Bastian is not your regular run-of-the-mill doctor. He is smart as a whip, deeply intuitive, and equipped with an incisive mind that questions the different mental ailments that assail humans. His patients are as diverse as he is, ranging from a loving school teacher, to a whizz kid, to even a divorcee. One common thread that binds them is their addiction to different substances and their futile search for liberation.

Together, doctor and patients work to find a definite solution to their problems of addiction. Simply put, this is the subject of this book. Six Rings is a book interested in analyzing the complexities of the brain, as well as identifying the various changes substance addiction makes to the neural pathways. The brain takes centre stage, and apart from providing insight to aid in the understanding of addictions, enormous effort is put into analyzing the different strategies that can be employed to develop the brain.

The author understands that much in the same way the muscles can be exercised and kept in top shape, the brain can be too. This book not only describes the possibility of that happening, but it also shows how it can be done. It goes beyond that. This book offers insight into how addictive diseases can be treated with a combination of psycho-social therapy and medication. In this, it stands unique, being one of the very few books to handle addictions as a disease and hence treatable. The focus is not just on medicine. There is a rich interplay between emotions, history, genetics, expectations and the various modalities of treatment. The nuances and complexities associated with the treatment of patients with addictive diseases are extrapolated. It shuns the temptation of making addictions seem like some phase that could be cured with pep talks and therapy.