Nonfiction in Audiobooks

The discussion post for the third week of Nonfiction November is to discuss “nontraditional nonfiction.” I admit, I’m a really slow reader and by the time I’m relaxing at home with a book, I’d rather be reading fiction. Therefore, my “traditional” nonfiction reading is pretty much at a snail’s pace. But I get a lot of nonfiction read through audiobook. In fact, I alternate fiction with non-fiction when I’m listening, so I get a lot of nonfiction “read” this way. I can’t recommend a specific book, because there are just too many, and I’m  not all that picky – as long as the reader is reasonably good, I’m happy. 

Instead, let me tell you about why I started listening to audiobooks. When I was younger, I never listened in class. My teachers in middle school used to accuse me of “staring off into space instead of listening,” which I really didn’t think I was doing. By the time I got to high school, I knew I didn’t listen – my chemistry teacher used to always praise me about how I’d discovered a new way to solve his problems. Well, the reason I didn’t do it his way is because I never listened to a word he said. I had no idea how he told us to solve the problems. I didn’t tell him that. Then in college, I had a rather shocking experience. I was sitting with a group of students discussing a class. One of them mentioned something the professor said. I was floored. People actually hear what the professor says? 

After that, I tried. The rest of my undergraduate career I tried really hard to pay attention. It didn’t work. During the first couple of years of grad school, I tried chanting in my head “you must listen, you must listen, you must listen.” Somehow I managed to continue that chant in my head while thinking of other things. I even tried yoga. No luck. I just couldn’t listen to what people said. I decided I was audibly challenged. As in, low auditory comprehension, not poor hearing.

That’s when I tried out audiobooks. I figured I could practice listening to auditory stimulation while I was exercising and stuff. I specifically picked books that I wouldn’t otherwise have read – because I didn’t want to miss something that I actually wanted to read. For instance, I listened to the entire Twilight series. 🙂 

It worked! Now I am able to listen to books that I want to read, and I do it all the time. I like audio for non-fiction, because it doesn’t make my eyes blur over when I’m tired, like written non-fiction can. (Though maybe if I stopped reading books that “read like textbooks” I’d not have this problem – but I like those books!)

Less importantly, I’m better able to listen in classes now. So, thank God for audiobooks!


The Biological Effects of Anxiety on the Body

Stress and anxiety can wreak havoc upon your body. It can lead to problems with childhood physical development, and affect the immune, endocrine, gastrointestinal, and cardiovascular systems. It can exacerbate diabetes. Stress affects the mind as well, a tragic example being PTSD, where an individual might relive a traumatic event over and over. 

Stress can be either good or bad event – such as marriage or a divorce. Low levels of stress can actually be a good thing – for instance, a small amount of stress might help you prepare for an upcoming exam better than you otherwise would have. But sometimes stress becomes overwhelming, and biological systems in your body that would usually only slightly increase during “good stress,” go into overdrive – potentially on a long-term basis. 

In order to understand why long-term stress can be bad, we need to understand what immediate effect stress has on our bodies. Under stress, the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal system (HPA axis) is activated. The hypothalamus releases corticotrophin-releasing-hormone (CRH). CRH stimulates the pituitary gland. The pituitary then secretes adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH). The Adrenal cortex then produces the stress hormone cortisol in humans. 

Anatomy of hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal system
Top left, the pituitary gland is red
Top right, the hypothalamus and pituitary glands are connected
Bottom left, the adrenal glands are bright red
Bottom right, the adrenal glands are the yellow cones on the kidneys

Cortisol activates the fight-or-flight response. The sympathetic nervous system shuts down anything that your body doesn’t need during a traumatic event where you might need to fight or run away from a threat. That means your stomach stops digesting, you stop producing semen / ovulating, your immune system – which requires a huge amount of energy – slows way down. Tissue repair – also another drain on energy – halts.  Activation of the sympathetic nervous system leads to release of the adrenaline (epinephrine) and noradrenaline (norepinephrine). These hormones circulate through the body and increase rate of the heart and of glucose metabolism – that gets the oxygen and energy flowing so you can use your limbs for fight or flight. 

Cortisol is the hormone that prepares the body for fight-or-flight; thus, it is a good hormone to have around in an immediate danger. However, if stress continues, and cortisol is not turned off, the long term effects of suppression of vital bodily functions is quite detrimental to the body. Usually, after immediate stress, the cortisol has a feedback inhibition mechanism, in which it signals to slow its own production. However, if the stress continues for too long, cortisol’s feedback inhibition loop can be deactivated; thus allowing the adrenal cortex to continue pumping out cortisol and keeping the physiological effects of the sympathetic nervous system still active. 

Since the immune system is inhibited by the sympathetic nervous system, individuals experiencing long-term stress are susceptible to infection by viruses and bacteria. 


The best known physical side effect of stress is cardiovascular problems. As mentioned earlier in this post, the sympathetic nervous system increases heart-rate so that blood pumps more quickly throughout the body. Not only can this increase blood pressure directly, but it can also lead to damage of the blood vessel walls. The high blood pressure leads to tiny tears in the blood vessel walls. These tears are susceptible to accumulating circulating “junk” such as particles of fat and cholesterol. This accumulation – pictured n yellow above – can decrease blood flow through the vessel, or completely block flow as seen above. When the heart doesn’t get enough oxygen, then a heart attack may occur. Another problem with decreased blood flow is that if the brain doesn’t get enough oxygen, this can cause a stroke. 

As you can see, stress can have a huge impact on your health. Doesn’t that stress you out?


This is a series of posts summarizing what I’m learning in my Abnormal Psychology course. Much of the information provided comes from reading my James N. Butcher’s textbook Abnormal Psychology. To read the other posts, follow these links: 

The Definition of Abnormal
A History of Abnormal Psychology
Abnormal Psychology in Contemporary Society
Contemporary Viewpoints on Treating Mental Illness – Biology
Contemporary Viewpoints on Treating Mental Illness – Psychology
Frontline: New Asylums
Brave New Films: This is Crazy
Clinical Mental Health Diagnosis: Biological Assessment
Clinical Mental Health Diagnosis: Psychological Assessment
Does the DSM Encourage Overmedication?
Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome – The Basics
Panic Disorder
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Hoarding and Body Dysmorphic Disorders
Depression – an Overview
Personality Disorders – Clusters and Dimensions
Personality Disorders – Cluster A
Personality Disorders – Cluster B
Personality Disorders – Cluster C
Biological Effects of Stress on Your Body
Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders
Dissociative Disorders
Borderline Personality Disorder
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
Paraphilic Disorders
Gender Dysphoria – Homosexuality and Transgender
Anxiety Disorders
Bipolar Disorder – The Basics
Suicide – An Overview

References:

Butcher, James N. Hooley, Jill M. Mineka, Susan. (2014) Chapter 5: Stress and Physical and Mental Health. Abnormal Psychology, sixteenth edition (pp. 129-161). Pearson Education Inc.

Women’s Classic Literature Event 2016

Women’s Classic Literature Event
Hosted by the Classics Club
Ok. I’ve broken down and decided to join the Women’s Classic Literature Event with the Classics Club. “Why do you say ‘broken down'” You ask? Because I’m trying to only join events that will supplement my personal reading goals or introduce me to bloggers with common interests. After thinking about it, I’ve decided that this challenge fits those needs. I’m starting today. 

I hate making lists of books to read, because I will not stick to it – in fact, writing my Classics Club list was stressful enough. But here are the books (8 of 54 – oh sad, sad day; I’m embarrassed) on my Classics Club list that are by female authors – I will try to focus on them this year as much as feasible. 

  1. Persuasion, Jane Austen
  2. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
  3. The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath
  4. Ten Days in a Mad-House, Nellie Bly
  5. North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell
  6. Middlemarch, George Elliot
  7. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
  8. Cotillion, Georgette Heyer
Furthermore, Ali @heavenali is maybe hosting a Woolf-a-long through 2016, though its structure is still a little up in the air. I told her that the books by Woolf that I am interested in reading are: Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, The Waves, and Between the Acts.

