Shapiro Susan - Kick Your Addiction: How to Quit Anything

Copyright 2012, 2014 by Dr. Frederick Woolverton and Susan Shapiro

Short sections of this book have appeared in slightly different form in The New York Times, Psychology Today , Brain World , and AOL.

Originally published in 2012 as Unhooked

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Print ISBN: 978-1-62914-587-7

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63220-014-3

Cover design by Lindsay Godin

Printed in the United States of America

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR KICK YOUR ADDICTION

Addiction is one of the most fearsome challenges to happiness. Kick Your Addiction is crammed with insights and practical strategies to help you conquer addictionwhether youre addicted to drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, shopping, video games, exercising, or diet sodaand to help you gain your freedom and a happier life. Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project , #1 New York Times bestseller

Kick Your Addiction offers new, powerful yet simple strategies to help you break free from the stranglehold of drugs, alcohol, food, gambling, smoking and other self-sabotage. Dr. Woolvertons personal odyssey and compelling client stories make it a great read. More importantly, his insights make the book an invaluable tool to regain control of your life.Diana Kirschner, PhD, psychologist, author of bestseller Love in 90 Days and Sealing the Deal

One of lifes great paradoxes is that the barriers to improvement are internal. Why do we have so much trouble making good choices? In Kick Your Addiction , a users manual to improve your life, Frederick Woolverton draws upon his decades of experience helping people to teach us how to change for the better. An insightful, practical, and fun guide to self-improvement and happiness.Terry Burnham, PhD, Harvard economics professor and coauthor of Mean Genes: From Sex to Money to Food: Taming Our Primal Instincts

What most impresses me about Fred Woolvertons addiction theories is his unapologetic demand that the patients face, experience, and tolerate their own suffering. Its a very spiritual position. You dont get that insight just by being a reformed addict. In addition to being a smart, well-trained, gifted therapist, Woolverton has the wisdom that can only be gained by deep early suffering. Luckily, he shares that hard-won wisdom with his patients and readers.John D. Gartner, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins and author of The Hypomanic Edge and In Search of Bill Clinton: A Psychological Biography

A highly personal and compelling read. Kick Your Addiction takes the most complex subject in mental healthaddictionsand puts forth a new treatment paradigm without applying a one-size-fits-all approach.Vatsal Thakkar, MD, director of the graduate medical education wellness team at NYU Medical Center, and author of the textbooks Addiction and Depression and Bipolar Disorder

In a wise, engaging, first-person voice filled with empathy and humor, Kick Your Addiction offers brilliant, insightful, and inventive tactics on how to conquer the bad habits keeping you from getting what you want.Karen Salmansohn, bestselling author of How to Be Happy Dammit and The Bounce Back Book: How to Thrive In the Face of Adversity, Setbacks and Losses

Kick Your Addiction s intelligent, incisive plan will provide a straight shot (as long as its not whiskey) to success.Wendy Shanker, author of The Fat Girls Guide to Life and Are You My Guru?

Millions of Americans who are hooked on sugar, caffeine, diet foods, texting, emailing, painkillers, pornography, overeating, bulimia, and other unhealthy habits need Kick Your Addiction . This empowering book from veteran addiction specialist Dr. Frederick Woolverton compassionately guides addicts on a journey of self-discovery so that they can finally overcome the counterproductive behaviors that distract and prevent them from getting what they really want.Connie Bennett, author of Sugar Shock: How Sweets and Simple Carbs Can Derail Your Life

Kick Your Addiction makes the solution to the grave problem of addiction very accessible, taking the embarrassment out of it. Its fascinating when an effective therapist explains his approach. The book makes you want to see Dr. Woolverton. His spirit and optimism perfuse every page. Dr. Mary Pressman, child psychiatrist and assistant clinical professor at Mount Sinai Medical Center

Kick Your Addiction is great. The world really needs this book!Sherene Schostak, MA, Jungian psychoanalyst and author of Surviving Saturns Return: Overcoming the Most Tumultuous Time of Your Life

TO BOB COOK,

with gratitude

AUTHORS NOTE

Many former and current patients and colleagues generously granted me permission to use their stories in this book for the purpose of helping others overcome similar addictions. I have changed names, dates, and identifying characteristics for literary cohesion and to protect their privacy.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Dr. Frederick Woolvertons Personal and Professional Connection

Treating addicts has never been just about work, scientific data, or abstract theories for me. I am particularly sensitive to both the literal and the hidden repercussions of addiction because as a child I was severely traumatized by an alcoholic parent.

Growing up, my siblings and I used to spend holidays at my grandparents house in Glen Cove, Long Island. I recall a lot of drinking, smoking, and laughing. Although it was the fifties, it seemed Great Gatsby like. One Christmas when I was ten years old, my two brothers and I were included in the big family soiree. My mother, Mary, a dark-haired actress who looked beautiful that night in a satin blue dress and pearls, drank several mint juleps in a row, as she often did. Made of bourbon, sugar, and ice and garnished with sprigs of mint, mint juleps were her favorite drink. Early in the evening she seemed relaxed and happy, her face glowing as she told me, You look so nice tonight, Freddy. Do you want to open some of your presents early? This was an uncharacteristically warm offer from a mother who was usually strict, severe, and cold.

As the evening wore on, she followed her cocktails with glasses of red wine. I noticed her face was getting more red and flushed as it always did when she kept drinking. Afterwards I was eager to help her clean up, bringing leftover food and glasses back into the kitchen. As I handed her a dish, she spun around and out of the blue snapped, You are nothing! You are no good! You are just like your father. You will never amount to anything! The sudden change in her demeanor shocked me.

Although my mother had been drinking ever since I could remember, this was the first time I became aware of how alcohol could change someones personality so dramatically. From warm and attentive, she became disturbed and enraged beyond reason. At that moment, I was amazed by the power that liquor could have. My mother continued to drink and to be physically and emotionally abusive throughout the rest of my childhood and teenage years. When I was fourteen, I wasnt surprised when I found out that my parents were getting divorced.