Please recommend some reading on addictions.

February 5, 2010 11:33 AM

Please recommend some reading on addictions. Specifications inside.

Two weeks after quitting cold turkey, I'm still experiencing powerful, begging-on-my-hands-and-knees-type cigarette cravings. I think abstracting my problem into something theoretical may actually help me. Hence the reading request.

I'm bored of the whole 'cigarettes activate dopamine reward centers in the brain' neurological reductionism thing. And I'm not looking for depressing true stories about people with addictions that are supposed to make me feel lucky not to be them.

What I want is some good old-fashioned psychoanalytic or fanciful academic theorizing. Freud must have written about addiction; can anyone point me to that writing? Also, anything Oliver Sacks-ish or anything that treats addiction as a delightful curiosity would be appreciated, even if it does look at things neurologically.

I realize my specs are vague. Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions.

posted by kitcat to Grab Bag (15 answers total)

Best answer: I've been really interested in getting my hands on a new book by Bruce Alexander (lead researcher on the "Rat Park" experiments from the early eighties), "The Globalisation of Addiction." There's a good review of it at nthposition, here...
posted by soviet sleepover at 11:48 AM on February 5, 2010 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: soviet sleepover - awesome.
posted by kitcat at 12:00 PM on February 5, 2010

Best answer: It's a novel, yes, but there is a ton of intellectual discoursing about addictions and rehabilitation in Infinite Jest. It's also over a thousand pages long, so maybe it'll give you something engrossing to keep your mind off the demon sticks.
posted by The Michael The at 12:14 PM on February 5, 2010 [2 favorites]

Read the EasyWay to Quit Smoking.
posted by xammerboy at 12:14 PM on February 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

I found this pretty interesting (and I'm not a Buddhist):

Let Go: A Buddhist Guide to Breaking Free of Habits

There's probably also some relevant content on the bulletin boards at everydaysystems.com.
posted by pete_22 at 12:23 PM on February 5, 2010

One of the canonical writings on habit is William James in The Principles of Psychology. The entire book is delightful reading.
posted by supremefiction at 2:22 PM on February 5, 2010

Best answer: Gabor Mate's book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts is about addiction, but it's not about cigarettes. I believe he talks about his addiction to buying classical music, among other things.
posted by Dr. Send at 2:23 PM on February 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

Seconding Allan Carr's Easy Way to Quit Smoking. I loathe self-help books, and it does indeed have a few too many exclamation points etc., but it helped me a lot.

2 weeks is nothing. Quitting is so, so, so hard. It DOES get better, honestly. Exercise the rage out -- I started weightlifting. And I stomped around town a lot.
posted by kestrel251 at 3:00 PM on February 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

This is completely not at all what you were asking for other than possibly 'whimsical', but have you ever read Quitters, Inc by Stephen King? It's a short story, quick read.
posted by 8dot3 at 3:42 PM on February 5, 2010

Response by poster: I know the suggestions are well-meant, but just to clarify: I am not looking for any kind of how-to-quit-your-addiction books. Rather, I'm looking for writing on addictions motivated by intellectual curiosity. This writing might try to answer questions like: What are addictions? What's most interesting about them? Novels count too.
posted by kitcat at 6:10 PM on February 5, 2010

Best answer: Read David Sedaris's "When You Are Engulfed In Flames". He Moved to Japan just to quit smoking.
posted by marimeko at 6:52 PM on February 5, 2010

Also this: nymag.com/news/features/43892/

This is definitely a depressing story, and for some reason it really helped me when I quit cold trukey. It illustrates how horrendous smoking withdrawal (if not Chantix, which I know nothing about) really is.
posted by marimeko at 7:00 PM on February 5, 2010

Seconding Gabor Mate's book. He was also interviewed on Democracy Now recently, which is linked in the FPP on Insite.
posted by gingerbeer at 7:37 PM on February 5, 2010

Thirding _The Easy Way To Stop Smoking_. You can easily credit Alan Carr with saving my life. I don't even want to smoke anymore - not even when I'm drunk.
posted by Afroblanco at 3:16 AM on February 6, 2010

Response by poster: Lest the people reading marimeko's link get discouraged about quitting smoking: what is described there is NOT nicotene withdrawal. It's the Chantix. I've taken it myself; you must be monitored while you're on it.
posted by kitcat at 9:48 AM on February 6, 2010