Damian Thompson - The Fix

This hypothesis might seem like a statement of the obvious. Actually, as Gossop says, the question of availability is often treated as a secondary factor, less important than any predisposition to a so-called ‘disease’.

Gossop identifies different dimensions of availability. There’s physical availability, obviously, but also psychological availability (whether someone’s personality, background and beliefs increases their interest in using particular drugs), economic availability (whether the drugs are affordable) and social availability (whether the social context encourages use of the drugs). In the case of Vietnam, he points out, many soldiers found that all the boxes were ticked. Troops in Thailand, by contrast, could easily get hold of heroin – but their lives were not in danger, they were free to move among a friendly population and their peers were not using it. Less than one per cent of military personnel took the drug. 18 Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

Availability doesn’t offer a comprehensive explanation for addiction, but it reminds us that we cannot hope to understand why people engage in addictive activities – be it shooting up heroin in the jungle or gorging on muffins in Starbucks – unless we take account of what that activity means in its social setting.

No one who has watched The Wire, the magnificent television epic of life in drug-saturated districts of Baltimore, can seriously propose that it depicts a black population afflicted by chronic disease. The characters in the show who smoke heroin do so, basically, because they live in districts where everyone does. If I lived there, I’d be a smack addict. Since I’m an addict, perhaps that goes without saying. But I have a sneaking feeling that even my local vicar would be hooked on the stuff.

Gossop, who has advised the British government on drug policy, is unusual among addiction experts for the bluntness with which he dismisses the disease theory. He describes addiction as a ‘habit’. That may sound less scary than an irreversible disease, but it isn’t. In a society overflowing with abundance, the implications of a habit of addiction driven by availability are every bit as alarming as those of a disease that strikes only individuals with malfunctioning brains.

This isn’t to deny that some people are naturally more vulnerable to addiction than others. And we can’t ignore recent discoveries in neuroscience, which show how the brain’s natural reward systems are being hijacked by newly available substances and gadgets. In the next chapter, we’ll look at what the brain does and doesn’t tell us about addiction.

But I want to end this chapter by stressing, yet again, the inadequacies of the disease model. If the word ‘disease’ is at all useful in this context, it’s as a metaphor for addiction, not as a diagnosis. And I can think of another vivid metaphor that works just as well. Modern consumers are like soldiers drafted to Vietnam – disorientated, fearful and relentlessly tempted by fixes that promise to make reality more bearable. You don’t have to be ill to give in; just human.

3 CONTENTS Title Page DAMIAN THOMPSON THE FIX HOW ADDICTION IS INVADING OUR LIVES AND TAKING OVER YOUR WORLD 1 - CUPCAKES, IPHONES AND VICODIN 2 - IS ADDICTION REALLY A ‘DISEASE’? 3 - WHAT THE BRAIN TELLS US (AND WHAT IT DOESN’T) 4 - ENTER THE FIX 5 - WHY CAKE IS THE NEW COKE 6 - HAPPY HOUR 7 - DRUGSTORE COWBOYS 8 - GAMING, THE NEW GAMBLING 9 - REDISCOVERING PORN 10 - DELIVER US FROM TEMPTATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS NOTES Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом. Copyright Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом. About the Publisher

WHAT THE BRAIN TELLS US (AND WHAT IT DOESN’T) CONTENTS Title Page DAMIAN THOMPSON THE FIX HOW ADDICTION IS INVADING OUR LIVES AND TAKING OVER YOUR WORLD 1 - CUPCAKES, IPHONES AND VICODIN 2 - IS ADDICTION REALLY A ‘DISEASE’? 3 - WHAT THE BRAIN TELLS US (AND WHAT IT DOESN’T) 4 - ENTER THE FIX 5 - WHY CAKE IS THE NEW COKE 6 - HAPPY HOUR 7 - DRUGSTORE COWBOYS 8 - GAMING, THE NEW GAMBLING 9 - REDISCOVERING PORN 10 - DELIVER US FROM TEMPTATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS NOTES Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом. Copyright Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом. About the Publisher

Imagine the embarrassment. You are a retired civil servant with Parkinson’s disease. You are industrious and introverted, like many sufferers from the condition. (We don’t know for sure why it often strikes people with this type of personality, but the correlation was noted as long ago as the 19th century. 1 Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом. ) You’re a regular at your local pub, where you’re known as a modest, affable chap who orders half-pints rather than pints. Occasionally you while away 20 minutes by pushing a few coins into the slot machine, accepting your losses with a philosophical shrug.