[3] The Economist described the book as an "entertaining and informative account" of addiction, although written in a "waspish" style which it considered to understate the seriousness of the issue.

[5] In Wired UK, Milo Yiannopoulos felt its perception of a disparity between the evolutionary status quo of human beings and the overwhelming world in which they live was presented with "gentle but terrifyingly persuasive regularity".

[8] The Huffington Post's Rupert Wolfe-Murray also criticised Thompson's rejection of the disease model of addiction, suggesting he was giving alcoholism the banality of everyday obsessions and asking if this was a form of denial.

[11] In The Washington Post, James Norton wrote that Thompson speaks in a deceptively casual voice at first, but ultimately brings the reader through a "whirlwind of anecdotes, interviews and studies", offering an argument with "real force and substance" and engaging reading material.

[12] He felt that Thompson's argument isn't likely to be popular, but is a "far more nuanced look at the mechanics of addiction than we lay readers are usually offered".