Sally Satel has a terrific review at the New Republic online of one of the best books around these days on addiction: Addiction: A Disorder of Choice by Gene M. Heyman.   From the review:

In all, Addiction should be required reading for anyone who treats patients, researches addiction, or devises policy surrounding drug-related crime. All should benefit deeply from Heyman's key idea: "that the idea [of] addiction [as] a disease has been based on a limited view of voluntary behavior." Moreover, the fact that the biological basis does not prevent drug use from coming under the influence of costs and benefits has implications for society. "[A]ccording to Western legal traditions," he writes, "individuals are usually held responsible for those activities that are susceptible to the influence of their consequences and, conversely, individuals are not responsible for those activities that vary little or not at all as a function of consequences." Willie Sutton, Heyman reminds us, had alternatives to bank robbery; Patty Hearst not so much. The law did not treat them the same way. Accordingly, society should make distinctions between those suffering conventional brain diseases like Alzheimer's and multiple sclerosis and the disorder of addiction.

Anyone who has an interest in addictions should read Heyman's book.  It challenges the prevailing disease-model rhetoric with persuasive arguments backed by solid empirical findings.