Escaping Addiction

Addiction is a terribly complex disease for all involved-the individual, their loved ones, and the treating providers. Escaping Addiction: Resetting the Brain distills detailed clinical information through accessible language and compelling illustrations to offer a comprehensive guidebook to everyone. It’s a much-needed resource for navigating the biology, pathology and sociology of a medical condition that impacts countless families every day. -- Patrick J. Kennedy, Founder, The Kennedy Forum, Former Congressman, New York Times bestselling co-author of A Common Struggle
Escaping Addiction: Resetting the Brain for Success by Patrick Bordeaux, MD, and George F. Koob, PhD, is a unique combination of fundamental science and clinical medicine that incorporates powerful real life stories of people suffering from various addictions. Brain anatomy and explanations of brain chemical imbalance of different addictions are delivered with helpful cartoon illustrations and in clear prose without medical jargon. With this knowledge both mental health professionals and people recovering from addiction and their families can easily understand new psychological tools and pharmaceutical treatments that modify specific brain targets including and most important stress triggers. This book offers a road to successfully rebooting the brain from addiction to recovery! -- Joan E. Roberts, PhD, professor of chemistry, Department of Natural Sciences, Fordham University
In this volume, Drs. Bordeaux and Koob combine their expertise in neuroscience and experience in clinical medicine to provide an up-to-date, science-based framework to help readers understand how the brain change in addiction, how these changes manifest themselves in patients, and how we can help patients overcome their brain disease. A framework is good not because it explains everything, but because what it explains is clear, valid and reliable, and makes sense, and because what it recommends work. Don’t rush through the book, read it deliberately, enjoy the stories, and keep it handy when dealing with difficult patients. This book is most helpful for physicians and other health care professionals caring for patients suffering from addictive disorders, but it will be of interest to anyone whose life is touched by addiction. In writing this book, the authors may not have discovered a path to fame and fortune, but they have found a great way to help save lives. -- Walter Ling, MD, author of Mastering the Addicted Brain, professor emeritus, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA