Campus Read 2016 - Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America's Greatest Tragedy by David Sheff

Our annual Campus Read Program promotes academic discourse and critical thinking on a topic that is both timely and important for our campus community and our mission areas.  Currently, opioid abuse is a serious public health issue and drug overdose deaths are the leading cause of injury death in the United States.  As  the commonwealth’s only public medical school, stemming the drug crisis is important to our mission of service to our communities and neighbors.

The 2016 Campus Read Event will be November 1, 2016 at 12:00 pm in the Faculty Conference Room, UMass Chan Medical School, University Campus.  Dennis M. Dimitri M.D., F.A.A.F.P , Clinical Associate Professor, Vice Chair of the Department of Family Medicine & Community Health, will present on the topics addressed in the book.  Douglas Ziedonis, MD, MPH, Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry, President of UMass Memorial Behavioral Health Services,  and internationally recognized expert in co-occurring mental illness and addiction, including leading and advising on numerous international initiatives in tobacco addiction and mental illness will facilitate the campus conversations.

We encourage everyone to read the book and to mark your calendars for the event. A limited number of copies of the book are available in the library and in DIO.   

Campus Read 2016 Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America's Greatest Tragedy (Amazon link) by David Sheff (author website)  

Addiction is a preventable, treatable disease, not a moral failing. As with other illnesses, the approaches most likely to work are based on science — not on faith, tradition, contrition, or wishful thinking. These facts are the foundation of Clean, a myth-shattering look at drug abuse by the author of Beautiful Boy. Based on the latest research in psychology, neuroscience, and medicine, Clean is a leap beyond the traditional approaches to prevention and treatment of addiction and the mental illnesses that usually accompany it. The existing treatment system, including Twelve Step programs and rehabs, has helped some, but it has failed to help many more, and David Sheff explains why. He spent time with scores of scientists, doctors, counselors, and addicts and their families to learn how addiction works and what can effectively treat it. Clean offers clear, cogent counsel for parents and others who want to prevent drug problems and for addicts and their loved ones no matter what stage of the illness they’re in. But it is also a book for all of us — a powerful rethinking of the greatest public health challenge of our time.

To register for the event, click here.