Clean by David Sheff ISBN 13: 9780544112322

Addiction is a preventable, treatable disease. As with other illnesses, the approaches most likely to work are based on science—not on faith, tradition, contrition, or wishful thinking. Those facts are the foundation of Clean, a new paradigm for preventing drug abuse and treating addiction and the mental illnesses that usually accompany it. Based on the latest research in psychology, neuroscience, and medicine, Clean is a leap beyond the traditional approaches to prevention and treatment. Twelve Step approaches have helped many, but they have failed to help many more, and Sheff explains why. He spent time with scores of scientists, social workers, and addicts and their families, to find out what can work, and just as important, how addiction itself works. Clean offers clear, cogent counsel for addicts and their loved ones no matter what stage of the illness they’re in. But it is also a book for all of us—a powerful rethinking of one of the greatest public health challenges of our time.