In this episode, John and Elizabeth speak with Gina Turrigiano, a neuroscientist at Brandeis, about a number of different facets of addiction. What makes an addiction to a morning constitutional different from–or similar to–an addiction to Fentanyl? What are the biological and social factors to consider? Should the addict be thought of in binary terms, or addiction as a state that people move into and out of? They contemplate these questions through biological, anthropological, and literary lenses, drawing on Marc Lewis, Angela Garcia, and Thomas de Quincey. Late in the episode, there’s also a Sprockets joke. Then, in Recallable Books, Gina recommends David Linden’s The Compass of Pleasure, Elizabeth recommends When I Wear My Alligator Boots by Shaylih Muehlmann, and John recommends Sam Quinones’s Dreamland.
Discussed in this episode:
Marc Lewis, The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction Is Not a Disease
Angela Garcia, The Pastoral Clinic: Addiction and Dispossession Along the Rio Grande
Thomas de Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium Eater: Being an Extract from the Life of a Scholar
Shaylih Muehlmann, When I Wear My Alligator Boots: Narco-Culture in the U.S. Mexico Borderlands
Sam Quinones, Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic
Recall This Book 
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