The Globalization of Addiction - Bruce K. Alexander

The Globalization of Addiction

A Study in Poverty of the Spirit
Buch | Softcover
496 Seiten
2010
Oxford University Press (Verlag)
978-0-19-958871-8 (ISBN)
52,35 inkl. MwSt
Addiction is increasing all around the world, and the conventional remedies don't work. The Globalization of Addiction argues that the cause of this failure to control addiction is that past treatments have focused too single-mindedly on the afflicted individual addict. This book presents a radical rethink about the nature of addiction.
'The Globalization of Addiction' presents a radical rethink about the nature of addiction.
Scientific medicine has failed when it comes to addiction. There are no reliable methods to cure it, prevent it, or take the pain out of it. There is no durable consensus on what addiction is, what causes it, or what should be done about it. Meanwhile, it continues to increase around the world. This book argues that the cause of this failure to control addiction is that the conventional wisdom of the 19th and 20th centuries focused too single-mindedly on the afflicted individual addict. Although addiction obviously manifests itself in individual cases, its prevalence differs dramatically between societies. For example, it can be quite rare in a society for centuries, and then become common when a tribal culture is destroyed or a highly developed civilization collapses. When addiction becomes commonplace in a society, people become addicted not only to alcohol and drugs, but to a thousand other destructive pursuits: money, power, dysfunctional relationships, or video games. A social perspective on addiction does not deny individual differences in vulnerability to addiction, but it removes them from the foreground of attention, because social determinants are more powerful.
This book shows that the social circumstances that spread addiction in a conquered tribe or a falling civilisation are also built into today's globalizing free-market society. A free-market society is magnificently productive, but it subjects people to irresistible pressures towards individualism and competition, tearing rich and poor alike from the close social and spiritual ties that normally constitute human life. People adapt to their dislocation by finding the best substitutes for a sustaining social and spiritual life that they can, and addiction serves this function all too well.
The book argues that the most effective response to a growing addiction problem is a social and political one, rather than an individual one. Such a solution would not put the doctors, psychologists, social workers, policemen, and priests out of work, but it would incorporate their practices in a larger social project. The project is to reshape society with enough force and imagination to enable people to find social integration and meaning in everyday life. Then great numbers of them would not need to fill their inner void with addictions.

Bruce Alexander is a psychologist and Professor Emeritus at Simon Fraser University, where he has worked since 1970. His primary research interest has been the psychology of addiction. He is best known in the UK for the "Rat Park" experiments, which helped to demonstrate the falsity of the outworn belief that simple exposure to narcotic drugs can cause addiction. In Canada, he has been well known as a critic of the War on Drugs for decades. His most recent work has been on the causes of the current worldwide proliferation of addiction, not only to drugs, but to a great variety of other habits and pursuits. Exploring this topic has required that he venture far beyond his training in psychology, particularly into the fields of history and anthropology.

PART I - ROOTS OF ADDICTION IN FREE-MARKET SOCIETY; PART II - THE INTERACTION OF ADDICTION AND SOCIETY

Erscheint lt. Verlag 4.3.2010
Verlagsort Oxford
Sprache englisch
Maße 155 x 233 mm
Gewicht 718 g
Themenwelt Geisteswissenschaften Psychologie Klinische Psychologie
Geisteswissenschaften Psychologie Persönlichkeitsstörungen
Medizin / Pharmazie Medizinische Fachgebiete Psychiatrie / Psychotherapie
Medizin / Pharmazie Medizinische Fachgebiete Suchtkrankheiten
Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie
ISBN-10 0-19-958871-6 / 0199588716
ISBN-13 978-0-19-958871-8 / 9780199588718
Zustand Neuware
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