A scientific and cultural exploration of the pursuit of altered states of consciousness in both humans and animals • Contains myriad studies and examples from the author's 20 years of research • By the foremost authority on the social and psychological effects of drug use History shows that people have always used intoxicants. In every age, in every part of the world, people have pursued intoxication with plants, alcohol, and other mind-altering substances. In fact, this behavior has so much force and persistence that it functions much like our drives for food, sleep, and sex. This "fourth drive," says psychopharmacologist Ronald K. Siegel, is a natural part of our biology, creating the irrepressible demand for intoxicating substances. In Intoxication Siegel draws upon his 20 years of groundbreaking research to provide countless examples of the intoxication urge in humans, animals, and even insects. The detailed observations of his so-called psychonauts--study participants trained to explicitly describe their drug experiences--as well as numerous studies with animals have helped him to identify the behavior patterns induced by different intoxicants. Presenting his conclusions on the biological as well as cultural reasons for the pursuit of intoxication and showing that personality and guidance often define the outcome of a drug experience, Siegel offers a broad understanding of the intoxication phenomenon as well as recommendations for curbing the negative aspects of drug use in Western culture by designing safe intoxicants.
This book provides an illuminating perspective on alcohol use, drawing on approaches from both anthropological research and historical sociology to examine our ambivalent attitudes to alcohol in the modern West.
This collection traces the intersection between writing and intoxication, from the literary to the theoretical, exploring a diversity of experiences of excess.
The book originated at conferences held by the Daedalus Trust, which fosters research into challenges to organizational well-being.
Academics, politicians and media reporting on the topic tend only to consider intoxication when it manifests as a social problem. This book takes a more nuanced view, and examines drug and alcohol use from a wider number of perspectives.
Entries record the referenced story, the identity of the culture in which the myth originated, and when applicable, information about related plant sources and pharmacological effects.
In The Age of Intoxication, Benjamin Breen offers a window into a time when drugs were not yet separated into categories—illicit and licit, recreational and medicinal, modern and traditional—and there was no barrier between the drug ...
Dr. Milton M. Gross, the editor of these volumes, died on July 29, 1976, after a brief illness.
Intoxicants, substances that alter a person's mental and physiological state, are a continuing obsession. In their effect on the mind and body, intoxicants go to the heart of what it means to be human.
Drinking alcohol can, in rare instances, provoke a temporary psychotic often violent reaction called pathological intoxication. Although it was medically identified in 1869, pathological intoxication has been an enigma to...
These are not drunk, as you suppose… (Acts 2:15). —Peter preaching to the crowd after the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost We tend to overlook Peter's opening words to the crowd that first Pentecost morning, to our own peril.