The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels, by Alexander Heidel

This classic book published in 1946 begins with a short introduction to The Epic of Gilgamesh, gives Heidel’s translation of the Epic, and finally provides a comparison of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and other Mesopotamian tablets with similar stories. Heidel’s translation is organized into tablet format, with fragments and unsure translations represented with an ellipsis and brackets.
Heidel begins his comparison with a chapter about death and the afterlife. In Mesopotamian literature, gods can die, evil was innate because humans were formed from the blood of a “bad” god, and there was an afterlife in which a person carried the objects buried with him into the afterlife. In Hebrew tradition, the one God can not die – he lives forever. However, there is a concept of original sin, similar to the Mesopotamian belief of innate evil. There seems to be some contradiction about whether Hebrews believed that there was an afterlife or not – most likely because of different beliefs of different sects.
The Mesopotamians partook in ancestor worship, which suggested that the ancestors could somehow intercede on behalf of their descendants. On the other hand, in Hebrew culture, there doesn’t seem to be any contact between the spirits of the dead and the living people.
The second, and final, chapter of Heidel’s book compares the Utnapishtim’s flood story that took place in the Epic of Gilgamesh with Noah’s flood story that took place in the Old Testament. There are obvious similarities. Utnapishtim and Noah both built ships to save them from a massive flood that the gods (or God) unleashed on the earth. They collected a male and female of every animal so that they could repopulate the earth. And at the end they released birds to let them know if the flood had subsided. Both the gods and the one God promised never to kill off humanity with such a calamity again.
But there were some interesting differences. First of all, Utnapishtim was not directly told of the flood. Nobody was meant to be told. But a god that favored Utnapishtim whispered to him through the wall of his home while Utnapishtim was sleeping. He told Utnapishtim to lie to the people around him – saying that one of the gods hated him, and that in order to save the entire community, he must leave in a ship. If the community helped Utnapishtim build the ship, they would be rewarded with a season of plenty, which would start with a “wheat-rain.” The community built the ship. Utnapishtim loaded on his family and his entire household of servants. At the end of the story, not all of humanity had died – just most of them. Some had survived the flood.
In the Old Testament, Noah was told directly by God to build a ship. He was asked to warn the community – telling them they must repent. The community did not repent. Noah built the ship and took only his family with him. All of humanity died.
Finally, Heidel discussed arguments of whether the Old Testament story had been derived directly from the Gilgamesh Epic, or if they had the same origins from a different source. He also wrote an interesting, though incredibly theoretical discussion about whether the flood really did happen, and what could have caused such a flood.
In the end, this book was very interesting, though I was hoping for a little more from it. However, I’m not quite certain what I expected, or why I expected it. After all, it delivered what was promised in the title. I think part of my higher expectations came from the fact that pretty much every list of references for studying the Gilgamesh Epic included this book.
Besides the rather silly overly-detailed theoretical discussions about the origins of the flood, one other thing I found annoying about this book was his over-use of the word “obviously.” These points were certainly not obvious to me, so why did he keep using that word? Perhaps his target audience was nothing like me.
3.5 stars for excellent research and being a classic reference book for Gilgamesh Epic.

Personality Disorders – Cluster C

As mentioned in my opening post about personality disorders, personality disorders are split into three clusters -A, B, and C. This post will discuss cluster C. People with these disorders tend to be  anxious and fearful.

Avoidant Personality Disorder is characterized by extreme social inhibition and introversion, which lead to few friends and a tendency to avoid social interactions. Unlike schizoid personalities, people with avoidant personality disorder want to have friends, but they are too afraid of rejection to attempt social interaction.  They do not enjoy being alone, and are often bored. They generally have low self-esteem and high self-consciousness. 

In order to be diagnosed with avoidant personality disorder, the individual must have four or more of the following characteristics, which create clinically significant problems in functioning: 1) avoids occupations that involve interpersonal contact; 2) unwilling to get involved with people unless certain of being liked; 3) shows restraint within intimate relationships for fear of being shamed or ridiculed; 4) preoccupied with criticism and rejection; 5) inhibited in new interpersonal situations; 6) views self as socially inept, unappealing, and inferior; 7) does not take personal risks or engage in new activities for fear of embarrassment. 

