Addiction In America

All across the United States, individuals, families, communities, and health care systems are struggling to cope with substance use, misuse, and substance use disorders. Substance misuse and substance use disorders have devastating effects, disrupt the future plans of too many young people, and all too often, end lives prematurely and tragically. Substance misuse is a major public health challenge and a priority for our nation to address. The effects of substance use are cumulative and costly for our society, placing burdens on workplaces, the health care system, families, states, and communities. The Report discusses opportunities to bring substance use disorder treatment and mainstream health care systems into alignment so that they can address a person's overall health, rather than a substance misuse or a physical health condition alone or in isolation. It also provides suggestions and recommendations for action that everyone-individuals, families, community leaders, law enforcement, health care professionals, policymakers, and researchers-can take to prevent substance misuse and reduce its consequences.

Departing from the scholarly treatment of addiction as a form of rhetoric or discursive formation, Wasted: Performing Addiction in America focuses on the material, lived experience of addiction and the ways in which it is shaped by a ‘metaphor of waste’, from the manner in which people describe the addict, the experience of inebriation or his or her systematic exclusion from various aspects of American culture. With analyses of scientific and popular cultural texts such as novels and films, scholarly or medical models of addiction, reality television, TV drama, public health and anti-addiction campaigns, and the lives of celebrities who struggled with addiction, this book recovers the sense of materiality in which the experience of substance abuse is anchored, revealing addiction to be a set of socio-cultural practices, historically-contingent events and behaviours. Exploring the ways in which addiction as an identity construct, as a social problem, and as a lived experience is always and already circumscribed by the metaphor of waste, Wasted: Performing Addiction in America advances the idea that addiction constitutes a site of social control beyond the individual, through which American citizenship is regulated and the ‘nation’ itself is imagined, demarcated, and contained. As such, it will appeal to scholars of popular culture, cultural and media studies, performance studies, sociology and American culture.

Based on the innovative premise that addiction is not limited to drugs or alcohol, but is truly about the over-the-top, out-of-control lifestyles that have detached Americans from each other and their spiritual Connections (with a capital “C”). Dr. Carol Clark looks at addiction as something in and of itself, a condition rather than a substance abuse or behavioral problem. She then offers practical strategies for change that will ground and Connect the readers so they may find happiness and fulfillment in their daily lives.Covering this topic from the addictive process of disconnection - whether from use of technology or gambling, drugs or sex - through recovery and Connection, Clark's strategies provide the tools necessary to create fulfilling and truly intimate relationships in every facet of life by shifting the root of the addictive behavior patterns to a place of clarity and acceptance.Describing and defining how repetitive, addictive behavior affects the human brain and causes the disconnections we experience with our families, friends, and co-workers in a profound, eye-opening manner, Dr. Clark's new book takes current addiction theory down a new, groundbreaking path. Addict America: The Lost Connection uses simple, personal language to make the complexity of the condition and the human brain understandable. Focused on the systemic nature of the problem, this book is a tour de force of personal change, offering instruction on how addictions fracture Connections in daily life and then providing solutions on how to rebuild them from within for maximum effect.

America Anonymous is the unforgettable story of eight men and women from around the country -- including a grandmother, a college student, a bodybuilder, and a housewife -- struggling with addictions. For nearly three years, acclaimed journalist Benoit Denizet-Lewis immersed himself in their lives as they battled drug and alcohol abuse, overeating, and compulsive gambling and sexuality. Alternating with their stories is Denizet-Lewis's candid account of his own recovery from sexual addiction and his compelling examination of our culture of addiction, where we obsessively search for new and innovative ways to escape the reality of the present moment and make ourselves feel "better." Addiction is arguably this country's biggest public-health crisis, triggering and exacerbating many of our most pressing social problems (crime, poverty, skyrocketing health-care costs, and childhood abuse and neglect). But while cancer and AIDS survivors have taken to the streets -- and to the halls of Congress -- demanding to be counted, millions of addicts with successful long-term recovery talk only to each other in the confines of anonymous Twelve Step meetings. (A notable exception is the addicted celebrity, who often enters and exits rehab with great fanfare.) Through the riveting stories of Americans in various stages of recovery and relapse, Denizet-Lewis shines a spotlight on our most misunderstood health problem (is addiction a brain disease? A spiritual malady? A moral failing?) and breaks through the shame and denial that still shape our cultural understanding of it -- and hamper our ability to treat it. Are Americans more addicted than people in other countries, or does it just seem that way? Can food or sex be as addictive as alcohol and drugs? And will we ever be able to treat addiction with a pill? These are just a few of the questions Denizet-Lewis explores during his remarkable journey inside the lives of men and women struggling to become, or stay, sober. As the addicts in this book stumble, fall, and try again to make a different and better life, Denizet-Lewis records their struggles -- and his own -- with honesty and empathy.

"This is the remarkable story of America's personal and instituional responses to alcoholism and other addictions. It is the story of mutual aid societies: the Washingtonians, the Blue Ribbon Reform Clubs, the Ollapod Club, the United Order of Ex-Boozers, the Jacoby Club, Alcoholics Anonymous and Women for Sobriety. It is a story of addiction treatment institutions from the inebriate asylums and Keeley Institutes to Hazelden and Parkside. It is the story of evolving treatment interventions that range from water cures and mandatory sterilization to aversion therapies and methadone maintenance. William White has provided a sweeping and engaging history of one of America's most enduring problems and the profession that was birthed to respond to it" -- BACK COVER.

A guide to the techniques and analysis of clinical data. Each of the seventeen sections begins with a drawing and biographical sketch of a seminal contributor to the discipline. After an introduction and historical survey of clinical methods, the next fifteen sections are organized by body system. Each contains clinical data items from the history, physical examination, and laboratory investigations that are generally included in a comprehensive patient evaluation. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR