Editor’s Note: Welcome to the first installment of the Points Bookshelf, in which we review books about drugs, alcohol, history–and maybe even a combination of all three. We open with a review of Judith Grisel’s new book “Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction,” which was released last month.
If you’re interested in reviewing a book for Points, get in touch! You can reach editor Emily Dufton at emily.dufton (a) gmail.com
Sometimes it’s nice to consult an expert.
I first heard Judith Grisel on Fresh Air. Her interview with Terry Gross was fascinating. She has a PhD in behavioral neuroscience and psychology from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and she spent a good part of her early life addicted to numerous substances, including alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and more. Now drug-free for over thirty years, she is a professor of psychology at Bucknell University, in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
Her approach to the difficult subject of addiction is thus colored by all of her experiences. Because of her years as someone who had an unhealthy romance with numerous intoxicants (the title comes from a statement a friend made to her in a seedy hotel room in Miami as they snorted up as much cocaine as they physically could; there would “never be enough cocaine” for Grisel, her friend said, and when she realized the truth in this statement, it was a turning point in her life and career), she’s aware of the havoc addiction can wreak in individuals’, families’ and communities’ lives. As a neuroscientist and psychologist who has spent decades studying how the brain reacts to, and adapts to, intoxicant use, she’s also adept at explaining the biological and neurological underpinnings of this issue.