Dependent personality disorder is characterized by extreme need to be taken care of. They tend to find one person to cling to, and they ask that person for advice on everyday decisions. They are terrified of separation from the person they are dependent upon. They sacrifice their own needs in order to please their chosen person, and often agree to do unpleasant things. They often remain in physically and emotionally abusive relationships. When their relationship is broken off, they desperately seek another person immediately, and often choose an inappropriate partner because of their fear that they are unable to take care of themselves. 

In order to be diagnosed with dependent personality disorder, the individual must have five or more of the following traits, leading to clinically significant impairment of function: 1) difficulty making everyday decisions without excessive advice; 2) needs others to assume responsibility for most major areas of life; 3) has difficulty disagreeing with others; 4) has difficulty initiating projects or of doing things alone; 5) goes to excessive lengths to obtain nurturance and support of others; 6) feels uncomfortable or helpless when alone; 7) urgently seeks another relationship when his source of care is broken off; 8) is terrified of being left alone to take care of himself. 

I met someone like this at a party once. He asked the entire group if anyone wanted to go wine tasting with a “bunch” of friends the next weekend, and I agreed. Within a day, he was asking me what to wear, how much money he should bring, and how early I thought we should be. He also told me that his wife had made him convert to Lutheran, and he felt extreme guilt over his conversion and wanted to be Catholic again – but he felt uncomfortable going to Mass alone. I naively volunteered to go to Mass with him a few times until he got used to the new church. “A few times” ended up to be every week. He began depending on me for every small decision in his life. Wanted to be around me every day. Said that he couldn’t eat alone and couldn’t exercise alone, so: could I come over and do those things with him? I was unemployed at the time (lots of time) and have an overly agreeable personality, so I got stuck helping him out way too much. I kept telling him I wasn’t interested in an intimate relationship, but he seemed not to understand this concept. (That may have been my fault for helping him out so much.) 

Finally, I got sick of him and said that I couldn’t spend that much time helping him. He needed to learn to be independent. I even suggested that he had dependent personality disorder and ought to seek help. That was mean, perhaps, but I was annoyed. It was a sign of his dysfunctional inability to disagree that he agreed I was right: he must have dependent personality disorder.

Anyway, dependent personality disorder is one of the disorders that will be dropped if diagnosis switches over to the dimensional rather than cluster approach. Which I think is unfortunate since I’ve met someone who clearly has those features. 

People with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder are the type of people that Freud would call “anally retentive.” They have an incredible need for symmetry, order, and perfection. They have specific rules and schedules and get very upset when those rules and schedules are broken by themselves or others. They tend to be dysfunctional because they are so obsessed with perfectionism that they aren’t able to finish projects. Unlike people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, they do not have true compulsive rituals like excessively washing hands. 

In order to be diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, an individual must have at least four of the following traits, which cause clinically significant impairment of function: 1) preoccupation with details, rules, lists, order, organization, or schedules; 2) perfectionism that interferes with task completion; 3) excessively devoted to work and productivity to the exclusion of leisure activities; 4) overconscientious, scrupulous, and inflexible about matters of morality, ethics, or values; 5) unable to discard worn-out or worthless objects even when they have no sentimental value; 6) reluctant to delegate tasks or to work with others unless they follow his instructions perfectly; 7) has miserly spending style towards self or others; 8) shows rigidity and stubbornness.

What do you know? I know someone like this, too! But I won’t discuss him on my blog. 🙂 Some of my readers know who he is, though. 
This is a series of posts summarizing what I’m learning in my Abnormal Psychology course. Much of the information provided comes from reading my James N. Butcher’s textbook Abnormal Psychology. To read the other posts, follow these links: 

