Chasing the Scream: The Search for the Truth About Addiction
Revised and Updated
The New York Times Bestseller
What if everything you think you know about addiction is wrong? Johann Hari's journey into the heart of the war on drugs led him to ask this question--and to write the book that gave rise to his viral TED talk, viewed more than 62 million times, and inspired the feature film The United States vs. Billie Holiday and the documentary series The Fix.
One of Johann Hari's earliest memories is of trying to wake up one of his relatives and not being able to. As he grew older, he realized he had addiction in his family. Confused, not knowing what to do, he set out and traveled over 30,000 miles over three years to discover what really causes addiction--and what really solves it.
He uncovered a range of remarkable human stories--of how the war on drugs began with Billie Holiday, the great jazz singer, being stalked and killed by a racist policeman; of the scientist who discovered the surprising key to addiction; and of the countries that ended their own war on drugs--with extraordinary results.
Chasing the Scream is the story of a life-changing journey that transformed the addiction debate internationally--and showed the world that the opposite of addiction is connection.
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Community Reviews
I wanted to understand how drugs work and how addiction overall works. This is not about that. This is a journalist with his own hypothesis about how drug addiction works. He then uses any and all anecdotes to illustrate how correct he is while refusing to tackle counter-claims. It's not overly scientific so it won't convince any critical reader.
It's a book about addicts, not addiction overall. We follow addicts as they go in and out of prison, get sick, do crime, act disgusting towards other people, get treatment, get addicted again. It's basically what you already know about addicts. I wanted to understand why it happens and how it works. And then what methods are used to thread it successfully. This is more: one story then another story right away. Often ending with death and disaster and focusing heavily on gore and injuries. The gore alone may put many people off the book as the author seems obsessed with describing nasty injuries.
The author initially blames addiction on US racist laws made to bully and control Black people with. Then from there drug addiction was brought to all the world by these racist US leaders. They expanded it via UN to the rest of the world by force. It's so US centric I'm totally confused by the argument. In my nation drug addicts are exactly the same yet we obviously don't have such US racism to ignite it so his overall point of view feels misguided. He doesn't use data or clear studies to support his claim. And 99% of his argument is about modern history post WW2. Again missing thousands of years of addiction even before USA was created.
From then on he fully abandons the racism argument. Instead he now claims the banning of drugs lead to addiction epidemics. People suffer because their parents, society, and cops threat them badly. They get addicted to drugs to treat these mental issues. And as drugs are widely banned they get addicted to hard and dangerous drugs instead of merely being rational consumers. His theory about drug addiction rings hollow and he never shows any evidence for it. Again he uses anecdotes and his own interviews to claim this is always how it works in all nations and all cultural settings for all people.
What about biology and heritability of addiction? Does that play a role? This is finally where he has evidence and clear studies. Pointing out how studies clearly support this. Then right away moves away from any such claims and yet again claims it's all caused by childhood trauma caused by "racist and mean society and cops who abuse people". It's a one shoe fits all solution that will totally solve all drug problems everywhere.
His theory proposes that the more we legalize drugs the less people will get addicted. Legalize all drugs and addiction will fall to zero? That's if we are to believe his claims about addiction being created by racist US leaders. But what about addiction before that? What about addiction to legal gambling or alcohol? In my country both these things are legal and are by far the biggest addictions. And when cigarettes were cheap and easy to buy half the nation smoked yet now with higher taxes many are smoking less or quitting it fully. It does not seem like his universal theory is that universal. It's a nice little idea. But he really should have gone over all the studies if he wanted to make any type of proper case.
At any point when he shows a left-wing city or nation actually implementing his concepts it goes wrong because "evil conservatives shut down the program that was about to solve it all". When researchers can't show evidence for his theory it's because "evil powers that be defund their research and fire them for questioning the biological explanations". His idea is obviously amazing and the only reason it has not solved all addiction yet is because of those evil stupid people.
It's a book about addicts, not addiction overall. We follow addicts as they go in and out of prison, get sick, do crime, act disgusting towards other people, get treatment, get addicted again. It's basically what you already know about addicts. I wanted to understand why it happens and how it works. And then what methods are used to thread it successfully. This is more: one story then another story right away. Often ending with death and disaster and focusing heavily on gore and injuries. The gore alone may put many people off the book as the author seems obsessed with describing nasty injuries.
The author initially blames addiction on US racist laws made to bully and control Black people with. Then from there drug addiction was brought to all the world by these racist US leaders. They expanded it via UN to the rest of the world by force. It's so US centric I'm totally confused by the argument. In my nation drug addicts are exactly the same yet we obviously don't have such US racism to ignite it so his overall point of view feels misguided. He doesn't use data or clear studies to support his claim. And 99% of his argument is about modern history post WW2. Again missing thousands of years of addiction even before USA was created.
From then on he fully abandons the racism argument. Instead he now claims the banning of drugs lead to addiction epidemics. People suffer because their parents, society, and cops threat them badly. They get addicted to drugs to treat these mental issues. And as drugs are widely banned they get addicted to hard and dangerous drugs instead of merely being rational consumers. His theory about drug addiction rings hollow and he never shows any evidence for it. Again he uses anecdotes and his own interviews to claim this is always how it works in all nations and all cultural settings for all people.
What about biology and heritability of addiction? Does that play a role? This is finally where he has evidence and clear studies. Pointing out how studies clearly support this. Then right away moves away from any such claims and yet again claims it's all caused by childhood trauma caused by "racist and mean society and cops who abuse people". It's a one shoe fits all solution that will totally solve all drug problems everywhere.
His theory proposes that the more we legalize drugs the less people will get addicted. Legalize all drugs and addiction will fall to zero? That's if we are to believe his claims about addiction being created by racist US leaders. But what about addiction before that? What about addiction to legal gambling or alcohol? In my country both these things are legal and are by far the biggest addictions. And when cigarettes were cheap and easy to buy half the nation smoked yet now with higher taxes many are smoking less or quitting it fully. It does not seem like his universal theory is that universal. It's a nice little idea. But he really should have gone over all the studies if he wanted to make any type of proper case.
At any point when he shows a left-wing city or nation actually implementing his concepts it goes wrong because "evil conservatives shut down the program that was about to solve it all". When researchers can't show evidence for his theory it's because "evil powers that be defund their research and fire them for questioning the biological explanations". His idea is obviously amazing and the only reason it has not solved all addiction yet is because of those evil stupid people.
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