"After years of battling uncontrollable addiction, I have achieved the supposedly impossible: complete freedom from craving." Dr. Olivier Ameisen was a brilliant cardiologist on the staff at one of America’s top teaching hospitals and running his own successful practice when he developed a profound addiction to alcohol. He broke bones with no memory of falling; he nearly lost his kidneys; he almost died from massive seizures during acute withdrawal. He gave up his flourishing practice and, fearing for his life, immersed himself in Alcoholics Anonymous, rehab, therapy, and a variety of medications. Nothing worked. So he did the only thing he could: he took his treatment into his own hands. Searching for a cure for his deadly disease, he happened upon baclofen, a muscle relaxant that had been used safely for years as a treatment for various types of muscle spasticity, but had more recently shown promising results in studies with laboratory animals addicted to a wide variety of substances. Dr. Ameisen prescribed himself the drug and experimented with increasingly higher dosages until he finally reached a level high enough to leave him free of "any "craving for alcohol. That was more than five years ago.  Alcoholism claims three hundred lives per day in the United States alone; one in four U.S. deaths is attributable to alcohol, tobacco, or illegal drugs. Baclofen, as prescribed under a doctor’s care, could possibly free many addicts from tragic and debilitating illness. But as long as the medical and research establishments continue to ignore a cure for one of the most deadly diseases in the world, we won’t be able to understand baclofen’s full addiction-treatment potential. "The End of My Addiction "is both a memoir of Dr. Ameisen’s own struggle and a groundbreaking call to action—an urgent plea for research that can rescue millions from the scourge of addiction and spare their loved ones the collateral damage of the disease.

While waiting out a delay on a fateful tarmac, Carl Andersen was mulling the challenges and possibilities of the path before him. Alcoholism had left its mark on his life and on his family. In spite of the disease, Carl managed to earn a PhD and receive an appointment as Chair of the Department of Family Studies. But Carl's mission wasn't clear to him until he sat in a plane on the tarmac talking with his wife about the plight of young people in recovery. There are many such people, he observed, who couldn't go home for fear of relapse or who couldn't go to college because of the drinking environment there. Seeking to address this problem, the Center for the Study of Addiction and Recovery was born. It fused the classic twelve-step program popularized by Alcoholics Anonymous with scholarships and a supportive learning environment to provide an opportunity in higher education for people struggling with addiction. Part history, part road map, part visionary, and part dream fulfillment, Addiction Recovery at Texas Tech University chronicles Carl's own struggle with addiction and describes how he established the model at TTU that has been replicated in colleges and universities across the nation. The book also includes accounts from students who were impacted by the endeavor.