If you call it a disease, that means addicts are patients. If you're a patient, you do what you're told. You're not an authority on your own life anymore. A really important factor in overcoming addiction is empowerment - getting yourself in hand, and recognizing that you're responsible for your own behavior.

Neuroscientist Marc Lewis challenges the disease model of understanding addiction - as well as the money-making industries propping it up - and proposes a new framework for understanding addiction based on neuroplasticity, psychology and personal development.

Marc is author of the new Public Affairs Books release The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction is Not a Disease.