In the wake of the horrible murder of Rob Reiner and his wife by, it appears, their son who had spent half his life struggling with drug addictions, the NYT runs a story about families dealing with addictions in their children. Predictably, one of the parents explains that addiction “is a disease.”

Except it isn’t so simple, and anyone confronting this issue would do well to read Hanna Pickard’s new book, which should change how ordinary people and clinicians think about addiction. One important insight is that often a cure for addiction depends on the addict finding a new identity, other than that of being an addict. This is a book by a philosopher, based on experience in a therapeutic setting, that has the actual potential to save lives.