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Published online 4 March 2009 | Nature 458, 25-27 (2009) | doi:10.1038/458025a

News Feature

Neuroscience: Rethinking rehab

Alcoholics Anonymous and its spin-off programmes have been helping people with addictions for decades. Jim Schnabel talks to the neuroscientists who are looking deeper into the approach.

In the depths of the Depression, in a Manhattan alcoholism clinic, a ruined Wall Street speculator named Bill Wilson had a vision. His room suddenly blazed "with an indescribably white light" and he experienced euphoria and a godlike "presence", followed by a "great peace"1.

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