Mark Twain once remarked that giving up smoking was easy – so easy that he had done it a hundred times. In this observation, he neatly summed up the problem of relapse as the central problem of addiction. Originally published in 1989, in Relapse and Addictive Behaviour, an international group of researchers and clinical workers investigate why people find it so difficult to move away from their addictive behaviour. By looking at several different addictions, they consider how we can understand and explain relapse.

The discussion also addresses an issue of major current concern at the time – can the study of relapse serve to unite the apparently different types of addictive behaviour? Traditionally, addictive behaviours, such as drinking, smoking, and heroin abuse, had been investigated and treated separately. There was, however, increasing recognition of the similarities that link these addictions. Relapse and Addictive Behaviour considers to what extent the problem of relapse may serve as one of the important links.

Relapse and Addictive Behaviour provided an up-to-date source of information for all who were professionally involved with or had a scientific interest in the many forms of addictive behaviour at the time. Today it can be read in its historical context.