The Definition of Abnormal
A History of Abnormal Psychology
Abnormal Psychology in Contemporary Society
Contemporary Viewpoints on Treating Mental Illness – Biology
Contemporary Viewpoints on Treating Mental Illness – Psychology
Frontline: New Asylums
Brave New Films: This is Crazy
Clinical Mental Health Diagnosis: Biological Assessment
Clinical Mental Health Diagnosis: Psychological Assessment
Does the DSM Encourage Overmedication?
Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome – The Basics
Panic Disorder
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Hoarding and Body Dysmorphic Disorders
Depression – an Overview
Personality Disorders – Clusters and Dimensions
Personality Disorders – Cluster A
Personality Disorders – Cluster B
Personality Disorders – Cluster C
Biological Effects of Stress on Your Body
Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders
Dissociative Disorders
Borderline Personality Disorder
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
Paraphilic Disorders
Gender Dysphoria – Homosexuality and Transgender
Anxiety Disorders
Bipolar Disorder – The Basics

Suicide – An Overview

References:


Butcher, James N. Hooley, Jill M. Mineka, Susan. (2014) Chapter 10: Personality Disorders. Abnormal Psychology, sixteenth edition (pp. 328-366). Pearson Education Inc.

The Martian, by Andy Weir

The Martian, by Andy Weir, narrated by R. C. Bray
When a team of Mars explorers runs into some problems while on Mars, they think that astronaut Mark Watney has died. The rest of the crew avoid the storm by immediately heading back home to Earth. Unknown to them, Watney is still alive and must survive on Mars alone with meager supplies left behind by the Mars expedition. With his extraordinary resourcefulness, he manages to survive while desperately hoping that Earth will realize that he’s still alive and come to rescue him. 

This book was as fantastic as everyone says it is. Watney’s struggle to survive is fascinating, and the action moves forward at a steady pace. Yeah, there’s a lot of technical language, which made the book a little slower than I would have liked at times, but it was never so slow that I wanted to stop listening. It was more of an “ok, I get that you’re doing awesome technical stuff, let’s move on.” But those scenes were only paragraph-long. I was a little amused at how much money and time America was willing to put in to save Watney. After all, he was only one person and there are so many people on earth that could have benefited greatly from that money. They could have helped thousands of people instead of just one. I get it. He’s a hero. But he also made the choice to go on a dangerous adventure. The homeless and hungry in America and around the world did not make the choice to starve. Shouldn’t they be helped first?

The narration in the audiobook was also excellent. The humorous parts were so well executed that I had to laugh out loud on numerous occasions. 

I can’t wait to see this movie. I plan on going with my boyfriend next Tuesday. 🙂
4.5 stars for interest level and superb execution

Personality Disorders – Cluster B

As mentioned in my opening post about personality disorders, personality disorders are split into three clusters -A, B, and C. This post will discuss cluster B. People with these disorders tend to be dramatic, emotional, and erratic. 

Patients with histrionic personality disorder are characterized by self-dramatization, over-concern with attractiveness, tendency to irritability, and temper outbursts if attention-seeking is frustrated. These patients often manipulate their partners with seductive behavior, but they are also tend to be very dependent on the partners’ attention. They are generally considered self-centered, vain, shallow, and insincere. These traits are much more commonly seen in women than in men – probably because many of the characteristics (like over-concern with appearance) tend to be “women’s traits.” In fact, some argue that histrionic personality disorder is just another form of anti-social personality disorder, which is much more prevalent in men. 

In order to be diagnosed with histrionic personality disorder, the patient must have 5 or more of the following traits: 1) she is uncomfortable in situations in which she is not the center of attention; 2) her interactions with others are often characterized by inappropriate sexually seductive or provocative behaviors; 3) she displays rapidly shifting and shallow expression of emotions; 4) she consistently uses physical appearance to draw attention to herself; 5) she has a style of speech that is excessively impressionistic and lacking in detail; 6) she shows self-dramatization, theatricality, and exaggerated expression of emotion; 7) she is suggestible (i.e. easily influenced by others or circumstances); 8) she considers relationships to be more intimate than they actually are. 

This is one of the personality disorders that will be dispensed with if the next DSM moves towards a dimensional model of diagnosis, as mentioned in my earlier post. 

Narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by grandiosity, preoccupation with receiving attention, self-promoting, and lack of empathy. There are two types: grandiosity and vulnerable narcissism. In the former, the patient is convinced of their superiority; in the latter the patient expresses superiority defensively due to a low self-esteem. Narcissistic personality disorder is observed more often in men than in women. 

