Addiction and responsibility

Is addiction a disease, a behavior disorder, a moral failing? Is it genetic, or learned? What is it like to be addicted? What are its roots and how can it be uprooted? Anyone who has wrestled with such basic questions about addiction will find welcome answers in this groundbreaking philosophical inquiry into the addictive mind. The author helps readers to understand addiction existentially - as a fundamental way in which we can be. Addiction, argues the author, bears witness to a basic human longing that "no thing" can satisfy. It is a distortion of that longing, one that "misses its mark" (the original meaning of "sin"). It leads to a complex process of "dis-own-ment" in which the addict strips himself of ownership over himself and his own life. Genuine freedom from addiction ultimately requires practicing a radical form of detachment in which we allow ordinary experience to wash over us with the full force of its true extra-ordinariness. This reverses the process of dis-own-ment and returns us to ourselves. In such detachment, we are given back responsibility: the ability truly to respond to events, rather than just reacting to them. This major work is addressed to all those who have ever had to face addiction - either in themselves or in those they love - and who are still struggling to understand it. Mining both Western and Eastern sources - psychology and spirituality as well as philosophy - Addiction and Responsibility brings an important topic to a new level.