Not a Disease: Rethinking Addiction in the Heart of America's Overdose Crisis

A bracing—and compassionate—challenge to the idea of addiction as a disease.

From a leading psychiatrist at the Yale School of Medicine and the medical director of a methadone clinic in Washington, DC.

Ask someone why they got a brain tumor. They won’t know. But ask someone why they developed an addiction and they’ll have a personal, meaningful explanation. Why? Because unlike a brain tumor, addiction, Sally Satel argues, is not a disease, and in particular, not a brain disease. Dismantling ...