This afternoon, my husband and I went and saw the movie “Everything Must Go.”  In general, I’m not much of a movie watcher.  It’s funny how I can watch a House marathon all day, but run out of patience about 2/3rds of the way through a film.  Anyway, when I heard the movie had Will Ferrell and was about alcoholism, I obviously had to go.
First, as a kind of sidenote, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a serious Will Ferrell movie.  I didn’t really even know it was possible, actually, …

I’m a sucker for lists… especially top-10 lists. So, when I saw a post on the Top 10 Cracks That Addicts Fall Through on Their Way to Recovery, it had my name all over it.
I think that a lot of the same principles that Mark Goulston points out can apply to mental illness in general. A few of them really stood out to me:
Failure to develop new and healthy relationships
I see this two ways:

Old relationships – maintaining unhealthy relationships (people who drag you down in any way, …

Dr. Drew made a comment a couple of episodes back (Ep. 306 “Triggers”) that I was pretty surprised to hear:
“Addiction is the only disease that you have to convince people that they have.”
I highly disagree with this statement, and think that denial is a large part of many mental illnesses… and even some physical illnesses. Just to name a few:

eating disorders
personality disorders
depression
ptsd
dementia

Sometimes people just don’t want to admit that they’re struggling with a mental illness (maybe they think it means they’re a weak or defective person). Sometimes people …

“Currently, we are concerned about young people using the Internet, eating too much, spending irresponsibly, and being promiscuous, and these worries are being expressed in the language of addiction. The medical terminology helps us to believe we’re avoiding moralization or blame, and popular science has given us a sound bite of pseudo-neurology to support our prejudices. For these problems, addiction is little more than a fig leaf for a realistic understanding that would address why people return to unhelpful ways of coping with isolation, stress, and depression. Instead, we prefer …

Lately, I’ve been reading Dr. Drew’s latest book, “The Mirror Effect.” It addresses celebrity narcissism and the extreme behavior that goes along with it. Dr. Drew does a great job at highlighting what has become typical tabloid material – multiple stints in rehab, sex tapes, drug use, eating disorders, etc. – and explaining the self-destructive pathology behind it.
Dr. Drew references troubling celebrity behavior over and over throughout the book. As I read, I found that most responses to this self-destructiveness fit in one of three …

I thought that these quotes would be especially appropriate after my series on coping skills.
Dr. Meredith Grey: In the hospital, we see addiction every day. It’s shocking, how many kinds of addiction exist. It would be too easy if it was just drugs and booze and cigarettes. I think the hardest part of kicking a habit is wanting to kick it. I mean, we get addicted for a reason, right? Often, too often, things that start out as just a normal part of your life at some point cross …

I can’t remember the last time I saw “economist” and “bulimia” in the same headline — I usually don’t put the two together.  However, this article (Eating-Disorders Experts Challenge Economists’ Conclusions About Bulimia) made some pretty interesting statements:

Bulimia Nervosa (BN) is an addiction rather than an eating disorder
Black females are 50% more likely to be bulimic than white females
“Bulimic behavior” is less likely among wealthier, better-educated families.

You should definitely read the article, but I have a couple of things to add to these points:
1. BN is an addiction
I always compare …

I’ve been reading Dr. Drew’s book, “Cracked: Life on the Edge in a Rehab Clinic.” There are a million things that I could talk about concerning this book, so don’t be surprised if it’s referenced several times in future posts. Tonight, the following quote really caught my attention:
“Most believe [addicts] connect around a common experience of pain and powerlessness without the fear of exploitation. Their pain is so raw and tender that getting them to start the process requires them to be convinced that their pain will …