Tackling the Problem Underlying Addiction
THE HEART OF ADDICTION
By Dr. Lance Dodes
HarperCollins Publishers
$24.95, 257 pages
Lance Dodes, a Harvard psychiatrist with a longtime specialty in addiction, doesn’t focus on the genes that may make people susceptible to alcoholism, drug abuse or compulsive gambling. Nor does he buy the common wisdom on how to attack addictions. In his view, Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs fail because they don’t address the underlying problem behind addictive behavior.
Dodes believes that drinking, drug use and gambling (he directs the Boston Center for Problem Gambling) are reactions to a person’s feeling of helplessness. When someone with an addiction feels helpless, Dodes says, he or she has a drink or takes a drug to erase the resulting rage. The decision to engage in the addictive activity creates a sense of empowerment, he argues, even though the action can spin the person even further out of control.
Using composite profiles of patients he’s treated in his 25-year career, Dodes says it’s possible to regain control first by identifying the signal that you’re about to give in to the addiction. Then, he says, you can learn to anticipate it and redirect your energy to satisfy unmet emotional needs. This requires a more individual approach than that followed by many support groups.
The question is whether those with addictions can do this on their own by following examples in this book or whether they need qualified therapists like Dodes to help tease out the motivations and situations that drive them back into the addictive behavior.
THE HEALING POWER
OF MOVEMENT
How to Benefit From
Physical Activity During
Your Cancer Treatment
By Lisa Hoffman
with Alison Freeland
Perseus Publishing
$15, 92 pages
Exercise physiologist Lisa Hoffman has found in her New York City practice that moderate exercise helps cancer patients fight fatigue and depression and maintain muscle while coping with the debilitating effects of surgery, treatments and the illness itself. Working with trainers and cancer specialists, she has put together a simple, step-by-step guide to help patients get moving.
It begins with the most basic movements for those who are still bed-bound and moves through exercises for those who can walk, jog and otherwise engage in vigorous exercise.
She uses simple black-and-white sketches to illustrate exercises that can be done alone or with the assistance of a caregiver or other partner.
Hoffman wisely advises readers to listen to their bodies. There may be days when they need to ease up on their routine.
With introductions from the head of hematology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the chief of that hospital’s integrative medicine program, the book clearly has been vetted and scrutinized by professionals who can attest to the successes of patients who have made exercise a part of their healing.
