Addictions Counseling Today

Kevin Alderson's 2019 SAGE textbook is the rare academic volume that wins an award and still reads like a human wrote it. The 2020 Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association Book Award reflects genuine peer recognition, and the scope is legitimately comprehensive: alcohol, drugs, nicotine, gaming, social media, gambling, sex, internet addiction — all inside one 720-page framework that also includes a dedicated chapter on the neuroscience of addiction. What lifts it above a standard clinical text is Alderson's willingness to weave his own lived recovery experience into the clinical material. Peer reviewers called it refreshing and up-to-date, which is meaningful praise in a field that moves quickly. The honest trade-off is that this is an academic text priced and written accordingly. Students and practicing counselors will find it essential; general readers will find it demanding.