Insight Into Addiction

Insight into Addiction (2011) by Andrew Radmall – CWR – ISBN 9781853456619 – Condition: Very Good

Addiction is one of those subjects everybody thinks they understand right up until somebody asks them to explain it properly.

Andrew Radmall’s Insight into Addiction, published by CWR in 2011, sets out to look beyond the easy labels and simplistic explanations and examine what addiction is, why it develops, how it affects people and what recovery may involve.

It is a subject surrounded by an impressive collection of myths, assumptions, clichés and well-meaning advice. “Just stop” has, historically, proved about as useful as telling someone with insomnia to “just go to sleep”, and books such as this exist partly because human behaviour is rather more complicated than the slogans people invent for it.

Radmall approaches addiction as something involving the whole person rather than simply a bad habit that has become inconvenient. The book considers the emotional, psychological and practical dimensions of addictive behaviour and aims to provide readers with a clearer understanding of the patterns that can keep people trapped.

It also looks at the difficult question of change.

Recovery is rarely a matter of discovering one miraculous sentence, writing it on a Post-it note and waking up transformed the following morning. It tends to involve recognising patterns, understanding triggers, accepting responsibility, developing support and gradually replacing damaging behaviour with something more sustainable.

Which, admittedly, is far less exciting than the advertisements promising that your entire life can be repaired before breakfast.

Published by CWR, this is particularly suited to readers interested in counselling, pastoral care, support work, recovery and the wider human questions surrounding dependency and compulsive behaviour.

The value of a book like this is not necessarily that it provides a single neat explanation. Addiction rarely has the courtesy to be neat. Rather, it offers a framework for thinking about a complicated subject that affects individuals, families and communities in very different ways.

It can therefore be useful both to readers dealing with the subject personally and to those trying to understand someone else’s experience. Sometimes simply understanding what is happening is an important first step, even if understanding does not automatically make everything easy.

This copy is in Very Good condition, which is considerably more straightforward than most of the issues discussed inside it.

Ideal for readers interested in addiction and recovery, counselling students, support workers, pastoral carers, psychology readers, or anyone looking for a thoughtful introduction to a subject that is frequently discussed with far more confidence than knowledge.

Another useful survivor from Crappy Old Books — tackling one of life’s more serious subjects and, unlike many people on the internet, attempting to understand it before offering an opinion.

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