Change happens. Sometimes, because we choose it. More often, we don’t get a choice.

Our bodies change; with time, with illness, with accident or incident, or even, sometimes, with effort. People in our lives change; they come, they go, they get sick, they die. Our working lives change; we get a job, we lose a job, we change jobs, our jobs change, we retire.

Whether we’re undergoing cancer treatment or a religious conversion, whether our families are growing or down to the last few standing, change is inescapable.

Our author makes the case that on average, we each undergo at least 5 major “lifequakes”; changes that shake our lives to the core. Sometimes one will come along when we’ve barely got back on our feet from the previous—if we have at all.

What, then, to do about this? We can’t stop change from occurring, and some changes aren’t easy to “roll with”. Feiler isn’t prescriptive about this, but rather, descriptive:

By looking at the stories of hundreds of people he interviewed for this book, he looks at how people pivoted on the spot (or picked up the pieces!) and made the best of their situation—or didn’t.

Bottom line: zooming out like this, looking at many people’s lives, can remind us that while we don’t get to choose what winds we get swept by, we at least get to choose how we set the sails. The examples of others, as this book gives, can help us make better decisions.

Click here to check out Life Is In The Transitions, and get conscious about how you handle yours!

We’ve reviewed books about addiction before—specifically about alcohol, at least. This one’s more general in that it covers different addictions.

On the other hand, it’s also more specific, in that it covers them from the author’s field: neuroscience.

…and experience too. The author had a plethora of addictions (the serious kind), got sober, and then undertook to study neuroscience. Her hope was to help others avoid, or escape from the same as‚ what she went through.

Dr. Grisel (as she now is) takes a methodical approach in this book. She works her way through the addictive mechanisms of a broad selection of common drugs, explaining each.

The focus here is on neutral explanations, rather than the propagandizing scaremongering that failed at least one generation. Why each drug is alluring, what it really does do—and the neurological price it exacts, down to the molecular level.

She also covers risk factors for addiction; genetic, epigenetic, and environmental. There’s no “if you were stronger”, or “these people made bad choices”, so much as… Many addicts were, in effect, sabotaged from before birth.

That doesn’t mean that to become addicted or not is just fate, but it does mean… There but for the grace of factors completely outside of our control go we.

Why is this useful to us, be we a reader without any meaningful addiction (we’re not counting coffee etc here)? Well, as this book illustrates and explains, many of us could be one (more) mishap away from a crippling addiction and not know it. Forewarned is forearmed.

Bottom line: almost all of us are, have been, or will be touched by addiction in some way. Either directly, or a loved one, or a loved one’s loved one, or perhaps a parent who gave us an epigenetic misfortune. This book gives understanding that can help.

Click here to check out “Never Enough” on Amazon today, and learn more about this important health issue!