The Globalization of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit By Bruce K. Alexander
Kindle The Globalization of addiction treatment
We prioritize the psychosocial integration and flourishing of everyone will we be able to stop addiction at its source The Globalization of Addiction A Study in Poverty of the Spirit Perhaps the best research on addictions to date Alexander s comprehensive approach to this blight on civilization provides plenty of evidence that the unintended consequences of globalized capitalism have created a world underclass The Globalization of Addiction A Study in Poverty of the Spirit A foundational text for scientific critical analysis of a topic primarily applied in political policy Doing groundbreaking research into consequences of psychosocial deprivation.
The Globalization of Addiction pdffiller
It has gone through the roof in that time You could hardly say that drug use might have been higher if we hadn t been aggressive in pursue of this war what sort of evidence would that require And you also can t even say that the war has pushed up the price of drugs It would be hard to make up a comprehensive failure of policy to achieve its ends than this war has proven The author s point is that a large part of the reason for the failure of these means to combat addiction is the simple fact that they are tackling the wrong problem The problem of addiction isn t a lack of will power on behalf of the drug addict although.
Article about globalization with author
They wanted to experience it with their full awareness. The Globalization of Addiction kindle paperwhite The author points out that too many of our addiction cures only release you from one addiction by hooking you onto another one Give up gin for god or give up sex for work He believes that the real cure for addiction in all of its forms is becoming socially engaged The last chapter discusses what you can do to become socially engaged in a lot of depth and he also provides examples of what people have done and the movements they have formed for precisely that His main point is that we are all addicted to consumer capitalism and it is killing us.
PDF The Globalization of addiction treatment
Highly academic with references up the yin yang but I stuck with this book because I was intrigued by the author s theory that dislocation loneliness stress isolation lack of belonging is at the root of addictions of all kinds The Globalization of Addiction A Study in Poverty of the Spirit Why is addiction of all types on the rise in our society today If the pharmacological theory of addiction is true that demon drugs take over the minds of users after only one use then why is it that there are other non drug addictions How does that explain alcohol enslaving some people but not others The answers according to Bruce Alexander are found in the fact that society is increasingly psychologically dislocated In The Globalization of Addiction A Study in Poverty of the Spirit Alexander convincingly explains how we re disconnected from each other and our communities than we ve ever been and how the chief actor in this play is the free market capitalism that most of the world has adopted. EBook The Globalization of addiction recovery Click here to read the full review The Globalization of Addiction A Study in Poverty of the Spirit I heard this title mentioned and recommended last night on the America first podcast The Globalization of Addiction A Study in Poverty of the Spirit A candid unsparing and forceful denunciation of the state of affairs regarding models and theories of drug abuse and addiction Alexander of Rat Park fame proposes that the root of addiction to drugs gambling video games sex etc is dislocation which is defined as the severing of social connection with family community culture and society leading to a lack of psychosocial integration It is not a brain disease in need of curing as the prominent and accepted medical model asserts This position is not too far afield from what other humanist clinicians and researchers have proposed But Alexander doesn t stop there The gloves come off when he queries the source of dislocation in today s world and names free market capitalism and economics as the main and by far biggest reason for dislocation He provides exhaustive historical philosophical clinical and anthropological evidence to support his claim and uses his home city of Victoria British Columbia as a case study of the extensive damage and dislocation that unchecked free market economics can do The idea is that the free market requires people to act as individual consumers who compete with one another Therefore social and family bonds and relationships stand in the way of this fundamental market need In addition free market economics are premised on neverending expansion and growth and have come about due to the appropriation and seizure of lands and resources from native populations and poor people by colonialists and the wealthy leading to massive dislocation In addition people must work to survive and in a free market economy the market dictates where the jobs are and who will be employed leading to an instability that uproots families and erases any semblance of stability and connection Addiction is the individual attempt to substitute the connection and community that is lacking in dislocated people s lives Depending on the particular circumstances that lead to the dislocation the addictive profile will differ By profiling St Augustine who had a sexual addiction which led to his obsession with religious purity and abstinence based theology to James Barrie whose estranged and traumatic relationship with his mother led to his obsession with eternal childhood the flavours of addiction are huge and varied Alexander notes that there are a number of types of trauma that can also lead to dislocation in any number of societies leading to increased susceptibilities to addiction in certain individuals Crucially however he argues that free market societies are the only societies that explicitly cause dislocation as a feature not just as an outcome That is why they are so damaging In the end the book is a wide ranging and fearless expose of the dangers and destruction of hypercapitalism and a survey of the addictions it leads to Alexander claims that the only way we can save civilization and ourselves from the downward spiral is to agitate for and implement social and political changes that domesticate free market capitalism to the needs and in the service of the health and well being of people Only when as a society imposed by imperialism and free markets neurologically and socially Recommends countless other authors for further exploration