Interview
with Omar Manejwala, MD, Author of
Craving: Why We Can't Seem to Get Enough
Dr.
Manejwala, a psychiatrist, is the senior vice president and chief medical
officer of Catasys in Los Angeles and is the former medical director at
Hazelden Foundation. Dr. Manejwala
is a leading expert in addiction medicine and public speaker who addresses the
topic of addiction and compulsive behaviors.
Rosenberg : Your book draws close
parallels between cravings of an alcoholic or drug addict which can be
life-threatening and cravings for food or exercise or sex in so-called normal
people. You say both originate from similar parts of the brain and both can
destroy lives.
Manejwala: Process addictions, addictions to
behaviors, can wreak as much havoc as drugs and alcohols in people's lives as
the examples in my book illustrate. A person can be so addicted to food and
counting the calories and working them off at the gym, he or she is unavailable
to family, friends and his or
herself. I asked one patient how she would react to a clinical study that
required her to temporarily stop exercising and she said she would drop out.
Another way in which the addictions or cravings are similar is they aren't
overcome by treating so-called "symptoms" but in outgrowing the symptoms and
learning a new way of life.
Rosenberg:
Is this
similar to the recovery concept that addictions can not be overcome by the
sheer force or willpower or a headlong assault?
Manejwala: Yes. There's a reason that most, if not
all, diet books stress a new way of living and eating. Because the danger
starts when you get to your correct weight and return to your old ways.
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