In order to be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, the patient must meet five or more of the following traits: 1) he has a grandiose sense of self-importance (exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior); 2) he is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love; 3) he believes that he is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special people; 4) he requires excessive admiration; 5) he has a sense of entitlement; 6) he is interpersonally exploitative; 7) he lacks empathy and is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings or needs of others; 8) he is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him; 9) he shows arrogant, haughty behaviors. 

Now, I doubt my ex-boyfriend had a personality disorder, but he did have quite a few of these traits – possibly exacerbated by a lifetime of alcoholism which he had only recently given up when I’d met him. In fact, at one point in our relationship, he went to a neurologist to be checked for long-term side-effects of a past concussion, and he returned with a psychological assessment which said he had “narcissistic personality traits.” At the time, I had laughed it off, but later I began to see it. 

This guy thought that he was incredibly smart, good looking, and absolutely amazing at his job. He was always bragging about the quality of his work; however, I saw some of his work a couple of times and found it lacking (which I didn’t say, of course). He was always talking about the future – how he had so many offers for jobs (he was unemployed) and how he’d be making well over $300,0000 a year in no time. He surrounded himself with people that he saw as superior (yes, that includes myself – he was always bragging to everyone about how smart and beautiful I was. It was rather embarrassing and over-the-top.) He also showed a surprising lack of empathy – he felt that anxiety was a sign of weakness in others, but when he had anxiety attacks he felt it was uncontrollable rather than a weakness.

Narcissistic personality disorder is one of the disorders that would be dropped if the diagnosis switched to a dimensional rather than cluster approach. 

Because there is a lot of public interest in borderline personality disorder and antisocial / psychopathy, I will mention those Cluster B disorders in another post. 


This is a series of posts summarizing what I’m learning in my Abnormal Psychology course. Much of the information provided comes from reading my James N. Butcher’s textbook Abnormal Psychology. To read the other posts, follow these links: 

The Definition of Abnormal
A History of Abnormal Psychology
Abnormal Psychology in Contemporary Society
Contemporary Viewpoints on Treating Mental Illness – Biology
Contemporary Viewpoints on Treating Mental Illness – Psychology
Frontline: New Asylums
Brave New Films: This is Crazy
Clinical Mental Health Diagnosis: Biological Assessment
Clinical Mental Health Diagnosis: Psychological Assessment
Does the DSM Encourage Overmedication?
Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome – The Basics
Panic Disorder
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Hoarding and Body Dysmorphic Disorders
Depression – an Overview
Personality Disorders – Clusters and Dimensions
Personality Disorders – Cluster A
Personality Disorders – Cluster B
Personality Disorders – Cluster C
Biological Effects of Stress on Your Body
Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders
Dissociative Disorders
Borderline Personality Disorder
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
Paraphilic Disorders
Gender Dysphoria – Homosexuality and Transgender
Anxiety Disorders
Bipolar Disorder – The Basics
Suicide – An Overview

References:


Butcher, James N. Hooley, Jill M. Mineka, Susan. (2014) Chapter 10: Personality Disorders. Abnormal Psychology, sixteenth edition (pp. 328-366). Pearson Education Inc.

The Biology of Desire, by Marc Lewis

The Biology of Desire, by Marc Lewis, narrated by Don Hagen
Neuroscientist and former addict Marc Lewis writes an engaging study of the biological changes that occur in an addicted brain, complete with personal stories about himself and several addicts that he interviewed. Lewis points out that there are two major models for addiction – the disease model and the choice model – and argues why he believes the disease model has outlived its use and is now harming rather than helping addicts. 

The disease model of addiction is highly accepted by clinicians, psychologists, and insurance companies right now. It posits that the more an addict uses a substance, the more his brain changes, and the more he needs the drug. Furthermore, some people have a biological preinclination for addiction – it doesn’t mean that they will become addicts, but the genetic preinclination raises their chance of becoming an addict under the right environmental stimulus. The combination of genetic factors and changes in the brain suggest to clinicians that addiction is a disease. A lot of money, therapy, and medication currently goes into treating addiction as a disease – often successfully.

