The Addiction Spectrum

A Compassionate, Holistic Approach to Recovery

By: Paul Thomas, Jennifer Margulis

Narrated by: Joe Knezevich

Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

Drug overdose is now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50. Even as opiate addiction skyrockets, more people than ever before are hooked on alcohol, sedatives, cigarettes, and even screens. The face and prevalence of addiction has changed and evolved, but our solutions to addiction are stuck in the past.

We’ve been treating addiction as a black or white issue, a disease you either suffer from or from which will never suffer. The problem with this model is that it doesn’t account for the incredible forces working against all of us, pushing all of us toward addiction: stress, undernourishment, sleep deprivation, vitamin D deficiency, and isolation, not to mention a flawed medical system and corrupt pharmaceutical companies doling out prescriptions at every turn.

The truth: Addiction is a disease that, like many others, exists on a spectrum. We are more vulnerable to becoming addicted to substances at certain points in our lives and, based on the evidence provided in The Addiction Spectrum, most effective at kicking addiction when we take a holistic approach. With the help of the 13-point plan and individual protocols detailed in this audiobook, you have the power to change your destiny.

No one understands this more than Dr. Paul Thomas, who recovered from alcohol addiction early in his career and founded one of the most effective rehabilitation centers for teens and young adults in his hometown of Portland, Oregon. Named one of the top family doctors and one of the top pediatricians in the country, Dr. Paul is also board-certified in both integrative medicine and addiction medicine. This unique combination of specialties is intentional: Dr. Paul has devoted his entire life and career to saving lives.

Using the best conventional medicine alongside the new science of alternative health, Dr. Paul has treated thousands of patients with the life-saving solutions provided in The Addiction Spectrum. Addiction is a compendium of often devastating circumstances that have gone unchecked by society for far too long. This audiobook is a positive light and guide to overcoming not only addiction but the challenges and obstacles that affect us all.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2018 Paul Thomas, MD, and Jennifer Margulis, PhD (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers

Get this book if you are affected by addiction

I found this audiobook very useful and eye opening. It must be on every home bookshelf. Every addiction counselor and recovery coach must listen to this!

Embracing the holistic approach to addiction treatment

I was pleasantly surprised to hear the authors stress the importance of lifestyle changes to attain and maintain sobriety and recovery. I highly recommend this book( approach ) to any and all who are challenged with addiction.

No pdf to download

Never was able to download the pdf file it showed that is was a error

Re: Cringey at times, hoping nuance will grow as it progresses

I am a trauma therapist and professor and I wanted so much to love this book. I think the idea of addiction as a more nuanced and spectrum-like phenomenon is important. I also think that the advice he gives isn’t “bad.” However, I am struggling with the book. I feel that some of his rhetoric against the dogma of medicine becomes itself fanatical and dogmatic when the truth is more complicated. Even the narration/writing feels intentionally fear mongery at times. Honestly, it was when he bashed pharmaceutical science (and I’m on his side there, big businesses are often corrupt and I hope people like the Sackler family are held accountable—and they probably won’t be—for their role in the opioid epidemic)—but equally corrupt/rigged/sloppy-scienced is the thin-obsessed, “optimize your body,” “health and wellness” industry, it just happens to be an industry that shares his world view about “toxins” and the like…and then when he suggested “Supersize Me” as a documentary worth considering as useful factual information (which is an anecdotal account of fast food consumption with an n of one that has loooooong since been debunked as useful, disproven as scientifically sound with Spurlock being disingenuous about much of the information within it—in addition to it normalizing the behavior of being horrifically cruel to fat people—)that the content of this book started to feel more and more like reactive propaganda (words like “GMO” and “toxin” out of any nuanced context tend to give me a red flag or two). Throw in the cringey description of him living in Africa with his missionary family and then his kids being in “inner city” schools where “adults will buy you alcohol for a few dollars for themselves any day of the week” (I call some racist/classist bs there)…it’s losing me quick.

I have no doubt that making lifestyle changes can and will help folks, I wouldn’t knock it as an approach to recovery, but if you’re going to bash science around medications so heartily, having some science on your side that isn’t equally as problematic and rigged would be helpful.

None of the diet and lifestyle advice thus far is anything new. I do appreciate the focus on decentering shame and stigma. I do agree that doctors should be more holistic in their approach to health. I do think more people struggle with substance use than might be evident because of culturally acceptable messages around specifically alcohol use. I think the Biology of Desire by Marc Lewis is a better take. I hope it’s helpful to some I just wish that the valuable stuff he had to say didn’t feel vastly overshadowed by unnuanced and sloppy evidence he claims to cite for it…it makes it hard for those who aren’t already prepared to join with his worldview to buy in.