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. Fisher probes not only science but also literature, religion, philosophy, and public policy, advocating that we take a more nuanced and compassionate view of one of society's most intractable challenges.