Habits: Remaking Addiction

by Suzanne Fraser, D. Moore, H. Keane

What is 'addiction'? What does it say about us, our social arrangements and our political preoccupations? Where is it going as an idea and what is at stake in its ongoing production? Drawing on ethnographic research, interviews and media and policy texts, this book traces the remaking of addiction in contemporary Western societies.

281 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Tomás Narvaja · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book on how addiction is made and remade in various ways, particularly with regards to methamphetamine, alcohol, and food addiction and the collateral realities constituted and re-informed as a consequence. She suggests rethinking of addiction as a habit, and points out how many reality itself is constituted by habits. It can get a little repetitive, but the authors point out the need for understanding the multiple ontologies and epistemologies of addiction and the flaws that emerge in not doing so. Their goal is not to come up with a solution or an alternative and one should not read this book with that expectation, but they do open up the possibilities of alternatives, and they do so very successfully.

[P.]

Read for the intro + chapter one for a history of substance use disorder - specifically for the normative assumptions that underline its diagnostic criteria and the influence of the brain disease model for shaping how dependence is conceived. The brain disease models' reliance on the reward drive (a simplified and generalizable model) expands addiction to other rewarding/pleasure seeking behavior - no longer the domain of illicit substances. The authors don't take their analysis this far but it has consequences of pathologizing all pleasure seeking behavior (hinted at in their analysis of food addiction) and justifying a myriad of of state intervention.