RaveThe Guardian (UK)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 addiction and treatment. It is made even more emphatic and moving because he is also a psychiatrist who treats such patients ... none of these insights will be a surprise to experts in this field – they are established facts. But this book is not a polemic, and one of its pleasures is the succession of historical nuggets it serves up, many of which were unknown to me ... thorough and revealing. It is largely US-centric, but, given the overwhelming influence that country has had in driving global drug policies, the narrative is still internationally relevant. Fisher’s personal saga, together with case studies of his patients, lend it an additional human depth. Pulling it all together is this final reflection, a mature view of the topic from someone with immense experience of it.
