The Addict: One Patient, One Doctor, One Year - Hardcover

Stein, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 006136813X ISBN 13: 9780061368134

Publisher: William Morrow, 2009

Synopsis

“A gripping, illuminating book . . . Dr. Stein is drawn, in an almost Sherlock Holmesian way, toward trying to fathom and analyze addicts’ behavior. . . . hauntingly and successfully, Stein lets readers make a doctor’s experiences their own.” — New York Times

“Beautifully told… [with] great insight, empathy and compassion.” — Abraham Verghese, author of The Tennis Partner, My Own Country, and Cutting for Stone

The Addict is the powerful and revealing narrative of Dr. Michael Stein’s year-long treatment of a young woman addicted to Vicodin. Dr. Stein has followed up his award winning book The Lonely Patient with “a useful, sensible, and often inspiring guide to how the medical profession does—and should—treat the sick, and the sick at heart.” (Francine Prose, O magazine)

About this title

About the Author

Michael Stein is the author of the award-winning The Lonely Patient as well as five novels. He has been treating addiction for more than twenty years and is a professor of medicine and community health at Brown University.

From the Back Cover

The Addict opens a window on the very private world of prescription drug addiction, revealing the harrowing and riveting story of a young woman whose life has been taken over by an impulse that she can't control and a need that she can't extinguish.

Lucy's first appointment with Dr. Michael Stein was on a sunny day in April, and the minute she sat down she said, "I'm here for your program," beginning a series of intimate encounters during the course of a year that took her back to the origins of her addiction and unraveled a life driven by compulsion and the constant pursuit of the next pill. The Addict follows Lucy from the start of her treatment, through relapse, to her eventual long-term recovery, including her breakup with a destructive boyfriend whose own addiction to drugs surpassed hers. This is an unforgettable tale of a young woman living on the edge but determined to take control of her life.

Here also is the deeply personal account of a doctor on the front lines of an epidemic. In this masterful work, Michael Stein brings in other patients whose experiences are like Lucy's but in many ways are completely different. Dr. Stein explains what doctors are thinking and feeling about addiction, and how they make difficult decisions with difficult patients. He also aims to change the way we think about addiction, arguing that it should be treated as we treat diabetes or high blood pressure—as a disease within the medical system.

This affecting and thought-provoking book will resonate with anyone struggling with chemical dependence. In The Addict, Dr. Stein creates a portrait of the intimate bond between one patient and one doctor, a relationship that is profoundly moving and incredibly compelling.

Reviews

Starred Review. With a crisp detachment that belies his vulnerability and caring, Stein (The Lonely Patient) masterfully records the relentless pain—physical and psychological—that brings Lucy Fields, a 29-year-old Vicodin addict, to his door with a peculiarly common modern American condition. Though the literate and likable Brown University med school prof administers another drug that should block the effects of the Vicodin, he readily admits its success is far from perfect. A daunting addiction unfolds; Fields, college-educated and from an intact family, paradoxically defies yet also encompasses the stereotypical drug-user—she is both self-aware and self-destructive. It's Lucy's arc of illness that keeps this haunting narrative moving forward, but it's Stein's clear-eyed compassion that catapults her story from pathetic to sympathetic. To enjoy treating addicts... one needed a sense of irony, the belief that everyone's life vacillated between euphoria and sorrow, Stein says. Experts might disagree on treating addiction, but Stein's prescription is hard to dispute: first treat the illness, and then the aching soul sickness that caused it. To work with addicts is to enter the profession of possibility, he learns. In this uplifting chronicle, Stein celebrates Lucy's victory and his own. (Apr.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 006136813X
• ISBN 13: 9780061368134
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288