The Heart of Addiction: A New Approach to Understanding and Managing Alcoholism and Other Addictive Behaviors

by Lance Dodes

Book Overview

Nobody has had an answer for why people with addictions continue to repeat them -- until now.

For more than twenty years, distinguished psychiatrist Dr. Lance Dodes has been successfully helping people master their addictions -- alcoholism, compulsive gambling, smoking, sexual addiction, and more with a radical approach. Dr. Dodes describes how all addictions have, at their heart, unrecognized emotional factors that explain:

Why we feel...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060958030
• ISBN13: 9780060958039
• Release Date: December 2002
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Spot on

This well written book explains how addictions work and helps the reader get to the root of their own addictive behaviors. He uses multiple case studies to emphasize how addictions have unrecognized emotional issues at their core. Ultimately, what angers you, or makes you feel helpless and frustrated, controls you. He helps those in his case studies identify their underlying frustration to make the necessary changes. Addictions aren’t hereditary or uncontrollable: the person must examine his/her own emotional factors to break the power those factors have over his/her actions. Excellent book! I have already ordered two additional copies for loved ones struggling with an addiction.

Refreshing approach

I found this book to be a refreshing new point of view of addiction and its causes. This is a great book whether you are just curious about addictions, want to help yourself or someone else. I left this out around my house and my teenager started reading it. He told me that he looks at the addictive process from a new prospective. This is also an easy reading book. It speaks in an easily understood language.

Finally!

What a brilliant book! Dr. Dodes crafts an incisive, kind and compelling thesis about what drives addictions. The book is filled to bursting with illuminating case studies, many of which will apply to yourself or loved ones. Whatever the problem, he's got you covered. The writing is pitch perfect and the thinking is lucid. Dodes is the first author I've read who is really on to something. This book should be required reading for anyone touched by addiction.

An incredible book -- highly recommended!

You do not have to see a therapist to benefit from this book! This is the best book I have ever read about addiction. I found it to be different from every other book I've ever seen about this topic, and it has been enormously helpful to me, which I have to say was a big surprise given my experience with other books. The author is thoughtful, fair-minded, and compassionate, and the case histories are wonderful. This book really is in a class by itself, because it talks about the emotional basis of addictions in a way that I haven't seen anywhere else. If you are involved with 12-step programs, I personally think this book is perfectly compatible with them. But whether you have been in 12-step programs or not, this is a must-read book. I highly recommend it to anyone with addictive or compulsive behavior.

Excellent

Even-handed discussion of AA and individual psychotherapy for addiction.Discusses alcohol and drug addictino, compulsive gambling, sex addiction and others.Says that people with addiction are NOT a separate species from the general population. Addiction is a problem that afflicts all kinds of people.Looks at what drives each individual person to drink/gamble/whatever. Anger at unrealized helplessness is a key, but the specifics vary from person to person.Each episode is a choice, but largely an unconscious choice, so in essence no choice.Understanding what happens at that moment the person decides to go ahead with the addictive act is what allows him or her to develop other choices.

Clinical Wisdom!

A must read for clinicians and those who imagine themselves to be "addicted" and therefore helpless. Dr. Dodes work is a major contribution to our developing understanding that "addiction" does not have to mean helplessness.