Memoirs of an Addicted Brain: A Neuroscientist Examines his Former Life on Drugs

Marc Lewis

Mar 2012 · Sold by PublicAffairs

About this ebook

Marc Lewis's relationship with drugs began in a New England boarding school where, as a bullied and homesick fifteen-year-old, he made brief escapes from reality by way of cough medicine, alcohol, and marijuana. In Berkeley, California, in its hippie heyday, he found methamphetamine and LSD and heroin. He sniffed nitrous oxide in Malaysia and frequented Calcutta's opium dens. Ultimately, though, his journey took him where it takes most addicts: into a life of addiction, desperation, deception, and crime.

But unlike most addicts, Lewis recovered and became a developmental psychologist and researcher in neuroscience. In Memoirs of an Addicted Brain, he applies his professional expertise to a study of his former self, using the story of his own journey through addiction to tell the universal story of addictions of every kind. He explains the neurological effects of a variety of powerful drugs, and shows how they speak to the brain -- itself designed to seek rewards and soothe pain -- in its own language. And he illuminates how craving overtakes the nervous system, sculpting a synaptic network dedicated to one goal -- more -- at the expense of everything else.

Ratings and reviews

While the book was written well enough that anyone can understand it, I feel like some of the experiences were embellishments. My opinion, obviously.

After reading the intro and seeing how each chapter would unfold, I expected the book at some point to become dull. Luckily that was not the case. I was sucked into his story from beginning to end and like the unique neuroscientific angle in each chapter. It was brutally honest in covering the highs and lows of addiction.

This is what ive wanted to do with my life after getting out of therapy was a addict myself.

About the author

Marc Lewis, PhD, is a neuroscientist and professor of developmental psychology. Now at Radboud University in the Netherlands, he taught for more than twenty years at the University of Toronto. He has authored or coauthored more than fifty journal articles in neuroscience and developmental psychology. Presently, he speaks and blogs on topics in addiction science, and his critically acclaimed book, Memoirs of an Addicted Brain: A Neuroscientist Examines His Former Life on Drugs, is the first to blend memoir and science in addiction studies.