"Addiction is epidemic and catastrophic. With more than one in every five people over the age of fourteen addicted, drug abuse has been called the most formidable health problem worldwide. If we are not victims ourselves, we all know someone struggling with the merciless compulsion to alter their experience by changing how their brain functions. Drawing on years of research--as well as personal experience as a recovered addict--researcher and professor...

In fascinating detail, Sam Quinones chronicles how, over the past 15 years, enterprising sugar cane farmers in a small county on the west coast of Mexico created a unique distribution system that brought black tar heroin--the cheapest, most addictive form of the opiate, 2 to 3 times purer than its white powder cousin--to the veins of people across the United States.

"Tuck is slow to understand the circumstances that have driven her family to an uninhabited island off the coast of Maine, the former home of her deceased grandmother where she once spent her childhood summers. Squatting there now, she must care for her spirited young daughter and scrape together enough money to leave before winter arrives-or before they are found out. Relying on the island for sustenance and answers--bladderwrack, rosehips, tenacious...

As a nation, we are facing an unprecedented opioid crisis that is killing more than 65,000 people a year. It is destroying our families and decimating our neighborhoods. And it is costing us billions. As more and more people are dealing with chronic pain, and as the opioid crisis reaches epic proportions, alternative approaches to understanding pain and its management are necessary. Here, Dr. Akhtar Purvez, a seasoned researcher, pain specialist,...

If you’re the family member of an addict, you may feel confused, guilty, and scared of doing the wrong thing. And when you don’t know how to help, you may find yourself in a codependent role, trying so hard to keep your addicted loved one alive, out of jail, or emotionally appeased that you may actually prevent them from realizing they need help. Drawing on her own personal experience with her brother’s addiction, Addict in the House offers...

"ZERO, an anonymous activist, has given the world a warning: stop the tech giants before it’s too late. But is anyone listening? Thousands of teenagers are signing up to Freemee, the biggest new social media site, uploading personal information in exchange for advice on what to eat, how to dress, even how to choose their friends. No one questions what Freemee is doing with all that data. Until hundreds of users begin to take their lives. What will...

At 28 years old, Eli "Berg" Koenigsberg has never encountered a challenge he couldn't push through, until a head injury leaves him with lingering headaches and a weakness for opiates. Berg moves to a remote Northern California town, seeking space and time to recover, but soon finds himself breaking into homes in search of pills. Addled by addiction and chronic pain, Berg meets Alejandro, a reclusive, master boatbuilder, and begins to see a path forward....

The founder of Bright Line Eating offers a new way to conceptualize food recovery by sharing the essential steps to avoid the highs and lows of relapse by understanding the psychological and biological origins of addiction and then giving you the system to break free.

After twenty years abroad, former heroin addict Mark Renton returns home to Edinburgh, reuniting with the friends he betrayed in a drug deal.

"A guide to all kinds of addiction from a star who has struggled with heroin, alcohol, sex, fame, food and eBay, that will help addicts and their loved ones make the first steps into recovery; 'This manual for self-realization comes not from a mountain but from the mud... My qualification is not that I am better than you but I am worse'--Russell Brand; With a rare mix of honesty, humor, and compassion, comedian and movie star Russell Brand mines his...