Unbroken Brain

A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction

By: Maia Szalavitz

Narrated by: Marisa Vitali

More people than ever before see themselves as addicted to or recovering from addiction, whether it's alcohol or drugs, prescription meds, sex, gambling, porn, or the Internet. But despite the unprecedented attention, our understanding of addiction is trapped in unfounded 20th-century ideas, addiction as a crime or as brain disease, and equally outdated treatment.

Challenging both the idea of the addict's "broken brain" and the notion of a simple "addictive personality", Unbroken Brain offers a radical and groundbreaking new perspective, arguing that addiction is a learning disorder, and shows how seeing the condition this way can untangle our current debates over treatment, prevention, and policy. Like autistic traits, addictive behaviors fall on a spectrum - and they can be a normal response to an extreme situation. By illustrating what addiction is and is not, the book illustrates how timing, history, family, peers, culture, and chemicals come together to create both illness and recovery - and why there is no "addictive personality" or single treatment that works for all.

Combining Maia Szalavitz's personal story with a distillation of more than 25 years of science and research, Unbroken Brain provides a paradigm-shifting approach to thinking about addiction.

©2016 Maia Szalavitz (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

Narrator lacks substance, author lacks breadth

Would you try another book from Maia Szalavitz and/or Marisa Vitali?

no

What did you like best about this story?

I liked how they wove there story through the narrative

What didn’t you like about Marisa Vitali’s performance?

She sounds 12 and lacks the gravitas to read the authors story

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

no

Any additional comments?

I don't think the author offers anything new. It's hard to distinguish her take on learning from the existing science on addictive behavior. As a member of NA, I was also disappointed that the author lacked any understanding of a program that has helped millions to recover. It's fascinating how people can propose "revolutionary" ways to solve a problem while lacking any experience or data on how their program of recovery actually fares in the real world.

Excellent analysis of the human condition

I am still surprised at how well the author articulated her story and the overwhelming evidence for her case that current drug and addiction policies and stigmas are more harmful than good. It is also empowering to know that addiction is treatable by what we humans do best... Learning. I will be reading this again in the future.

Unbroken is Revolutionary regarding learning

Unbroken Brain is a breathtaking perspective of the issues of addiction, brain science and learning.
Every addict who has felt the sting of being told, "You did this to yourself," every lawmaker, judge, mental health and addiction professional should read or hear what this book says.

Informative

I work in a rehab facility and thought everyone was like us: practicing kindness and empathy. To hear how unpleasant somev places are was heart breaking

Sounds like narrator recorded one sentence per day.

I got through chapter 6 before deciding to buy the Kindle version and read this instead. I usually like audiobooks where the author does NOT read their own books, but after struggling through with a narrator whose voice sounds like a computer synthesis, very robotic, like one sentence was recorded at a time very distinctly with gaps between the recordings, I just can't take it anymore.

The writing itself is fantastic, the material is very well written. The narrator just completely sucks. She has a beautiful voice, but her diction style is one of the worst I've heard, and I have listened to half of many badly narrated audiobooks. Way too robotic and stilted and overly melodic in a formulaic manner.

profound work on really treating addiction

addiction treatment via the 12 steps does not work for anything other than alcohol. this is obvious to anyone who reads about the heroin addict who overdoses and dies after 4, 8, or 20 rehabs. if rehab worked, that addict would be alive today.

Excellent, poignant and easy to grasp

This book has been eye opening, I highly recommend it to anyone seeking guidance in how to speak with/comfort/understand a loved one in addiction. I hope that our society begins to view drugs and addiction and addicts in this way!

a call to action

loved the validation and researched expressions of how harm reduction models work! i will be recommending to all I work with at the Addiction recovery center where I work in Maine. Thank you Maia, I appreciate your brave work.

Enlightening

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Through the course of the book I thought about many different people in my life that I felt could seriously benefit from this book, so YES! And I already have.

What did you like best about this story?

I really liked how the author intertwined her experiences with data, experiments, studies, etc. and challenged the “conventional” way addiction and how those addicted are treated.

What about Marisa Vitali’s performance did you like?

She spoke in a way that made me feel as though I was in a personal conversation with the author.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No. I drive a lot for work and listened primarily in my car, so it took me a bit over a week to finish it.

Any additional comments?

THANK YOU Maia Szalavitz for writing this book!

great read

Excellence reading performance. I really enjoyed the new perspective on addiction as a psychological issue, and felt that many excellent points and recommendations were made. It was a little anecdotal that the author used he own story so strongly to make her points, but it was also backed with a lot of valid research that mostlymade up for it. Overall, a good experience.