Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker and The Boston Globe An authoritative, illuminating, and deeply humane history of addiction—a phenomenon that remains baffling and deeply misunderstood despite having touched countless lives—by an addiction psychiatrist striving to understand his own family and himself “Carl Erik Fisher’s The Urge is the best-written and most incisive book I’ve read on the history of addiction. In the midst of an overdose crisis that grows worse by the hour and has vexed America for centuries, Fisher has given us the best prescription of all: understanding. He seamlessly blends a gripping historical narrative with memoir that doesn’t self-aggrandize; the result is a full-throated argument against blaming people with substance use disorder. The Urge is a propulsive tour de force that is as healing as it is enjoyable to read.” —Beth Macy, author of Dopesick Even after a decades-long opioid overdose crisis, intense controversy still rages over the fundamental nature of addiction and the best way to treat it. With uncommon empathy and erudition, Carl Erik Fisher draws on his own experience as a clinician, researcher, and alcoholic in recovery as he traces the history of a phenomenon that, centuries on, we hardly appear closer to understanding—let alone addressing effectively. As a psychiatrist-in-training fresh from medical school, Fisher was soon face-to-face with his own addiction crisis, one that nearly cost him everything. Desperate to make sense of the condition that had plagued his family for generations, he turned to the history of addiction, learning that the current quagmire is only the latest iteration of a centuries-old story: humans have struggled to define, treat, and control addictive behavior for most of recorded history, including well before the advent of modern science and medicine. A rich, sweeping account that probes not only medicine and science but also literature, religion, philosophy, and public policy, The Urge illuminates the extent to which the story of addiction has persistently reflected broader questions of what it means to be human and care for one another. Fisher introduces us to the people who have endeavored to address this complex condition through the ages: physicians and politicians, activists and artists, researchers and writers, and of course the legions of people who have struggled with their own addictions. He also examines the treatments and strategies that have produced hope and relief for many people with addiction, himself included. Only by reckoning with our history of addiction, he argues—our successes and our failures—can we light the way forward for those whose lives remain threatened by its hold. The Urge is at once an eye-opening history of ideas, a riveting personal story of addiction and recovery, and a clinician’s urgent call for a more expansive, nuanced, and compassionate view of one of society’s most intractable challenges.

Throughout history, more than 150 successful medical uses of marijuana plants have been identified, effectively tested, publicly used, and reliably trusted. In Medical Uses of Marijuana, author Joseph W. Jacob provides an extensive chronological history of marijuana and its medical uses throughout the world in the last 10,000 years. Thoroughly researched and documented, Medical Uses of Marijuana discusses: The many and varied health benefits of marijuana use More than 150 destructive medical harms of drinking alcohol Discriminatory government laws allowing public ingestion of alcohol, while prohibiting the use of marijuana The process by which marijuana use became illegal due to taxation laws During the last 10,000 years, people from countries throughout the worldincluding China, India, Arabia, Africa, Russia, and Japanhave employed the use of marijuana to treat a variety of ailments. Initially intended to be used for the medical benefits of everyone, natural marijuana plants have successfully treated and healed many ailments. Medical Uses of Marijuana seeks to provide the truth about the loss of the legal use of this beneficial plant.

In ancient Israel the production of food was a basic concern of almost every Israelite. Consequently, there are few pages in the Old Testament that do not mention food, and food provides some of the most important social, political and religious symbols in the biblical text. Not Bread Alone is the first detailed and wide-ranging examination of food and its symbolism in the Old Testament and the world of ancient Israel. Many of these symbols are very well-known, such as the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, the abominable pig and the land flowing with milk and honey. Nathan MacDonald demonstrates that the breadth biblical symbolism associated with food reaches beyond these celebrated examples, providing a collection of interrelated studies that draw on work on food in anthropology or other historical disciplines. The studies maintain sensitivity to the literary nature of the text as well as the many historical-critical questions that arise when studying it. Topics examined include: the nature and healthiness of the ancient Israelite diet; the relationship between food and memory in Deuteronomy; the confusion of food, sex and warfare in Judges; the place of feasting in the Israelite monarchy; the literary motif of divine judgement at the table; the use of food in articulating Israelite identity in the post-exilic period. The concluding chapter shows how some of these Old Testament concerns find resonance in the New Testament.

Is the water that pours out of your tap every day pure and safe enough to drink? A Drinker's Guide to Pure Water: Is Your Water Safe? thoroughly explores water safety and presents a historical perspective of why we must be concerned. Our water supplies are vulnerable to contamination by chemical and bacterial pollutants that are responsible for either temporary or permanent contamination of water supplies, often unknown to the public. Author Zalman Saperstein helps you understand why you must assume responsibility for your drinking water instead of relying on corporations or government. Saperstein presents valuable facts and information on the following: - Why water is our most valuable resource - Previous and present water crises - Why you must stay informed - Recent scientific findings - What you must do to reduce water contamination - Keeping informed and proactive to protect your water Future generations deserve to inherit a less-contaminated world. A Drinker's Guide to Pure Water will help guide you in reversing this critical problem and preserving our planet's drinking water.