of concepts Solid starting point for discussing inherent biases in dominant intellectual culture. Kindle The Globalization of addiction recovery The most informative chapter debunked the famous Skinner Box rat becomes addicted to drugs available by dropper in cage by creating a Rat Park The rats in the latter do not succumb to addiction because the cage is large has other rats and rat friendly shrubbery and surroundings Apparently rats are very social animals so one rat in a cage throws off the experiment by making that one rat despondent Thus vulnerable to addiction. The Globalization of addictionary pdf I should really pick up this book again The Globalization of Addiction A Study in Poverty of the Spirit This book is terrific should be read in conjunction with In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Mate MD In Globalization Professor Alexander delivers a very convincing case that we are manufacturing addiction by the process of economic globalization the social dislocation that inevitably goes with it Addiction is a coping mechanism for dislocation which can arise from certain disastrous circumstances such as the colonialist destruction of indigenous cultures but is a fundamental element of free market economics even at the best of times I don t normally buy into these types of assessments but this makes a lot of sense Although I do think that capitalism is the better way it has its problems mostly stemming from the selfish greed of man. The Globalization of Addiction kindle app He does show how global capitalism demolishes meaningful social relationships for which addictive tendencies provide an incredibly poor substitute One of the main things he does is dismantles the myth of powerful impossible to resist habit forming drugs instead he explains that addiction which often than not entails no substance whatsoever but a variety of compulsive behaviors fixations including gambling sex romantic love money power zealotry video games and starvation This helps to explain a great deal of what is going on in our society Think about that again addiction is not something confined to chemicals but spans a whole range from sex through gambling to the quest for material possessions. Kindle The Globalization of addiction treatment This book makes a lot of sense is very thought provoking The Globalization of Addiction A Study in Poverty of the Spirit Last week Will wrote at comment on my review of Lost Connections and provided this link I often feel especially when a link is to a long read that I m about to be getting into something that is going to be hardly relevant to the review I ve written or anything I m even slightly interested in But I clicked on the link with a full measure of trepidation and started reading It quickly became clear that I was going to have to read this book And if anything the interview on the other side of that link was barely an introduction to how good this book is You need this book It is utterly stunning. PDF The Globalization of addiction recovery I think that if you get a bit bored in the first few chapters it wouldn t hurt to basically skim and skip ahead Move on to perhaps chapter 3 where he gives his dislocation theory of addiction However the rest is basically mandatory reading That said there are also highlights here and chapters that ought to be compulsory reading in particular these are 5 Free market Society Undermines Psychosocial Integration 6 Addiction is a Way of Adapting to Dislocation Historical Evidence and 8 Addiction is a Way of Adapting to Dislocation The Myth of the Demon Drugs. EBook The Globalization of addiction Actually that last chapter is worth the price of the book We have been taught to assume that addiction is an entirely personal failing This is seen as common sense in our society in fact up to the point where the idea that it could someone challenging the idea of personal responsibility for addiction seems like someone is just being perverse or contrary If we have any sort of free will at all and if free will means anything at all then surely the ability to reject becoming addicted is an exercise in free will just as becoming addicted to a substance or to love or to work or to sex or to going to the gym or to seeking praise surely these addictions are also an exercise of choice If personal responsibility is to mean anything at all then surely addiction as sad a fact as it might be but surely addiction is due to our own failings as addicts. The Globalization of Addiction epub file This book doesn t argue that we are completely devoid of free will but it does stress that we are social creatures that addiction is a complex idea and that all of the causes of addiction that seek to find its source in the individual have proven to be remarkably ineffective at solving addiction something of a hint that something complicated is going on I ve really learnt so much from this book Did you know that the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous was not only an alcoholic but basically killed himself via his impressive nicotine addiction something he only pretended to give up even while dragging around an oxygen tank to help him with is breathing Or that he was also addicted to sex something that made his life with his wife a misery I m not judging him that s really not my intention but the point is that he is probably the world s best known exponent of the idea that addictions are due to personal responsibility and choice you know the drill My name is Trevor and I am an alcoholic and the twelve step plan which is almost a clich now That said and as successful as these have been over the years there were obviously other addictions in this guy s life that were hardly making his life one of abundant joy and yet he was unable to exercise his will power to rid himself those habits even if he never drank again Actually it is worse than that still Apparently he begged for a drink on his death bed he was never out of the clutches of his addiction. Drug trafficking and globalization There is a point in this where the author quotes some figure let s say it was 20% as the success rate of religious organisations such as temperance organisations or the Salvation Army in curing addictions And while he definitely doesn t scoff at such success he does point out that this 20% isn t of all addicted people but rather 20% of those who come to the organisation seeking assistance from them for their addiction He also points out that some of those people might have just stopped anyway I stopped smoking without a 12 point plan for example All the same such success is obviously better than nothing but it also could hardly be said to have cured the world. PDF The