Recover to Live: Kick Any Habit, Manage Any Addiction (Conversations with 100 of the World’s Top Treatment Experts)

Recover to Live by Christopher Kennedy Lawford is the author’s most recent book on addiction and recovery. It is an encyclopedic review of addictions and their treatment(s) written by a man who himself has been substance-free for 25 years and draws upon evidence and testimony from more than 100 scientists and clinicians. The book is written for the general public rather than those of us in academic and/or treatment circles. In this sense, it can be viewed as translational: taking much of what is known about addiction and recovery and writing it for the popular audience who might not find scientific work accessible. Rather than focusing only on alcoholism and recovery, Lawford takes the perspective that there are common denominators in many addictions, their causes, and treatments. Lawford discusses (and uses his experts to provide evidence to support his assertions) addiction as a brain disease that alters neurotransmitters, which in turn change behavior and cognition, and vice versa: If the brain can be trained to follow addictive pathways, then it can be retrained to change those pathways and to allow recovery. To make his point vivid, he identifies what he refers to as the “seven toxic compulsions”—alcohol use disorders, drug use disorders, eating disorders, gambling, hoarding, sex and pornography, and smoking (nicotine dependence)—and he examines their similarities, differences, and at times intersections, as well as similarities and differences in the treatments available. Viewed this way, for example, despite differences in presenting symptoms, the food addict and the compulsive gambler are both driven to compulsive self-destruction by brain chemistry. Lawford is explicit that the purpose of his book is to change attitudes and approaches to the treatment of addiction by emphasizing the common denominators of the “seven toxic compulsions” he identifies. Lawford’s book is both a catalogue of addiction compulsions and also a self-help guide in what to do about them. It contains 12 chapters and is divided into two parts: dependence and treatment. Part 1—”Is Your Unhealthy Habit Really Dependence?”—focuses on the nature of addiction, and