Memoirs of an Addicted Brain Paperback by Dr. Marc Lewis

Product Details

• Publisher: Anchor Canada (2012-10-02)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 320 pages
• ISBN-13: 9780385669276
• Item Weight: 294.84 grams
• Dimensions: 8.16 x 5.57 x 0.87 cm

Our minds are governed by a cycle of craving what we don't have, finding it, using it up or losing it, and then being driven by loss, need, desire, or insecurity to crave it all the more. This cycle is at the root of all addictions: addictions to drugs, drink, cigarettes, sex, love, soap operas, wealth, and wisdom itself. But why should this be so? Why are we so driven, often at great cost to ourselves? No one is better qualified to answer these questions than Dr. Marc Lewis. He is a distinguished neuroscientist. And, for many years, he was a drug addict himself, dependent on a long series of dangerous substances. His narrative moves back and forth between the long, dark, ultimately triumphant story of his relationship with drugs, and a revelatory analysis of what was going on in Marc's brain. He shows how drugs speak to the brain--itself designed to seek rewards and soothe pain--in its own language. He shows in detail the different neurological effects of a variety of powerful drugs, from oxycodone to heroin, from drink to love. This is the story of his journey, seen from the inside out.

About the Author

Marc Lewis, PhD, is a neuroscientist and recently retired full professor of developmental psychology, at the University of Toronto from 1989 to 2010, and at Radboud University in the Netherlands from 2010 to 2016. He is the author or co-author of over 50 journal publications in psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience, editor of an academic book on developmental psychology, and co-author of a book for parents. More recently he has written two books on the science and experience of addiction.