Maia Szalavitz is an American reporter and author who has focused much of her work on the topic of addiction. She is the co-author of Born for Love and The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, both with Dr. Bruce D. Perry. Her latest book is Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction  

In this paradigm-shifting interview, Maia Szalavitz explains that addiction is a learning disorder, a developmental disorder, which is a different way of thinking of addiction than it being a disease or a moral failing.

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In This Interview, Maia Szalavitz and I Discuss…

• Her book,  Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction
• That your brain becomes what it does – that the more you repeat an activity, the easier it becomes
• How addiction is a developmental disorder and how learning is critical to addiction
• The problems with discussion about addiction as a disease
• Arguing that addiction is a disease and then treating it like a moral failing
• Addiction resets your priorities and causes one to make different decisions
• Addiction = compulsive behavior that continues despite negative consequences
• How illogical it is then to try and address addiction by focusing on implementing additional negative consequences
• The complexity of addiction, genes + culture + timing
• The developmental history that gets you to addiction
• How the drug isn’t the problem and our efforts to get rid of it isn’t a helpful solution
• Addiction as a learning disorder that is characterized by a resistance to punishment
• The problem with “rock bottom” is it’s not helpful scientifically, and it implies a moral component of having to reach a point of extreme degradation before you can stop.
• What the motivation is that turns people to recovery
• How addicts keep using because they can’t see how they can survive any other way
• Recovery begins when you start to see that there are other options
• People with addiction are living at a point of learned helplessness
• The role of hope and other ways of managing their life
• Addiction as a coping mechanism
• The pleasures of the hunt vs the pleasures of the feast
• Wanting vs Liking
• Different motivational states
• Addiction as escalating wanting
• Stimulants and chasing that satisfaction
• The effectiveness and usefulness of 12 Step Programs
• The role of medicine in a developmental disorder
• Looking at addicts as students who need to learn better coping skills rather than sinners who need to be forced to repent.

Maia Szalavitz Links:

maiasz.com

Twitter 

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