dominguezandrea23's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
jg12389's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
A really great read if you or someone you love struggles with substance abuse disorder. I will say that I really felt uncomfortable and disagreed with the way the book discussed obesity, over eating, and other food-related "addictions." Other than that I thought it was a very compassionate, science based look at addiction. I really loved his explanation of hard reduction. I found my focus wandering at some of the more dense parts but overall I think this is a really important book for people to read, even if you don't have first hand experience with addiction.
kailas's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
This book is incredible and absolutely everyone should read it. The supposed causality of genetics and their relation to habits or dispositions to mental conditions is pushed out of the window like a portable aircon, and the inexcusable failing of our system to support mothers throughout their pregnancy and early raising years is underlined brilliantly. As with so many aspects of the world we live in, the evidence presented in this work proves how capable we are of making decisions that support a healthy population and transition into caring communities despite the insistance of ignorant and criminal decisions made by those with sway for change (and accepted unwittingly by the unorganized masses).
On addiction at a personal level this is an excerpt I found very interesting and helpful from later in the book:
Justification is another form of judgement every bit as debilitating as condemnation. When we justify we hope to win the judges favour, or to hoodwink her. Justification connives to absolve the self of responsibility. Understanding helps us assume responsibility. When we don’t have to defend ourselves against others, or what’s more, against ourselves, we are open to seeing how things are. I become free to acknowledge the addiction the moment the fact of having behaved along addictive patterns no longer means that I’m a failure as a person- unworthy of respect, shallow and valueless. I can own it and see the many ways it sabotages my real goals in life.
On addiction at a personal level this is an excerpt I found very interesting and helpful from later in the book:
Justification is another form of judgement every bit as debilitating as condemnation. When we justify we hope to win the judges favour, or to hoodwink her. Justification connives to absolve the self of responsibility. Understanding helps us assume responsibility. When we don’t have to defend ourselves against others, or what’s more, against ourselves, we are open to seeing how things are. I become free to acknowledge the addiction the moment the fact of having behaved along addictive patterns no longer means that I’m a failure as a person- unworthy of respect, shallow and valueless. I can own it and see the many ways it sabotages my real goals in life.
milieubiquity's review against another edition
Love the read and information, the proof is there, it makes sense, it informs and it creates a platform for a progressive society to resolve the needless conversion of people to “things”
Thats the end of my review.
edit/ i must add that this was an extremely difficult read for me to get through, placing no blame (only admiration) on the author.
based on pure relativity:
based on pure relativity:
It has been disparaging to understand the concepts of this book as a US citizen. Knowing proven methods exist and are readily attainable to remedy the US made drug epidemic. The science is there, there proof is there, the systematic order which greatly reduces a society of countless crime, despair, lives and heartbreak —that formula has been written, and works in other countries.
Every single person I know has someone in their life they were close to or directly related to that has been lost to them by addiction, largely in part to the Sacklers. The war on drugs wasn’t meant to cure addiction, it was a dog whistle for privatization of prison which… well look at prison stats in the US, cross reference violent crimes vs possession and intent crimes with sentences, class and race.
Okay so oops i mean to speak about this book and its main message. I live in a city so liberal, a successful irreverent sketch comedy show was created and named after it. A bill was brought to the table which represented a lot of the key elements in this book. the city if course voted to use this system to help all its unhoused and addicts and people in need, only the bill was garbage, we voted on it, but we didn’t read it. It was only the first element of the first principle of this book. Our city has suffered greatly because of this, and now used as an excuse to step up the “war on drugs“ mentality bc it doesn’t work (again it doesn’t/didn’t work bc the law written was not passed as advertised)
The adverse effect will be used by archaic thinking politicians for decades, setting us back even further.
another reason this book is hard to read again is because there is such a simple compassionate and proven answer. But is now torn into people who think that Democrats ruined it or Republicans have no sense of humanity.
Should the argument lies who is wrong who is right? No, arguments should lie in how we fix a mistake.
unfortunately, the right or wrong argument will always win in the US, and the amazing principal set forward in this book won probably anytime in my lifetime. My heart goes out to all the people who have lost a friend, a loved one a mom, a daughter, a dad, a son, a husband, a wife, a partner, a best friend There will be more and there is no change i. sight.
again, my review is only on why it was hard for me to read this book. However, if everyone read this book, perhaps there would be no need for political polarization and we could actually unfictionalize the word bipartisan and solve the systemic problems that have been proven to be solvable - at least tour degree I have a huge percentage of people being saved.