author
Charles Barnes Towns
b. 1862
A self-made businessman turned controversial reformer, he became widely known for promoting early treatments for alcoholism and drug addiction in the United States. His career sat at the uneasy crossroads of medicine, public policy, and the long history of addiction treatment.
1 Audiobook
Habits that Handicap: The Menace of Opium, Alcohol, and Tobacco, and the Remedy
by Charles Barnes Towns
About the author
Born in LaGrange, Georgia, in 1862, Charles Barnes Towns worked a series of jobs before making his name in New York. Accounts of his early life describe work on farms, in railroading, and in life insurance before he moved into business ventures that eventually led him toward addiction treatment.
Towns is best remembered for developing and promoting the so-called Towns treatment for alcoholism and narcotic addiction, and for founding institutions connected with that work. He also wrote about addiction and was involved in early drug-control efforts in the United States, which made him a notable figure in the public debates around habit-forming drugs in the early 20th century.
His legacy is complicated. He was influential in the history of addiction treatment, but many of the methods associated with his name have also been debated and criticized. Even so, his work remains part of the story of how Americans first tried to understand addiction as both a medical and social problem.