2006-04-27 Good starting point to read about addiction

William Miller - according to his biog at the beginning of the book - is one of the world's most cited scientists. This is not surprising given he is one of the originators of Motivational Interviewing, also given that he produces books like this. It is destined to influence drug treatment programmes and get quoted for some time to come. The basic idea of the book is to get experts in highly specialized sub-fields of the addictions (i.e. genetics, pharmacology, social policy and therapy) and get them to make simple accessible summaries of what is known in their field, and then propose 'robust priniciples' for how this knowledge might be incorporated into treatment programmes. The authors then draw all this together into ten principles of treatment and ten recommendations. It uses non-technical language, quotes only the most important references and has useful reading lists. If you are new to working in addiction it will be a useful introduction and it would make a good book for an introductory course, or a journal club presentation. If you are a more experienced addictions professional it may not tell you too much that is new, but it will help you to make links between aspects of addictions that could prove useful. I've held off giving five stars for two reasons. Firstly a paperback edition would make it more accessible, secondly in five years research may have moved on making some of the information obsolete.