Reddit reviews Chasing the Scream: The Opposite of Addiction is Connection

A book was recommended to me and changed my perspective .. very informative from a historical perspective .. regardless of your position, this is worth a read ..

Chasing The Scream

https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Scream-First-Last-Drugs/dp/1620408902

This is gonna get buried, but I at least feel like I should try. I highly recommend reading the book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs.

In addition to interviewing just about every facet of the war on drugs (from law enforcement to drug dealers, drug kingpins, pedestrians caught in the crossfire, medical professionals, etc), the author dives deep into what really drives addiction in the first place. A lot of research on the psychological side, not the biochemical side, of addiction shows that the chemical component of drugs is just a small factor in actual addiction. While the chemical itself is a hook into an addiction driven lifestyle, it's mostly a lack of stimulus in life, a loss of purpose, lack of love and compassion, or just generally having a hole in life that leads to addiction. Addiction to drugs, sex, video games, etc is simply a convenient method for filling a void with a guaranteed satisfaction that is instantaneous, but short lived.

If you know an addict in your life, it's likely that their addiction to drugs isn't really a desire to continue doing drugs. It's a call for self-fulfillment. Show them love and care, give them the feeling of purpose and desirability. If they are unemployed, help them find a job that they can be passionate about.

This is the first few chapters (and the basis) of the book Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari

Everyone should read it. It was absolutely incredible.

Let's see:

For a wealth of data but a perspective of addiction which actually disagrees with what I say (though they are selective in their interpretation) there's this:

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674057272

The standard primer on neurobiology of addiction is this:

https://www.amazon.com/Neurobiology-Addiction-George-F-Koob/dp/0124192394/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1498869508&sr=8-2&keywords=drugs+koob

For a biopsychosocial perspective, there's this:

https://www.amazon.com/Drugs-Society-Human-Behavior-Carl/dp/0073529745/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1498869548&sr=8-4&keywords=drugs+and+society

By the same author but for a popular audience is this:

https://www.amazon.com/High-Price-Neuroscientists-Self-Discovery-Challenges/dp/0062015893/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498869576&sr=8-1&keywords=carl+hart

Another popular, critical book:

https://www.amazon.com/Realm-Hungry-Ghosts-Encounters-Addiction/dp/155643880X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498869570&sr=8-1&keywords=in+the+realm+of+hungry+ghosts

Another popular take:
https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Scream-First-Last-Drugs/dp/1620408902


For the history of junkies in the us:

https://www.amazon.com/Creating-American-Junkie-Addiction-Research/dp/0801883830/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498869591&sr=8-1&keywords=creating+the+american+junkie

A global one:

https://www.amazon.com/Pursuit-Oblivion-Global-History-Narcotics/dp/0393051897/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498869828&sr=8-1&keywords=in+pursuit+of+oblivion

Primer on Harm Reduction:

https://www.amazon.com/Harm-Reduction-Second-Pragmatic-Strategies/dp/1462502563/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1498869612&sr=8-2&keywords=harm+reduction

Primer on drugs and drug policy, quite neutral:

https://www.amazon.com/Drugs-Drug-Policy-Everyone-Needs-ebook/dp/B0054ID9UG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498869623&sr=8-1&keywords=drugs+kleiman

A book on the legalization of drugs:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0765701510/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Another, economic take, on legalization:

https://www.amazon.com/Drug-War-Crimes-Consequences-Prohibition/dp/0945999909

Sociology of drugs in the US:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199935904/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Psychopharmacology primer intro:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0878935347/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

A criticism of the concept of addiction:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0814747647/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Some more esoteric but interesting stuff on epigenetics, neuroscience etc:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0849373913/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1


A great book on the anthropology of drugs (this author also writes a lot of smaller papers too):

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6614135-righteous-dopefiend

It is Not a Rumor.

• The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade
  
• Chasing the Scream
  
• Dark Alliance: Movie Tie-In Edition: The CIA, the Contras, and the Cocaine Explosion
  
• The Big White Lie: The CIA and the Cocaine/Crack Epidemic
  
• Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America, Updated Edition
  
• Drug War Capitalism
  
  See Also:
  
  
• Propaganda by Edward Bernays
  
• Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years
  
• The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government
  
• Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops & the Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream -- CIA created the counterculture drug movement.
  
