Craving for Ecstasy and Natural Highs

Craving for Ecstasy and Natural Highs explains how the pursuit of pleasure can result in compulsion and loss of control, and explores positive ways to achieve lasting happiness. It provides insight on how to improve quality of life and how to offer support to students, clients, family, or friends whose lives may be compromised by addiction.

Timely and comprehensive, the text addresses current topics related to drug use and society, including the medicalization, legalization, and widespread availability of THC, the complex problem of prescription and black-market opioid and heroin abuse, nicotine’s effects on the brain, the growing popularity of e-cigarettes and hookah bars, and more.

Early chapters address addiction through topics such as pleasure and the brain, food addictions and the ways food can alter neurochemistry, and the effect of stress hormones on mood. Later chapters discuss the prevention and treatment methods discovered within the past decade, namely the introduction of natural highs – such as exercise, meditation, and eating well – to children to help them achieve pleasure and reduce stress without the use of dangerous substances.

Highly readable and engaging, Craving for Ecstasy and Natural Highs will appeal to students of addictive behavior, physical and mental health practitioners of all kinds, and anyone interested in discovering healthy ways to find satisfaction, wellness, and a natural sense of elation in life.