Lewis argues, though, that changes in the brain and genetic preinclination do-not-a-disease-make. After all, every experience changes your brain – and some events, like falling in love, change your brain in much the same way addiction changes it. Furthermore, much as people have a preinclination for addiction, they also have a preinclination to temperament. For instance, an introverted, agreeable parent is more likely to have an introverted, agreeable child. Despite this heritability, temperament is not considered a disease. So why do we pick-and-choose which heritable brain-changing habits are a disease?

My answer is that addiction is considered a disease whereas in-love and temperament are not considered diseases because in-love and temperament do not generally cause clinically significant impairment in an individual’s ability to function in the workplace and social interactions. And when they do inhibit the individual’s ability to function, then they are considered a disease. 

Instead of the disease model, Lewis supports the “choice” model. People choose to abuse substances in the first place, and continue to make that choice. And when they give up the substance abuse, it is generally because they have chosen that now is the right time to give it up. 

Lewis spends the great part of this book describing why he feels viewing addiction as a disease is harmful to addicts as well as unhelpful for treatment. When an addict views his problem as a disease, then he might feel helpless to make his situation better. Whereas if he views it as a choice, he recognizes that he has power over this problem. You might notice that this is in stark contrast to the first step of AA in which the addict accepts that he is powerless over his addiction. In fact, in the stories of Lewis’ interviewees, none of them mentioned AA or NA as a helpful tool for stopping their addiction. 

Lewis also points out that although medication and therapy generally help the individual to give up alcohol to begin with, there is a very high relapse rate. And that is because although the individual doesn’t want the negative effects of his addiction, he has not yet accepted the choice to give up the drug.

Lewis claims that many people view the choice model and the disease model as mutually exclusive, but he believes that they are not. I would tend to agree with him on this. I don’t see the harm in viewing addiction as a disease – in fact, I think this model would be very helpful to a certain subset of addicts – it provides them a reason to say “this is not my fault, I have a disease, and I need to live as healthy a life as I can in order to not let it ruin my life.” But I also think the choice model is helpful to another subset of addicts – it provides them the ability to say “I have the power to choose not to use. I am not powerless.”


Nonfiction Book Pairings

This week’s Nonfiction November prompt given at Regular Ruminations is book pairings. 

One obvious pairing that comes to mind is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, and Chinua Achebe’s There Was a Country. Both of these books are about the Nigerian civil war of 1960-1963. The Igbo people felt that they could no longer live under the rule of the North because of no representation and persecution of their race. They seceded from Nigeria and called themselves Biafra. The war lasted from 1960-1963, when Biafra lost the war and rejoined Nigeria. During this time, there was a lot of ethnic cleansing and other atrocities on both sides. 

Half of a Yellow Sun follows 3 characters: Ugwu, a village boy who is taken in by some politically-inclined academics as a house boy; Olanna, Ugwu’s mistress and a rich heiress; and Richard, a British expat who desperately wants to be accepted by the Biafrans as one of them. The stories of these three characters are superbly and tragically woven together on a backdrop of war, racial hatred, and famine.

This is one of the most impressive books I’ve read in quite a while. The characters were so deep that I felt I knew them. The events described had an eerie realism to them that comes from the author’s intimate knowledge of the history and people. This is one of those books that makes you feel like every incident described is important and well-planned. This is a story not only of war, but of people–their dreams, their loves, their fears, their strengths and weaknesses. Half of a Yellow Sun is a must-read for anyone interested in international literature.

(Those two paragraphs were stolen from my review on the old blog in July of 2012.)

I have not had the opportunity to read There Was a Country yet, but it is the memoir of Chinua Achebe, social activist and author of Things Fall Apart. This book is the story of Achebe’s experience during the Biafra war. It’s been sitting on Mt. TBR ever since it was released.


I thought I’d add in a NF/NF/NF pairing as well, since it’s one that I’ve been considering. Lawrence in Arabia and From Beirut to Jerusalem are both histories of the Middle East. Seven Pillars of Wisdom is T. E. Lawrence – Lawrence of Arabia’s – memoir of his time spent in Arabia during WWI. I own two of these books, but am too intimidated to start on this journey. 

