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Books about drug use & addiction?

Audio Terrorist

Audio Terrorist

Bluelighter
Joined
May 16, 2007
Messages
335
Does anyone know any good educational books about the psychology of human drug abuse and addiction. Why some people can be occasional users and why some people become addicted. Explaining why humans have been using drugs for thousands of years, spiritually and recreationally.

Also, does anyone know of career options open to work with people with addictions? And what kind of qualifications would you need?

I'm interested in going to university to get some qualifications so that I can have a bit of a career change.

I would rather get a qualification that could get me a career working with people that actually know what they are talking about though. I remember reading on this site (I think) that someone that went to an addiction clinic because he was withdrawing from a pretty heavy and long term GHB addiction only to be told that GHB is "Liquid Ecstasy" and you can't get addicted to Ecstasy so to just go home and sleep it off! That absolutely disgusted me when I read it. I couldn't believe that someone who's job it is is supposed to be to help people addicted to (a variety of) drugs doesn't have a clue what they are talking about.

Thank you for any replies!
 
Didn't Dr Drew write a book of that nature? I think it's called Cracked if I'm not mistaken.. *goes to look it up* Yeah here it is:

http://www.amazon.com/Cracked-Putting-Broken-Lives-Together/dp/0060096543

I don't agree with Dr. Drew on much, but I do think he's an intelligent guy. I'm not sure exactly what the book is about but that page should have some information if you're interested.
 
A million little pieces by james frey.
I liked this book.

Leaving dirty jersey, I forget the author its still on my shelf, was a decent read.
 
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I loved Million Little Pieces, but have to admit that it did bother me that James Frey published it as a memoir and not fiction as it ended up being. Regardless, it's a good read and made me think so I guess it doesn't really matter.

Another one is Broken by William Cope Moyers or for alcoholism, Dry by Augusten Burroughs.

Memoirs hold a soft spot in my heart. <3
 
MynameisnotDeja said:
Yeah, very good book indeed(million little pieces). I liked that it showed a path to success other than the typical 12 step journey.
Click to expand...

Yeh me too.

I Liked it enough to pick up a copy of my friend leonard which succeeded, AMLP.
really good book as well, highly recommend if you like AMLP.
 
I just started reading it yesterday, but Dry. by Augusten Burroughs is really great so far, good enough that I'm recommending it without having even finished it yet.

Actually it looks like someone else has mentioned it too, so yes, I am +1 with this suggestion f0 sh0.

Also, while the whole book isn't necessarily about drug addiction there is a fairly large amount of drug use mentioned throughout the book. The Seven Days of Peter Crumb by Jonny Glynn. It's spectacular, dark and disturbing... but spectacular.
 
Thank you for the recommendations people, I'll take a look into them. There are more than I was expecting, it looks like I'll have a fair few hours of reading to do :D

Cheers!
 
^PLEASE don't read A Million Little Pieces, its an utter distortion and basically a way of making cash from inventing stories. Almost every incident in it has been debunked. His drug use included.
 
Do a search in this for member "BlahblahBlah" Dude has an epic collection of fucked drug stories, mostly dealing with heroin.
 
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From Publishers Weekly
Novelist Brown (Lucky Town; Hot Wire; etc.) mines the explosive territory of his own harsh and complicated life in this gut-wrenching memoir. The youngest child of a mentally ill mother and an absent father, Brown (b. 1957) grew up in the shadow of Hollywood with two older siblings: a brother, a moderately successful actor until his suicide at 27, and a sister who also dreamed of acting but took her life at 44.

Brown's tales are harrowing: at five, he and his mother traveled from their San Jose home to San Francisco, where she set an apartment building ablaze. Arson couldn't be proven, but she was imprisoned for tax evasion. At nine, he shared his first drink and high with his siblings; when he was 12, a neighbor attempted to molest him; by 30 he was an alcohol- and cocaine-addicted writer-in-residence. During his marriage's early years, Brown often left his wife to feed his addictions, repeatedly promising her he'd reform. Desperate to fuel his writing career, he attempted screenwriting, but everything he pitched seemed too dark.

Brown's genius compels readers to sympathize with him in every instance. Juxtaposed with the shimmery unreality of Hollywood, these essays bitterly explore real life, an existence careening between great promise and utter devastation. Brown's revelations have no smugness or self-congratulation; they reek of remorse and desire, passion and futility. Brown flays open his own tortured skin looking for what blood beats beneath and why. The result is a grimly exquisite memoir that reads like a noir novel but grips unrelentingly like the hand of a homeless drunk begging for help.

http://www.amazon.com/Los-Angeles-Diaries-Memoir-P-S/dp/006052152X
 
Anything by William s burroughs but junky is great, if you don't know who he is he's a really old dude who was friendly with the beat poets and came from a rich family but decided he liked smack better and got into shit for a long time cos of drugs, he plays the old priest in drugstore cowboy, i wish he was my grandad.
On Augusten burroughs, for a long time his books were my favourite especially dry and his struggle with the booze along with the death of his boyfriend pighead but i have heard a lot of people say that most of it is bullshit and he is a fabricator, still good reads though.
 
Art Pepper - Straight Life

Iceberg Slim - Pimp

Tony O'Neill - Pray to the void

Jerry Stahl - Permanent Midnight

Mark Safranko - Lounge Lizard
 
The Heart of Addiction, by Lance Dodes, M.D.

I've read this book front to back several times and it's amazing. Not exactly the same vein as the other books here, but I like it, and it has some pretty interesting stories in it.
 
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