alcoholic? From party use to obsessional need? Why would nature play such a cruel trick on us?
Lewis’s book goes a long way to explaining how our own evolved biology may push a natural neurological process to such an extreme that it is counter-productive. Nature’s solutions to problems can be kind of like a pay day loan.
Books touting a “new” science or cure for drug addiction often fall short in the “new” department, and leave one feeling, “that’s it? that’s all you’ve got?”, but Lewis’s book doesn’t over-promise, and delivers a thoughtful, well-researched look at the biological and emotional systems underpinning addictions. A great book for the layperson, as it’s not patronizing or dull, nor overly technical. Lewis illustrates how the brain systems developed and work to help us survive as a species, but how they can become enmeshed in a harmful death spiral. The actual people whose stories illustrate the neurological slide lend a human face to the problem since they are so very much like us.
This is not a depressing or narrow-focus book, but rather a work that considers evolution, society and culture; with divergent strands such as the Canadian First Nations study undertaken by U. of British Columbia, with its findings on culture loss and addiction, and Carl Hart’s work on a similar theme of enriched environment and addictions. Is addiction a disease? Depends on what we want to call a disease, but whatever we call it, there’s no easy way out, but there is much hope.
