Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker and The Boston Globe An authoritative, illuminating, and deeply humane history of addiction—a phenomenon that remains baffling and deeply misunderstood despite having touched countless lives—by an addiction psychiatrist striving to understand his own family and himself “Carl Erik Fisher’s The Urge is the best-written and most incisive book I’ve read on the history of addiction. A propulsive tour de force that is as healing as it is enjoyable to read.” — Beth Macy, author of Dopesick As a psychiatrist in training fresh from medical school, Carl Erik Fisher found himself face-to-face with an addiction crisis that nearly cost him everything. Desperate to make sense of his condition, he turned to the history of addiction, learning that our society’s current quagmire is only part of a centuries-old struggle to treat addictive behavior. A rich, sweeping account that probes not only medicine and science but also literature, religion, philosophy, and public policy, The Urge introduces us to those who have endeavored to address addiction through the ages and examines the treatments that have produced relief for many people, the author included. Only by reckoning with our history of addiction, Fisher argues, can we light the way forward for those whose lives remain threatened by its hold. The Urge is at once an eye-opening history of ideas, a riveting personal story of addiction and recovery, and a clinician’s urgent call for a more nuanced and compassionate view of one of society’s most intractable challenges. One of The New Yorker ’s Best Books of 2022 “An artfully combined personal narrative and genealogy of the title concept . . . [Fisher’s] authorial voice is clear and gentle. Brimming with common sense and wisdom, a salmagundi of history, science, and informed opinion, The Urge should ignite the urge for invigorated conversation and debate.” — The Los Angeles Review of Books "[A] marvelous gift of hope . . . Fisher’s work is a challenge and an invitation to discard narrow conceptions, abandon punitive strategies, and 'free ourselves to look instead at the full variety of interventions available to help.' . . . We are fortunate that his book is here, now, within reach of policymakers, prosecutors, family members, people who are suffering from addiction, and those in recovery." — American Scholar “A compelling history. . . . Fisher, an addiction physician and a recovering addict, illustrates the ‘terrifying breakdown of reason’ that accompanies the condition by drawing on patients’ anecdotes and on his own experience.” — The New Yorker “Doggedly researched, layered with empathy, The Urge pulls back multiple curtains at once in examining an ailment that will likely never go away . . . The Urge contains a wealth of such research and insight, rendered with a gimlet eye and a physician’s care. Addicts who make it to the other side often feel they have survived to fulfill a higher purpose. The Urge qualifies as just such an accomplishment, an inspired dive into a condition that, in one way or another, touches us all.” — The Boston Globe “Fascinating. . . . Carl Erik Fisher takes the reader on a vivid tour over several thousand years of multiple cycles of science, medicine, and literature, woven together by the thread of the author’s own alcohol and amphetamine addition and treatment. It is made even more emphatic and moving because he is also a psychiatrist who treats such patients. . . . Thorough and revealing.” — The Guardian “I devoured [ The Urge ]. . . . Drawing on his experience with addiction, as well as his training in medicine and bioethics, Fisher has produced a meticulous history of addictions—exploring why, across time and place, we pursue our compulsions and obsessions unto grave consequences.” — Zachary Siegel, The Baffler “Dr. Carl Erik Fisher’s impressive debut tackles the cultural history of addiction, offering a nuanced, personal perspective on a health crisis that remains stigmatized and misunderstood. . . . The Urge is several excellent books in one: a complete and sweeping history of addiction, a compassionate doctor’s approach to treating people with addictions, and a blistering critique of outdated, draconian government policies around drug use and addiction.” — BookPage (starred review) “Fisher, an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University, makes a striking debut by skillfully combining a cultural history of addiction with his own story of recovery. . . . Along the way, he shares plenty of moving stories of the scientists, preachers, and patients on the front lines of addiction and movingly recounts his own struggle with alcohol and Adderall addiction while he was a physician in Columbia’s psychiatry residency program. . . . There’s as much history here as there is heart.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Fisher, a psychiatrist and a patient recovering from addiction