• The Open Conspiracy: What Are We to Do with Our Lives? --HG Wells

I highly recommend Johann Hari's book "Chasing the scream" about the topic: http://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Scream-First-Last-Drugs/dp/1620408902

Johann Hari is the guy from the TED talk and his research was the basis for the video OP posted.

If you're not actually an ill-informed 15 year old, you're certainly playing the part really well. Guess I'm taking the bait.

Browsing through the comments, it seems you're as misinformed as the typical anti-legalization crowd. Unfortunately, the facts are not on your side. Addiction has very little to do with chemical hooks, and very much so to do with the socioeconomic and psychological environment of the addict.

I recommend you start your re-education with this wonderful TED Talk by Johann Hari that does a stellar job of summarizing his excellent book Chasing The Scream.

Next, take a look at the statistics from Portugal who legalized all drugs in 2001 and redirected public funds formerly used to track down, prosecute, and punish non-violent drug users to instead rehabilitate, reform, and reintroduce addicts into productive society. The numbers just don't lie.

Finally, use your common sense. If these substances really were chemical menaces that take over the minds of everyone who touches them, then why didn't the war on drugs succeed? Why, instead, has it been a catastrophic failure? The logic is simple: Addiction is a reaction to uncomfortable life circumstances and can't simply be snuffed out by eliminating supply. If this weren't true, we'd have droves of heroin addicts exiting hospitals every year. As Johann Hari points out in the above linked talk, ordinary people are pumped full of morphine during surgeries in hospitals around the world. Why don't they stumble out as junkies? Because they have happy productive lives to return to. They have no need for the drug. The powerful "chemical hooks" in opiates don't take control of their minds. Instead, they readjust to life after the surgery by weaning themselves off painkillers and continuing on as if nothing had happened.

If you really are an ENTP, do yourself a favor and follow the evidence. Don't bat down opposing arguments with logical fallacies and poor reasoning. You might just learn something.

Happy Holidays :D

There is a book if you are interested, I just bought it:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1620408902?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Chasing the Scream is a new book about addiction and it's very good: http://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Scream-First-Last-Drugs/dp/1620408902/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

There's also the very large component of how we respond to drug addiction as a culture, falling very hard in the punishment as opposed to the treatment side of the equation. A lot of the negative components addict lifestyle (ignoring personal health) necessarily depends if the response from the society/government institutions. If addicts received prescriptions they wouldn't have the same cravings, wouldn't go at the same lengths to acquire drugs/drug money, wouldn't have to center their lives around getting the next fix-of marketing by introducing new clients to the market.<br />
Instead of examining all of these factors and responses complexly, the history of the public drug war leans on viewing drug addiction as something almost mechanical; that experiencing a high and having a chemical dependency is what drives people to lose themselves with little regard to social nets and personal support systems. If chemical addiction was that simple, a mere nicotine patch should resolve the upper majority of smoking addictions, yet those results aren't seen. Yet most public precepts (at least for a while now) have been shaped by the thinking that in goes the chemical and out goes a homeless drug addict that sort of deserves their misfortune because all the factors were in their control and ergo they should be punished with no regard to all the outcomes criminalization of more than just weed (though that especially) in removing an individual from the work force, paying for their time incarcerated, leaving a broken home, making it more difficult for convicts to get jobs thereafter, and so on.<br />
I realize I should step off my soap box; this is a particularly sore spot of a political opinion and I wrote too much to go back now so.. there you have it<br />

https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Scream-First-Last-Drugs/dp/1620408902

https://youtu.be/Ptokjgt2j3Y

https://youtu.be/ao8L-0nSYzg

https://youtu.be/ATaSk7NzXLc

https://youtu.be/wJUXLqNHCaI

https://youtu.be/pROfg1vOp4w

Some easily digestible bits from educational sources

I'm guessing that book would have a lot more info.

Here's a link to it if you're interested.

The 'addictive drug' line of thought is rather outdated though. Rat park and solders that have come back after consuming massive amounts of drugs have shown that it's not the drug, it's the issue. The drug is just a way of self-medicating.

If you haven't read it you might enjoy Chasing the Scream.