Maia Szalavitz: An inspiring perspective on addiction

Maia Szalavitz blends personal experience and years of investigative research into an inspiring perspective on addiction. In this conversation with Serge Prengel, she eloquently makes the case that addicted people need to be understood on their own terms, instead of being further marginalized by constructs that reflect society’s biases. Maia Szalavitz is the author, most recently, of Undoing Drugs:  The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction, which is the first history of the movement aimed at focusing drug policy on minimizing harms, not highs. Her previous New York Times bestseller, Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction wove together neuroscience and social science with her personal experience of heroin addiction.  It won the 2018 media award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. She is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times and has written for numerous other publications including TIME, Wired, Elle, the National, and Scientific American. The Proactive Twelve Steps: A Mindful Program For Lasting Change