Not a dissertation, more like a discussion by the author about addiction. Written in a conversational style, not medical jargon. A great read for anyone since addiction does not discriminate. I highlighted and flagged pages all throughout the book, which is rare (I generally don't write in my books). This book should be required reading/coursework for all professions dealing with the public (law enforcement, medicine, health, case management, social work, public assistance, charity programs, etc).

Amazing book. The man is a genius. Obviously he says a lot of things that will make most people uncomfortable (because a vocal minority in our society still believes that cruelty and punishment are the only ways to "treat" addiction, despite the obvious evidence to the contrary that his book cites), but I wish I could give everyone I know a copy.

I only disagree with his recommendation of 12 step programs. My own personal experience with such programs is that their main goal is stripping you of your own identity and sense of self. They actively discourage people from thinking for themselves, using everything from snide mantras to actual psychological torture in order to accomplish that task. Seeing as how Dr. Mate's philosophy revolves around curing addiction by reconnecting with your true/inner self, as opposed to distancing yourself from it, I don't see how the AA chapter makes any sense in this work.

This book really opened my eyes to the suffering of others and a whole world that I didn't know anything about. I thought I was a compassionate person, but reading this I see how judgmental I've been, toward myself and others. While alcohol and illegal drugs have never held much interest for me personally, I now see addictive patterns in my own life and the destructive role that coffee, tv, Internet, toxic relationships, my own stress hormones, and even reading have played in my own life as I attempted to manage and avoid my disrupted internal state with external objects. I am excited about the future possibilities for taking better care of myself and taking a more understanding and helpful role in the lives of others.

This book rocks, it has informed so much of my life. I'm going into a medical school program and the amount of classes that assert addiction as a BIG topic in public health? BAGEL! aka ZERO! Great to have this liberal leaning perspective from a man who has been in the doldrums of this disease, and he also draws his own lines to illustrate that addiction isn't always meth or heroine, but that as humans, our systems are WIRED for addiction. It's not a matter of being addicted or not, its more about how our individual addictive patterns show up, and to what extent. I'm grateful to the friend who recommended this gem.

I highly recommend Dr. Gabor Mate's in-depth and insightful account of his work as a doctor specializing in treating individuals with serious substance addiction. This is the first book that I have read by this author and I am inclined to purchase his other books that tackle related but separate subjects. Dr. Mate does an excellent job of describing addiction as a process that is the result of environmental circumstances that infants and children endure. The author goes into a significant amount of detail describing the impact that these environmental circumstances have on brain chemistry and functioning, and how these early traumas evolve over time into full blown substance and behavioral addictions. Mate shares a generous number of case histories of his patients (in some cases the patients insisted on their real names being used instead of aliases) as a means to further illustrate the addiction process in action. Dr. Mate goes to great lengths to describe how the addiction process is responsible for every kind of addiction;,whether it be the serious substance abuse that his mostly indigent patients are struggling with as well as behavioral addictions, such as gambling addiction, sex addiction, shopping addiction, workaholism, and the many varieties of behavioral addictions that we've come to recognize. Dr. Mate opens up to describe how the addiction process unfolded in his own life, resulting in overachievement hunger, workaholism and an addiction to classical music CDs. The book is a comprehensive survey of the addiction process, including his critique of the "War on Drugs" and suggestions for more enlightened and evidence-based strategies for treatment. Even though the book contains a great deal of technical information, particularly in its excellent explanation of the brain chemistry and psychological features of the addiction process, Dr. Mate's prose style is very engaging and quite readable. For anyone seeking an up-to-date survey of recent research findings about the addiction process and/or a compassionate and honest overview of the individual and collective challenges presented by all kinds of addictions, this book is an excellent resource.