The Fix (book)

The Fix: How Addiction Is Invading our Lives and Taking Over Your World is a non-fiction book by the British writer and journalist Damian Thompson in which Thompson examines addiction and how it is being harboured in society. His fourth book, it was published in May 2012 by Collins. Shortly after release, its core contention that addiction is not a pathological disorder provoked controversy.

The Fix
1st edition (Collins)
AuthorDamian Thompson
CountryUnited Kingdom
GenreSocial sciences
PublisherCollins
Publication date
24 May 2012 (UK) (hardcover)
13 Jan 2013 (UK) (paperback)
Pages352
ISBN9780007436088
Preceded byCounterknowledge 

Overview

In addition to his research, the book is informed by Thompson's experience as a former alcoholic and his participation in the Alcoholics Anonymous Twelve-Step sobriety program.[1]:33–37 He rejects the brain disease theory of addiction (an example of which is disease theory of alcoholism), arguing that addiction is instead a voluntary and reversible behavioural disorder based on the brain's reward system, namely the mesolimbic pathway. Thompson argues that addiction is universally being fostered by technology and the social environment for commercial purposes, pointing to sugar addiction from sugar-rich foods such as cupcakes, addictions to pornography, video games, shopping, and drugs such as alcohol, caffeine; illegal drugs such as cocaine and heroin, and controlled medical drugs — such as zopiclone — obtained via prescription or without one from an online pharmacy.

[2] He believes that the boundaries between everyday addictions and less socially acceptable ones are becoming increasingly blurred, and also perceives an overlap between them, citing evidence that sugar triggers "the brain's natural opioids," and that the brain can become addicted to them in the same way that it does to morphine or heroin.[3]

Reception

The Economist described the book as an "entertaining and informative account" of addiction, although written in a "waspish" style which it considered to understate the seriousness of the issue.[4] ConservativeHome viewed it as an "eye-opening, iconoclastic analysis" of contemporary addiction.[5] In Wired UK, Milo Yiannopoulos felt its perception of a disparity between the evolutionary status quo of human beings and the overwhelming world in which they live was presented with "gentle but terrifyingly persuasive regularity".[6]

The book provoked a dispute between Thompson and The Guardian's Tanya Gold, a recovering alcoholic.[7] Gold described it as a "dangerous polemic", accusing Thompson of writing a "poison pen letter" to Alcoholics Anonymous.[8] The Huffington Post's Rupert Wolfe-Murray also criticised Thompson's rejection of the disease model of addiction, suggesting he was giving alcoholism the banality of everyday obsessions and asking if this was a form of denial.[9]

Thompson responded to Gold, clarifying his view that addiction is a matter of choice,[10] and also responded to Wolfe-Murray on his blog, writing that the disease model of addiction should not be an "emotional crutch".[11]

In The Washington Post, James Norton wrote that Thompson speaks in a deceptively casual voice at first, but ultimately brings the reader through a "whirlwind of anecdotes, interviews and studies", offering an argument with "real force and substance" and engaging reading material.[12] He felt that Thompson's argument isn't likely to be popular, but is a "far more nuanced look at the mechanics of addiction than we lay readers are usually offered".[12]

In The Mail on Sunday, British Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove described The Fix as "blackly funny, intellectually serious and compellingly readable".[13] He felt that Thompson's candidness put him in a strong position "to see how addiction is warping society".[13]

gollark: But having access to several orders of magnitude of computing power than exists on Earth, and quantum computers (which can break the hard problems involved in all widely used asymmetric stuff) would.
gollark: Like how in theory on arbitrarily big numbers the fastest way to do multiplication is with some insane thing involving lots of Fourier transforms, but on averagely sized numbers it isn't very helpful.
gollark: It's entirely possible that the P = NP thing could be entirely irrelevant to breaking encryption, actually, as it might not provide a faster/more computationally efficient algorithm for key sizes which are in use.
gollark: Well, that would be inconvenient.
gollark: Increasing the key sizes a lot isn't very helpful if it doesn't increase the difficulty of breaking it by a similarly large factor.

References
  1. Thompson, Damian. (2012) The Fix: How Addiction is Invading our Lives and Taking Over Your World. Collins. ISBN 9780007436088
  2. "Solution To Your Medical Problems". Retrieved 12 November 2015.
  3. Colantuoni, Carlo; Rada, Pedro et al. 'Evidence that Intermittent, Excessive Sugar Intake Causes Endogenous Opioid Dependence,' Obesity Research 10, 2002. Cited in Thompson (2012), p. 16
  4. "Crazy for it". The Economist. 2 June 2012. Retrieved 3 June 2012.
  5. "From Gin Lane to porn superhighway". ConservativeHome. 1 June 2012. Retrieved 3 June 2012.
  6. Yiannopoulos, Milo (24 May 2012). "The Fix: Damian Thompson explores the murky world of modern addiction". Wired UK. Retrieved 3 June 2012.
  7. "Fleet Street's finest former alcoholics war over words". Evening Standard. 31 May 2012. Retrieved 3 June 2012.
  8. Gold, Tanya (28 May 2012). "Is addiction a moral defect or a mental illness?". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 June 2012.
  9. Wolfe-Murray, Rupert (31 May 2012). "Are We All Addicts?". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 3 June 2012.
  10. Thompson, Damian (30 May 2012). "Alcoholics Anonymous saved my life, but not by curing a 'disease'". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 June 2012.
  11. Thompson, Damian (1 June 2012). "Do you think alcoholism isn't really a disease? Careful – you'll be branded as a heretic". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 3 June 2012.
  12. Norton, James (21 May 2013). "'The Fix,' by Damian Thompson". The Washington Post. Retrieved 5 June 2013.
  13. Thompson, Damian. "Michael Gove reviews The Fix". thefix-book.com. Retrieved 6 August 2013.
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