Globalization of addiction recovery Another way we have sought to cure addiction is by removing temptation also known as the war on drugs Does anyone think that this has been a success in any sense I mean you could hardly say that drug use has dropped since the war on drugs started In fact as an ex smoker I can tell you that it certainly felt like that at the time but rather that addiction is a rational response by humans to their feelings of social dislocation. The Globalization of Addiction kindle paperwhite Like I said above the chapter on the historical evidence for this is a very important read The most interesting part of that was the information on China Apparently opium had been used in China for a very long time but it became a major problem when western powers started shipping it into the country as a way to overcome their trade imbalance China sought to regulate the flow of opium and Britain sent in the gun boats since the East India Company was raising a large slice of its income from the sale of opium to Chinese addicts Anyway the bit to notice here isn t just the evils of colonialism true as that is but that when China had been a place that wasn t being visited by the horrors of market society there were very few opium addicts there And this was true despite there being opium But once Chinese society became dysfunctional that was when opium addiction became rampant Opium addiction then can be seen as self medication for a people damaged by the imposition of markets that destroy their integrated mode of life. The Globalization of Addiction ebooks free He says that the Chinese Revolution was remarkable for almost entirely eradicating opium addiction and it achieved this not by the severity of its punishments against addicts but rather by the level of social integration that occurred after the revolution He says there was a real sense that everyone was in this thing together and despite the horrors that were about to befall them due to the Cultural Revolution people generally felt like they belonged within the society and this helped reduce rates of addiction Rates that would stay low until the 1980s and the introduction of Market Socialism. Article about globalization with author He certainly doesn t see the introduction of socialism as a panacea for all addiction In fact the Soviet Union clearly had problems with alcohol addiction throughout its history But what he certainly does do is say that the main cause of addiction everywhere is social dislocation and that capitalism could well be defined as a system that dislocates people As such it could best be understood as an addiction producing machine. Article about globalization with author A lot of this book then is dedicated to supporting that hypothesis that addiction is caused by our social structure and the dislocating impact it has on people And he doesn t exactly skimp on the evidence for this The book has endless endnotes at the end of each chapter and some of these are some of the best parts of the book. Kindle The Globalization of addiction treatment As I said this book is full of things I knew nothing at all about one was about the author of Peter Pan dear god what a terribly sad life If you ever wanted a biographical example to go with Phillip Larkin s This Be The Verse then this be the story The most interesting thing was his explanation of the problems with tests that seem to show that mammals will take drugs if they are available on tap in much the way that the mother in Brave New World kills herself with Soma The idea is that if you put rats in a cage and allow them the choice between water and morphine they will take the morphine in ever increasing doses up to and beyond the point where it will ruin their lives and this is seen as proof that mammals are drug addicts in waiting. EBook The Globalization of addiction recovery But the author was involved in a fascinating twist to this experiment What they don t really tell you about the first experiment is that the rats are alone in the cage Rats are social animals and being alone is traumatic to social animals you can try this yourself if you are of a mind to They also don t mention that the rats might have a huge tube sticking out of themselves That is that these are literally lab rats they are literally living through a Renascence vision of hell that even Dante would grimace at That these rats might choose the pain relief of morphine if it is available hardly seems surprising But this is where the story gets interesting They then put the two drinking containers in another cage this time rat heaven rather than rat hell Where the rats had friends and stuff to do and have hopes and dreams and novels to read and cups of tea to drink or whatever it is rats do in rat heaven and the rats then avoided the morphine They didn t want or need to blank out the world rather every single one of us If we live though this time and there is certainly no guarantee we will then the people in the future are going to look at us as if we were walking about in a kind of madness and they will be totally right But as he says we are captive to the power of those who control our media and who make a profit from our being convinced that we always need and we can never have enough. The Globalization of Addiction kindle The sooner we learn that this is the insanity of our age and that the time has come to help build a rational society the better The Globalization of Addiction A Study in Poverty of the Spirit Absolutely spot on The first few passages had me concerned that Bruce is some sort of weird zealot. The Globalization of Addiction kindle unlimited After finding and reading this in 2013 and showing it to a few professors and their ilk I only wish that universities addiction centres and hospitals used it as RECOMMENDED COURSE MATERIAL Seriously it would make a difference The Globalization of Addiction A Study in Poverty of the Spirit
The Globalization of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit By Bruce K. Alexander |
0199588716 |
9780199588718 |
English |
470 |
Paperback |
article about globalization with author |
Book The Globalization of addiction |
Book The Globalization of addiction treatment |
Book The Globalization of addiction solitaire |
Book The Globalization of addiction recovery |
Book The Globalization of addiction rehab |
The Globalization of Addiction book |
The Globalization of Addiction booking |
The Globalization of Addiction booklet |
The Globalization of Addiction booker |
the globalization of addiction pdf |
PDF The Globalization of addiction |
PDF The Globalization of addiction treatment |
PDF The Globalization of addiction solitaire |
PDF The Globalization of addiction recovery |