Illuminating reading for those seeking to understand the whos, hows, and wherefores of getting hooked.
What is it about our brains that causes us to crave things that are bad for us, and why are we experiencing an epidemic of addiction? The answers are joined—and, this book suggests, not always obvious.
Unusually among academic researchers, behavioral neuroscientist Grisel (Psychology/Bucknell Univ.) has had extensive experience with nearly every addictive substance imaginable; her account of her wayward early 20s, chasing one high after another, is harrowing. A lesson she learned early on provides the title: “there will never be enough drug, because the brain’s capacity to learn and adapt is basically infinite.” That is to say, feed the brain addictive substances, and that new normal yields an insatiable hunger for homeostasis. “The brain’s response to a drug,” writes the author, “is always to facilitate the opposite state; therefore, the only way for any regular user to feel normal is to take the drug.” The neurobiology of addiction is imperfectly and incompletely known, she writes; there is certainly a genetic component, while brain structures shape and reshape depending on what is passing through them. For instance, if cocaine is a kind of laser hitting a certain point, marijuana is “a bucket of red paint” that touches many neural centers with its feel-goodness. As for alcohol, suffice it to say that the “primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain” gets caught up in the process, which helps explain some of the stupider things people do when drunk. It also explains why in moderate doses, anxiety is quelled while in greater doses it is activated, going back to that homeostasis model. Grisel writes clearly and unsparingly about both her experiences and the science of addiction—tobacco and caffeine figure in, as well—making plain that there is still much that remains unknown or mysterious about the brain’s workings. In the end, she notes, much of our present culture, which shuns pain and favors avoidance, is made up of “tools of addiction."
Illuminating reading for those seeking to understand the whos, hows, and wherefores of getting hooked.Pub Date: Feb. 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54284-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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