Marc Lewis's Blog, page 9

Evolution, suffering, and addiction — nobody said it was easy

The relationship between addiction and emotional anguish — primarily anxiety and depression — is well known. When we look for root causes of addiction, we inevitably ask why so many people are suffering. Here I reflect a bit, and link to a mind-blowing video, on suffering and evolution. Why is it so hard? Why is […] (Read the rest.)

Addiction as choice — responsibility without blame

…by Hanna Pickard… Hanna is one of several addiction researchers who wrote commentaries about my book and my theory of addiction. Here she explains how we can view addiction as guided by choice without the extra baggage of blame, shame, and stigma. Following are segments of her revised commentary, which can be seen in full […] (Read the rest.)

Fake news: The local channel is the most dangerous

…by Matt Robert… We interrupt this broadcast for an important announcement from the fake news channel.  If you haven’t already heard, you are a worthless piece of shit who doesn’t have any business having a happy life, so you should just give up, say fuck it and use. You should just give up and settle […] (Read the rest.)

Recognizing the brain’s role in addiction

As neuroscience explodes with new ideas, new technologies, and new findings, ordinary people have a hard time absorbing the information that emerges. We are learning more details about networks in the cortex responsible for different kinds of thinking, reflecting, observing, and we know about regions lying beneath the cortex responsible for emotion and motivation. What […] (Read the rest.)

The slide of time and addictive cravings

I’ve written about the benefits of stretching your sense of yourself outward, freeing it from the repetitive, stagnant “now” of addiction, extending it all the way from a distant but familiar past to a wished-for future. But how can we turn this abstract idea into an exercise, a therapeutic method, for recovery, for whatever you […] (Read the rest.)

Choice isn’t simple

Some people say that addiction is not a choice, it’s a disease. As you know, I’m not one of them. But even those of us who believe in choice ask how much volition (intention or will) is involved in the choice to use or not. I think that choice is a lot more complicated than […] (Read the rest.)

Is addiction one thing or many things?

Hi again. My work was recently criticized (politely) by a respected philosopher — Owen Flanagan — who specializes in the study of addiction. Here is a very nice article of his, on the topic of addiction and shame. His point was that the word “addiction” is an umbrella term used to refer to many distinct […] (Read the rest.)

What gets you sober — God or your neurons?

…by Lisa Martinovic… There’ve been times during the life of this blog that the Great 12-Step Snowball Fight has erupted — as is typical for any blog, podcast, or article on addiction. I’m not a fan of AA, but I’m not a 12-step basher either. I like to keep an open mind, and I thought […] (Read the rest.)

Happy New Year — Let’s hope

Hi guys…I’ve missed you. I’ve missed putting up regular posts for the last couple of months and I’ve kept mostly out of the discussions and debates in the comment sections….but scanned them enough to see that you are still in top form. I encourage all readers to take a look at the comments on the […] (Read the rest.)

Addiction as habit formation — Part 2: the details

An “attractor” is really just a description of how a system (e.g. a person, a person’s brain) behaves — how it looks from outside. Here, in the second half of the article (revised), I look at the underlying mechanisms that explain why addiction works as an attractor — why it behaves the way it does. […] (Read the rest.)