Giulia Sissa belongs to the school of Jean-Pierre Vernant which completely renovated the study of Greek thought.In this book, she utilizes Antique and Medieval philosophy to understand a problem which is highly modern : that of the consumption of drugs which can result in addiction and even death. In the same sense, she uses the writings of great contemporary and modern thinkers who took much of their inspiration from drugs - De Quincey, Freud, Burroughs - to reinterpret a whole philosophical tradition. What philosophers thought - that pleasure is negative ; that desire is insatiable -, is confirmed by the experience of drugs and even in its descriptives : "get ripped", "get stoned". This book reads like an entrancing melody and is also a history in the pursuit of pleasure.Giulia Sissa is a researcher at the Social Anthropology laboratory of the Collège de France and professor at the John Hopkins University in the United States.