Addictions : Elements, History, Treatments, and Research

This book offers an accessible and comprehensive yet compact description of various forms of addiction, a disorder suffered by one in every 10 people in the United States.

Now thought of as a brain disorder, addiction affects millions of individuals, their families, and society at large. Written by experts who treat people with addiction, this text provides an up-to-date explanation of different addictions with respect to their history, treatments, and related research. Readers will understand the causes, complications, and treatment of addictions after reading this text.

Chapters cover the most serious addictions to drugs—alcohol, tobacco, opioids, stimulants, inhalants, and sedative hypnotics—and to highly addictive activity now recognized as a behavioral addiction, gambling. Research into these addictions and treatments for each specific addiction are reviewed. Chapters also consider rapidly changing issues related to addiction, including the increase in deaths due to the opioid epidemic, the evolving legal status of marijuana, and the use of hallucinogens in therapy. In addition to forms of addiction, the text addresses the neurobiology of addiction; brain pathways involved in addiction are just beginning to be understood.