"Mom, nobody wakes up one day and decides to be an addict." The stories contained in this book are about people from every walk of life, socioeconomic levels, religious and ethnic backgrounds whose lives were intertwined with people who didnt "decide to be an addict." They all share one common bond - living with, and loving an addicted person. Contained within the pages of this book are stories by bereaved parents who have suffered the ultimate loss: The loss of their precious child. Read how addiction, whether it be drugs, alcohol or gambling, destroys not only the addicted person, but their entire circle of friends and family. No one escapes the tentacles of addiction. Like an octopus it reaches its deadly arms around us and squeezes the very life out of all of us. Our society is affected in ways we never imagined. Read excerpts from middle school students on the peer pressures they face today. Read about "pharming" and other code words used by kids. Read the stories of parents who have gone through hell, sacrificing their very sanity trying to save their child. The profiles of these children will change your mind about what kind of people do drugs. GOOD KIDS DO DRUGS TOO! And theyre dying by the thousands from high profile celebrities to the boys and girls next door. It isnt always heroin or cocaine thats killing them. Prescription pill abuse is growing at an alarming rate and parents need to know about this.

Through the vivid, true stories of five people who journeyed into and out of addiction, a renowned neuroscientist explains why the "disease model" of addiction is wrong and illuminates the path to recovery. The psychiatric establishment and rehab industry in the Western world have branded addiction a brain disease. But in The Biology of Desire, cognitive neuroscientist and former addict Marc Lewis makes a convincing case that addiction is not a disease, and shows why the disease model has become an obstacle to healing. Lewis reveals addiction as an unintended consequence of the brain doing what it's supposed to do-seek pleasure and relief-in a world that's not cooperating. As a result, most treatment based on the disease model fails. Lewis shows how treatment can be retooled to achieve lasting recovery. This is enlightening and optimistic reading for anyone who has wrestled with addiction either personally or professionally.

Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker and The Boston Globe An authoritative, illuminating, and deeply humane history of addiction—a phenomenon that remains baffling and deeply misunderstood despite having touched countless lives—by an addiction psychiatrist striving to understand his own family and himself “Carl Erik Fisher’s The Urge is the best-written and most incisive book I’ve read on the history of addiction. In the midst of an overdose crisis that grows worse by the hour and has vexed America for centuries, Fisher has given us the best prescription of all: understanding. He seamlessly blends a gripping historical narrative with memoir that doesn’t self-aggrandize; the result is a full-throated argument against blaming people with substance use disorder. The Urge is a propulsive tour de force that is as healing as it is enjoyable to read.” —Beth Macy, author of Dopesick Even after a decades-long opioid overdose crisis, intense controversy still rages over the fundamental nature of addiction and the best way to treat it. With uncommon empathy and erudition, Carl Erik Fisher draws on his own experience as a clinician, researcher, and alcoholic in recovery as he traces the history of a phenomenon that, centuries on, we hardly appear closer to understanding—let alone addressing effectively. As a psychiatrist-in-training fresh from medical school, Fisher was soon face-to-face with his own addiction crisis, one that nearly cost him everything. Desperate to make sense of the condition that had plagued his family for generations, he turned to the history of addiction, learning that the current quagmire is only the latest iteration of a centuries-old story: humans have struggled to define, treat, and control addictive behavior for most of recorded history, including well before the advent of modern science and medicine. A rich, sweeping account that probes not only medicine and science but also literature, religion, philosophy, and public policy, The Urge illuminates the extent to which the story of addiction has persistently reflected broader questions of what it means to be human and care for one another. Fisher introduces us to the people who have endeavored to address this complex condition through the ages: physicians and politicians, activists and artists, researchers and writers, and of course the legions of people who have struggled with their own addictions. He also examines the treatments and strategies that have produced hope and relief for many people with addiction, himself included. Only by reckoning with our history of addiction, he argues—our successes and our failures—can we light the way forward for those whose lives remain threatened by its hold. The Urge is at once an eye-opening history of ideas, a riveting personal story of addiction and recovery, and a clinician’s urgent call for a more expansive, nuanced, and compassionate view of one of society’s most intractable challenges.

Addiction starts and ends in the brain. In this extraordinary book, discover scientific truths about this disease of stress that creates a real biological need for relief. Written in clear matter-of fact text supported by simple illustrations and stunning graphics, Jane Allen's understanding and knowledge come through these pages with an empathy that can only arise from personal experience. Whether trapped in the prison of addiction or caught up in the ripple effect, this information goes right to the source of this problem. This book offers help for those directly or indirectly affected, and offers astonishing insights into the chronic ""relapse"" condition of disinformation and denial.

I am truly blessed and honored that my God breathed on me, that my Christ Jesus spoke through me, that my Holy Spirit inspired me, and that I was chosen by the Trinity to be their disciple to write, My God Favored Me with My Twelve-Step Recovery Wishes. However, I boast not in myself but entirely in my Heavenly Father, in my Christ Jesus, and in my Holy Spirit, who all favored me and will favor you also if you will allow yourself to be their servant. I am a born-again Christian, and I thank my Heavenly Father for never giving up on me when I was living in the world because the lifestyle I was living could have killed me, but my God had other plans for my life. Thank you Heavenly Father for your unconditional love for me, for never giving up on me, and for giving me a second chance in life.

Sure to be the most advantageous volume to Pieces of the Puzzle, Volume 2 ¿ Our Reality is a spiritual quest for the truths to our existence. From validations of an unseen world to manifestations on multiple levels, Our Reality leads us all to a higher awareness and a destiny by design. Learn how others are consciously creating a reality of choice and opening up to the unlimited potential within. Turning dreams into reality is now much more than a wishful concept. Guided by Spirit and inspirational souls worldwide, we are reminded of our perfection and divine creativity. Join Trinda and those she meets along the way as they take the next step in a journey together and discover how both singularly and collectively, we are creating our reality.

Have you ever craved for a vacation from yourself, a parenthesis in the steady stream of your life? What does it take to lose it for a while, to have your life interrupted? We never cease to be who we are. We just forget. This is the story of a twenty-something woman, a self-described perpetual optimist, who moved to Los Angeles in search of her American Dream. While successfully recovering from an unexpected back surgery, she, against all odds, lets herself fall into that dark place that fails us all inside. One by one, she gives up on her promising career, financial stability and independence for the instant gratification of artificial bliss-that insatiable high. DisCOKEnnected is about more than drug addiction, it is a heartfelt incisive look at the struggle we all must overcome with our inner demons to ultimately reach spiritual happiness. Blending humor and compassion, it chronicles in a stream-of-consciousness style a woman's journey to self-rediscovery. It shows that only when we take ourselves apart can we see the pieces of ourselves. An uplifting story about hope and the realization that everything we search for is always already inside us-we merely become disconnected from it.