Maybe I’ll make it a goal to read these non-fiction books – and perhaps re-read Half of a Yellow Sun before next year’s Nonfiction November. I could even do a readalong of these books, if anybody would like to join in. Though I know all of them are pretty intense and “read like a textbook” which is something that I’ve seen complained about by many participants of Nonfiction November. So I doubt I’ll get any takers. 

Gilgamesh Translations

When I chose to read Epic of Gilgamesh, I had a difficult time choosing which translation to use. Did I want a prose translation which flowed freely instead of showing me all the sections that were questionable and fragmented? Did I want a translation which showed me how the tablets were separated and where the fragments were? Luckily, I had access to both types of translation, and read both of them. In addition, I also listened to an adaptation of the various translations. There were pros and cons of each approach. 

English version with an introduction by N. K. Sandars

This just happened to be sitting on my dad’s bookshelf, so I snatched it up. It’s a prose translation which separates the narrative into six “chapters:” Prologue, The Coming of Enkidu, The Forest Journey, Ishtar and Gilgamesh and the Death of Enkidu, The Search for Everlasting Life, The Story of the Flood, The Return, and The Death of Gilgamesh. In addition, this included a lengthy introduction. Of the written translations, I admit to enjoying this one more than the verse translation. Although it is important to some people (especially scholars) to see what portions of the text are questionable and where the fragments are, I don’t think that information is important to my enjoyment of the story. To me, the important part is to understand the meaning of the story. So this translation was quite enjoyable. 

The Norton Critical Edition
Translated and edited by Benjamin R. Foster
This translation was in the “original” eleven tablet format – as it was discovered (in part) in the library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh. Like the translation by Sandars, this book had a lengthy introduction, but it also had footnotes and a lot of supplementary sources. There were several translations of related stories (also discovered in tablet format), and there were essays written by Gilgamesh experts. Thus, although I found the […] and question marks indicating fragmented and questionable translation disruptive, I found the supplementary information in this book well worth reading. So this book was just as valuable to me as the Sandars translation. 

The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels
by Alexander Heidel

I wasn’t a huge fan of this translation, though it’s a classic that many scholars use as one of their base translations. It, like the Foster translation, is in fragmented verse. Only, it didn’t have the annotations. And the typeset in my book was difficult to read. I’d say the benefit of reading this book rather than the Norton Critical Edition is that it is a classic translation and includes Heidel’s analysis about Old Testament parallels. 

Stephen Mitchell’s adaptation of Gilgamesh Epic –
adapted from several translations in English
Read by George Guidall
Wow. This reading was fantastic. I want to get every audiobook ever read by Guidall – and he’s narrated a lot. What’s interesting about this book is that it is not a translation of Gilgamesh. Nor does Mitchell claim to be a Gilgamesh scholar. He simply wanted to bring to life the story in powerful language rather than stilted precise translation. Therefore, he used every English translation he could get his hands on, and adapted them into a powerful verse epic. No changes were made to the story. Trust me. I would have noticed after reading two different translations of the story. There were only a few times where I felt that the language was unfitting to either of the translations I read – he tended to use more shocking (rude) words than the other two translations. 

I read a criticism of this adaptation which complained that it inappropriately made the relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu homoerotic – but the possible implication of homosexual love between the two was present in both of the other translations I read. I think it may have been more evident in this adaptation because of the powerful language Mitchell used. But it was not inappropriate given the context. He was just taking the story that was there and conveying it with powerful words rather than exact translation. 

So which of these books would I suggest you read? Depends on what you want to get out of it. Do you want to just read and get the gist of the story? I’d go with the Mitchell adaptation – audiobook if possible, but that’s not necessary. The Sandars translation is also quite readable. If you want precision in fragments or a lot of analysis essays, go for the Norton Critical Edition. 

This is a series of posts about The Epic of Gilgamesh. Here is a list of all posts thus far: 

The Epic of Gilgamesh – Analytical Summary
The Epic of Gilgamesh – Historical Background
The Epic of Gilgamesh – Translations
The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels, by Alexander Heidel
The Archetypal Significance of Gilgamesh, by Rivkah Scharf Kluger