This ground-breaking book advances the fundamental debate about the nature of addiction. As well as presenting the case for seeing addiction as a brain disease, it brings together all the most cogent and penetrating critiques of the brain disease model of addiction (BDMA) and the main grounds for being skeptical of BDMA claims.

The idea that addiction is a brain disease dominates thinking and practice worldwide. However, the editors of this book argue that our understanding of addiction is undergoing a revolutionary change, from being considered a brain disease to a disorder of voluntary behavior. The resolution of this controversy will determine the future of scientific progress in understanding addiction, together with necessary advances in treatment, prevention, and societal responses to addictive disorders. This volume brings together the various strands of the contemporary debate about whether or not addiction is best regarded as a brain disease. Contributors offer arguments for and against, and reasons for uncertainty; they also propose novel alternatives to both brain disease and moral models of addiction. In addition to reprints of classic articles from the addiction research literature, each section contains original chapters written by authorities on their chosen topic. The editors have assembled a stellar cast of chapter authors from a wide range of disciplines neuroscience, philosophy, psychiatry, psychology, cognitive science, sociology, and law including some of the most brilliant and influential voices in the field of addiction studies today.

The result is a landmark volume in the study of addiction which will be essential reading for advanced students and researchers in addiction as well as professionals such as medical practitioners, psychiatrists, psychologists of all varieties, and social workers.

Table of Contents
General introduction

Nick Heather, Matt Field, Antony C. Moss, and Sally Satel

SECTION I

FOR THE BRAIN DISEASE MODEL OF ADDICTION

1. Introduction to Section I

Matt Field, Antony C. Moss, Sally Satel, and Nick Heather

2. Addiction is a brain disease, and it matters

Alan I. Leshner

(Reprinted from Science, 278, 45 47, 1997)3. Neurobiologic advances from the brain disease model of addiction

Nora D. Volkow, M.D., George F. Koob, Ph.D., and A. Thomas McLellan, Ph.D.

(Reprinted from New England Journal of Medicine, 374, 363 371, 2016)

4. Time to connect: bringing social context into addiction neuroscience

Markus Heilig, David H. Epstein, Michael A. Nader and Yavin Shaham

(Reprinted from Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 17, 592 599, 2016)

5. Drug addiction: updating actions to habits to compulsions ten years on

Barry J. Everitt and Trevor W. Robbins

(Reprinted from Annual Review of Psychology, 67, 23 50, 2016)

6. Is addiction a brain disease? The incentive-sensitization view

Kent C. Berridge

7. Addiction is a brain disease (but does it matter?)

Gabriel Segal

SECTION II

AGAINST THE BRAIN DISEASE MODEL OF ADDICTION

8. Introduction to Section II

Sally Satel, Nick Heather, Antony C. Moss, and Matt Field

9. Giving the neurobiology of addiction no more than its due

Wayne Hall, Adrian Carter, and Cynthia Forlini

10. The brain disease model of addiction: is it supported by the evidence and has it delivered on its promises?

Wayne Hall, Adrian Carter, and Cynthia Forlini

(Reprinted from Lancet Psychiatry, 2, 105 110, 2015)

11. Brain disease model of addiction: why is it so controversial?

Nora D. Volkow and George Koob

(Reprinted from Lancet Psychiatry, 2, 677 679, 2015)

12. Brain disease model of addiction: misplaced priorities?

Wayne Hall, Adrian Carter, and Cynthia Forlini

(Reprinted from Lancet Psychiatry, 2, 867, 2015)

13. Addiction and the brain-disease fallacy

Sally Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld

(Reprinted from Frontiers in Psychiatry, 4, 141, 2014)

14. Recovery is possible: overcoming addiction' and its rescue hypotheses

Derek Heim and Rebecca L. Monk

15. Superpower rivalry, the American Grand Narrative, and the BDMA

Bruce K. Alexander

16. My brain disease made me do it: bioethical implications of the Brain Disease Model of Addiction

Frederick Rotgers

17. Addiction is a human problem, but brain disease models divert attention and resources away from human-level solutions

Richard Hammersley

18. Before rock bottom'? Problem framing effects on stigma and change among harmful drinkers

James Morris

19. Brain change in addiction: disease or learning? Implications for science, policy, and care

Marc Lewis

20. Brains or persons? Is it coherent to ascribe psychological powers to brains?

Tim Leighton

21. The persistence of addiction is better explained by socioeconomic deprivation-related factors powerfully motivating goal-directed drug choice than by automaticity, habit or compulsion theories favored by the brain disease model

Lee Hogarth

22. Addiction and criminal responsibility: the law's rejection of the disease model

Stephen J. Morse

23. One cheer for the brain-disease interpretation of addiction

Gene M. Heyman

SECTION III

UNSURE ABOUT THE BRAIN DISEASE MODEL OF ADDICTION

24. Introduction to Section III

Nick Heather, Sally Satel, Matt Field, and Antony C. Moss

25. In search of addiction in the brains of laboratory animals

Serge H. Ahmed

26. Addiction treatment providers' engagements with the Brain Disease Model of Addiction

Anthony Barnett, Michael Savic, Martyn Pickersgill, Kerry O'Brien, Dan I. Lubman, and Adrian Carter

27. Balancing the ethical and methodological pros and cons of the BDMA

Susanne Uusitalo and Jaakko Kuorikoski

28. The making of the epistemic project of addiction in the brain

Matilda Hellman and Michael Egerer

29. Addiction and the meaning of disease

Hanna Pickard

30. The pitfalls of recycling substance-use disorder criteria to diagnose behavioral addictions

Maèva Flayelle, Adriano Schimmenti, Vladan Starcevic and Joël Billieux

SECTION IV

ALTERNATIVES TO THE BRAIN DISEASE MODEL OF ADDICTION

31. Introduction to Section IV

Antony C. Moss, Matt Field, Sally Satel, and Nick Heather

32. Addiction is socially engineered exploitation of natural biological vulnerability

Don Ross

(Reprinted from Behavioural Brain Research, 386, 112598 Online, 2020)

33. Toward an ecological understanding of addiction

Darin Weinberg

34. Addiction biases choice in the mind, brain, and behavior systems: beyond the brain disease model

Paul F. M. J. Verschure and Reinout W. Wiers

35. Multiple enactments of the brain disease model: which model, when, for whom, and at what cost?

Helen Keane, David Moore, and Suzanne Fraser

36. The social perspective and the BDMA's entry into the non-medical stronghold in Sweden and other Nordic countries

Jessica Storbjörk, Lena Eriksson, and Katarina Winter

37. Beyond the medical model: addiction as a response to trauma and stress

Gabor Maté

38. Psychotherapeutic strategies to enhance motivation and cognitive control

Frank Ryan

39. Addiction is not (only) in the brain: molar behavioral economic models of etiology and cessation of harmful substance use

Samuel F. Acuff, Jalie A. Tucker, Rudy E. Vuchinich, and James G. Murphy

40. Understanding substance use disorders among veterans: virtues of the Multitudinous Self Model

Serife Tekin, Alicia A. Swan, Willie J. Hale, and Mary Jo Pugh

41. How an addiction ontology can unify competing conceptualizations of addiction

Robert M. Kelly, Janna Hastings, and Robert West

42. Looping processes in the development of and desistance from addictive behaviors

Anja Koski-Jännes

43. Recovery and identity: a socially focused challenge to brain disease models

Beth Collinson and David Best

44. Replacing the BDMA: a paradigm shift in the field of addiction

Bruce K. Alexander

Concluding comments

Nick Heather, Antony C. Moss, Matt Field, and Sally Satel