Escaping Addiction Resetting the Brain for Success

By Patrick Bordeaux and George F. Koob, illustrated by Melanie Baillairge

The key to escape addiction is to deconstruct the intense pleasure memories linked to it and to create new memories of happiness with others. This book presents helpful tools to accomplish this mission. Our goal is to motivate patients to change their operating mode, give hope to their families and improve the work of those taking care of them.

Addiction is a worldwide curse that seems to be growing in seriousness on a yearly basis. While to the general public addiction may seem almost inescapable, the truth is that there are solutions to overcoming the various addictions, though to date they seem more elusive than attainable. Escaping Addiction highlights the variety of causes of addiction alongside an array of useful tools anyone can use to break the cycle of addiction, whether it’s to alcohol, drugs, food, or video games. The seeds of addictive behavior are often planted in childhood then fed to grow over years of the input and reward cycle. Detaching the rewards from the addictive input is key to breaking the habits that keep us addicted. Here, the authors present the variety of treatments—from medications to therapeutic approaches—that can help. Offering a better understanding of the mechanisms of addiction, this book can help anyone struggling with addiction to unravel it in their own lives.

Patrick Bordeaux, MD, is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Faculty of Medicine Université Laval in Quebec City, Canada, and practices Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in Quebec.

George Koob, PhD, has been Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) since 2014.

Presents a variety of effective tools to break the cycle of addiction.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

October 2023

296 pages

31 illustrations

Hardback 978 1 5381 8074 7 eBook

978 1 5381 8075 4

Self-Help • Substance Abuse & Addictions / General