The Boston Globe runs its review of my book, America Anonymous, today. Reviewer Johnny Diaz says the stories of the addicts I follow serve as the “illuminating narrative,” and, unlike some other reviewers, he points out that the book is more than just about eight addicts–it’s also packed with “historical and sociological context” about the history of addiction, the science of addiction, and our cultures of addiction and recovery. 

Diaz writes that he’s particularly drawn to the stories of Janice, the crack-addicted grandmother, and Todd, the bisexual bodybuilder. (Janice’s chapters “crackle with street dialogue,” Diaz says.) He ends the review with this: “Where are the millions of addicts in this country who are sober and have turned around their lives? They need to be on the front-lines of this war,” Denizet Lewis writes, daring other recovering addicts to share their stories on a larger scale. And in writing this book, he has done just that.

The New York Times review of my book is online (and will run in the Book Review on Sunday). Polly Morrice, a frequent contributor to the Book Review, seems to mostly like the book, writing that my “novelistic approach injects suspense” and that I take a “generous but clear-eyed view” of the eight addicts I followed for two to three years. She offers up criticism, too, noting that she would have liked more deep “digging” into the “many questions raised,” and that she didn’t end up caring about all of the people I followed. Her favorite character was Jody, the gambling and drug addiction counselor. 

(There has been no real consensus among reviewers about which character they consider to be the most compelling. While Morrice calls Jody “by far the most engaging subject,” other critics have preferred Janice, or Marvin, or several of the other people profiled.)

I’m not sure what to make of Morrice’s complaint that I don’t dig deep into the many complicated questions I raise in the book. I certainly tried to in chapters that Morrice doesn’t mention—ones focusing on the science of addiction, the history of addiction, and our cultures of addiction and recovery, but I purposefully refrain from answering questions that are, in my opinion, unanswerable. The fact is, addiction is staggeringly complicated, and anyone who claims to have this issue all figured out is delusional (or, as I like to say, on crack).

That brings me to my main complaint with Morrice’s review. In the last paragraph, Morrice writes, “This brings us back to families, which, Denizet-Lewis maintains, often cause addictions, a conclusion he backs up by pointing to his subjects, whose childhood traumas range from being raped by a family member to, in his own case, having ‘an authoritarian and emotionally withdrawn mother.’”

This is a gross oversimplification of what I write in America Anonymous. I don’t believe that we can say for sure that any one thing “causes” any one person’s addiction. There is little doubt that childhood trauma plays a significant role in the lives of many addicts, including most of those I profiled in my book, but not everyone who is traumatized grows up to be an addict, just as not every addict had a lousy childhood. I don’t know for sure what “caused” my addiction. I suspect that my trauma played a role in it, but was I also genetically predisposed? As I write in America Anonymous, I don’t know. Morrice doesn’t mention the pages I devote to other possible addiction causes—including genetic predisposition, social disconnection, and a modern culture hooked on distraction.

In her review, Morrice also doesn’t mention the book’s main thesis: That addiction is our costliest and most misunderstood public health crisis, one that triggers or exacerbates many of our biggest social problems—including skyrocketing health-care costs, crime, poverty, broken families, and the spread of HIV. But while the victims of other stigmatized illnesses (HIV/AIDS, cancer) have “come out of the closet” and formed advocacy movements, the millions of addicts with successful longterm recovery (except for addicted celebrities, who come and go from treatment with great fanfare) continue to talk only to each other in church basements. Until that changes (or, as Jody puts it, until “we flip the switch” and start talking intelligently and compassionately about addiction—and funding research and treatment the way we do other illnesses), untreated addiction will continue to kill hundreds of thousands of Americans each year.

To read other reviews of America Anonymous, go here.

A question I’m often asked is how genetic predisposition to addiction mixes with environment to produce an addicted person. No one knows for sure, of course, but this study from the University of Georgia is further evidence that involved and supportive parents can often neutralize a genetic predisposition to substance abuse. What follows is a portion of the study’s full press release:

Athens, Ga. – A genetic risk factor that increases the likelihood that youth will engage in substance use can be neutralized by high levels of involved and supportive parenting, according to a new University of Georgia study.

“We found that involved and supportive parenting can completely override the effects of a genetic risk for substance abuse,” says study co-author Gene Brody, Regents Professor in the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences. “It’s a very encouraging finding that shows the power of parenting.”

Brody and his colleagues… focused their attention on a gene known as 5HTT that’s involved in the transport of the brain chemical serotonin. Most people carry two copies of the long version of the gene, but those with one or two copies of the short version have been shown in several studies to have a greater likelihood of consuming alcohol and other substances and to have higher levels of impulsivity and risk taking.

The researchers interviewed 253 African-American families in rural Georgia over a four-year period. The researchers found that nearly 60 percent of the youth had two copies of the long gene, while the remainder had one or two copies of the short gene that confers risk. As expected, the use of substances was low among 11 year-olds and increased as the youth aged. By age 14, 21 percent of the youth had smoked cigarettes, 42 percent had used alcohol, five percent had drank heavily and five percent had used marijuana.

Among youth with the genetic risk factor, those who received low levels of involved and supportive parenting increased their substance use at rate three times higher than youth with high levels of parental support. Among youth with high levels of involved and supportive parenting, the difference in substance abuse was negligible – regardless of genetic risk.

“In families that were characterized by strong relationships between children and their parents, the effect of the genetic risk was essentially zero,” said Beach, who is also a Distinguished Research Professor in the psychology department of the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. “With this study and previous studies looking at environmental risk factors such as poverty, we’re finding that in many cases the best way to help children is to help families become more resilient.”

Barnes & Noble taped my first bookstore appearance in New York City. Thanks to Susan Cheever and Jody and Ellen (two of the people I profile in the book) for making it such a great event. Click here for the video.