Summary Of Mark Lewis Memoirs Of An Addicted Brain

Memoirs of an Addicted Brain is an autobiographical novel that follows the stages of Mark Lewis’s life as an addict. Lewis begins the novel from when he was a young boy exploring the effects alcohol had on his behavior, then a young student experimenting with psychoactive drugs in San Francisco, becoming a heroin addict, and finally overcoming his extreme opiate addiction and becoming a respectable neuroscientist. His journey from the age of fifteen to thirty involves taking every drug he could get his hands on in order to feed his intensifying addiction. The main question that comes to mind after reading his book is how he managed to overcome his addiction. There are multiple treatments whose main goal is to help addicts; some which are based …show more content…
Specifically, the reason humans become addicted to a certain drug is because the drug tricks the brain into releasing pleasurable and rewarding chemicals which intrinsically reinforce the person into consuming it again and again. The moment one associates the drug use with these positive feelings, the behavior is learned. Based on the law of effect “behaviors leading to a satisfying state of affairs are strengthened” (Powel & Honey & Symbaluk,, 2013, p. 215), therefore the positive reinforcement that comes after using a drug determines that this behavior will be repeated again. This cyclical pattern of drug use and positive reinforcement is clearly seen in Mark Lewis 's behavior throughout his life as an addict, described in his novel. Lewis himself has stated in an …show more content…
This treatment program is based on operant conditioning in that it involves rewarding the healthy activities of the addict and removing the rewards from unhealthy ones. It also requires the participation of family members or friends of the addict in order to aid the person in his or her recovery and prevent relapse. CRAFT teaches the addict 's loved one 's how to deal with the situation they have and how to help. It is a fairly successful program (Roozen & De Waart & Van Der Kroft,2010) which involves allowing the negative consequences of addiction to affect the addict. This is something that Lewis himself went through on his own before he finally quit. Before he quit for good, he had been alone and flirting with the idea of suicide, caring only about how to get more Demerol or cocaine. At that point, he chose life, despite the fact that he was on his own. He decided that nothing could be worse than how he felt at that moment, thus he said no and kept saying it to himself, reinforcing the idea that a better life could be waiting for him if he trusts