The Urge: Our History of Addiction - Paperback

by Carl Erik Fisher (Author)

As a psychiatrist in training fresh from medical school, Carl Erik Fisher found himself face-to-face with an addiction crisis that nearly cost him everything. Desperate to make sense of his condition, he turned to the history of addiction, learning that our society's current quagmire is only part of a centuries-old struggle to treat addictive behavior.

A rich, sweeping account that probes not only medicine and science but also literature, religion, philosophy, and public policy, The Urge introduces us to those who have endeavored to address addiction through the ages and examines the treatments that have produced relief for many people, the author included. Only by reckoning with our history of addiction, Fisher argues, can we light the way forward for those whose lives remain threatened by its hold.

The Urge is at once an eye-opening history of ideas, a riveting personal story of addiction and recovery, and a clinician's urgent call for a more nuanced and compassionate view of one of society's most intractable challenges.

Author Biography

Carl Erik Fisher is an addiction physician and bioethicist. He is an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University, where he works in the Division of Law, Ethics, and Psychiatry. He also maintains a private psychiatry practice focusing on complementary and integrative approaches to treating addiction. His writing has appeared in Nautilus, Slate, and Scientific American MIND, among other outlets. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his partner and son.