The Urge: Our History of Addiction

Written by Carl Erik Fisher

Narrated by Mark Deakins

Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker and The Boston Globe

An authoritative, illuminating, and deeply humane history of addiction—a phenomenon that remains baffling and deeply misunderstood despite having touched countless lives—by an addiction psychiatrist striving to understand his own family and himself

“Carl Erik Fisher’s The Urge is the best-written and most incisive book I’ve read on the history of addiction. In the midst of an overdose crisis that grows worse by the hour and has vexed America for centuries, Fisher has given us the best prescription of all: understanding. He seamlessly blends a gripping historical narrative with memoir that doesn’t self-aggrandize; the result is a full-throated argument against blaming people with substance use disorder. The Urge is a propulsive tour de force that is as healing as it is enjoyable to read.” —Beth Macy, author of Dopesick

As a psychiatrist in training fresh from medical school, Carl Erik Fisher found himself face-to-face with an addiction crisis that nearly cost him everything. Desperate to make sense of his condition, he turned to the history of addiction, learning that our society’s current quagmire is only part of a centuries-old struggle to treat addictive behavior.

A rich, sweeping account that probes not only medicine and science but also literature, religion, philosophy, and public policy, The Urge introduces us to those who have endeavored to address addiction through the ages and examines the treatments that have produced relief for many people, the author included. Only by reckoning with our history of addiction, Fisher argues, can we light the way forward for those whose lives remain threatened by its hold.

The Urge is at once an eye-opening history of ideas, a riveting personal story of addiction and recovery, and a clinician’s urgent call for a more nuanced and compassionate view of one of society’s most intractable challenges.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Audio
• Release date: Jan 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9780593413609

Carl Erik Fisher

Carl Erik Fisher is an addiction physician and bioethicist. He is an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University, where he works in the Division of Law, Ethics, and Psychiatry. He also maintains a private psychiatry practice focusing on complementary and integrative approaches to treating addiction. His writing has appeared in Nautilus, Slate, and Scientific American MIND, among other outlets. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his partner and son.

Reviews for The Urge

[kmholmes07 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I work in a medical center where we have a MAT program and I wanted to understand a little more about the programs and inner workings of things. This book was so well put together, so strategically planned out, explaining things and building a story within it.
I did enjoy that it didn’t keep base on just the author and that it explored many different regions while just touching on the author. Great book, would highly recommend!

[sylvarum · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

fisher does a really good job of presenting an informative yet philosophical text that absolutely engrossed me in a topic i didn't think i would have any interest in, and honestly i was so close to giving 5 stars but:

1. i found the book often jumped around a lot that made it confusing to follow, especially in the middle sections where i wasn't as familiar with the historical context, and which also prevented deeper analysis and depth in discussion and explanation (although to be fair that's not uncommon in nonfiction writing in this zeitgeist and he's not particularly worse than other authors)

2. the referencing system for this book is horrendous - at the back, there's a small quote followed by the citation for that specific phrase, which is fine now i'm typing it out but let me tell you it was so much more difficult than it needed to be when i was reading and i wish he'd just gone with footnotes (although again i do understand why he didn't - this book is incredibly well-researched which is fabulous and allows for a great overview but also means there's an enormous amount of material to cite - an entire third of my copy was citations)

i know the long criticism section makes it sound like i'm super critical of it, but i just think those were the things i noticed the most (as opposed to the writing style and fabulous selection of statistics and anecdotes, which were amazing and therefore didn't satisfy the nitpicky cigar-smoking monocled critic at the back of my head), and overall i'm very happy i ended up reading this, and i reckon it's a good book to kick off 2024! hopefully all my nonfiction reads will be as insightful as this one :)