The Allure of Tirzepatide, Continued

In their generic form, pharmaceuticals go by science-oriented names that start with lower-case letters, like tirzepatide. Being a commercially marketed product, Mounjaro starts with a capital letter, and there is no other tirzepatide on the market, so at this point in time, they might as well be synonyms. Mounjaro was approved for the treatment of diabetes only a year ago, in May of 2022, but that wasn’t the big news.

Required and routine human testing had made it clear that tirzepatide might turn out to be the most spectacularly effective weight-loss drug ever, and it appears to be on the verge of approval for that purpose. Eli Lilly’s diabetes medication plant in North Carolina is going to end up costing close to two billion dollars, so obviously the corporation is optimistic about both the need and the demand for its products.

Other important names in this realm are the semaglutide weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, which only imitate one natural hormone, whereas tirzepatide imitates that one, plus an additional hormone with which it works synergistically.

Say what?

Tirzepatide was described by a writer as psychoactive, a term that might not be recognized as problematic by someone for whom English is not their first language. In the U.S. (colloquially, at any rate), we tend to reserve that term for LSD, mescaline, and other substances of the hallucinatory and mind-bending variety. Nevertheless, tirzepatide does have effects other than somatic on some people. Also, some weight-loss pills allegedly contain plant-based stimulants to help with the hunger-reduction and energy-increase aspects of their action.

An intriguing line on a website from India says,

The bulk of Eli Lilly’s (Tirzepatide) Weight Loss Drugs include stimulants like Garcinia Cambogia in their formulations. They reduce hunger while also speeding up metabolism and boosting energy levels.

The author did not offer a source, and the article was admittedly “sponsored,” so could have been written by an enemy of Lilly. Also, it was not possible to chase down any more references to that assertion, so who knows? On the other hand, such things apparently do happen. It was possible to find a paper titled “Nine prohibited stimulants found in sports and weight loss supplements: deterenol, phenpromethamine (Vonedrine), oxilofrine, octodrine, beta-methylphenylethylamine (BMPEA), 1,3-dimethylamylamine (1,3-DMAA), 1,4-dimethylamylamine (1,4-DMAA), 1,3-dimethylbutylamine (1,3-DMBA) and higenamine”

Still, the damage could be done

Irresponsible use of just about anything could hurt people. Unsupervised use of tirzepatide, for instance, if it becomes available without a prescription, could dangerously lower a person’s blood sugar leading to irritability, confusion, anxiety and/or and mood instability. Writing for The New York Times, journalist Dani Blum notes,

But it’s not yet clear what the long-term effects of taking Mounjaro might be — a pressing issue, given that people need to keep taking the drug for continued results, said Akshaya Srikanth Bhagavathula, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Arkansas who has studied tirzepatide.

This vast unexplored area is particularly worrisome if eventually the medication is sold over the counter (without a prescription). For instance, little is known about how tirzepatide affects people who have neither diabetes nor obesity. We don’t know what it does in people who just want to shed 20 pounds of winter weight and get back their beach bodies. The risk of malnourishment and disordered eating calls for close medical supervision — something that is unlikely to happen in all cases.

Another thing: It is seriously recommended that weight-loss drugs not be combined with alcohol, but let’s face it: In the Venn diagram of people who would self-medicate with them in order to look good at the club on Saturday night, and of people who drink alcohol, there is a sizeable overlap.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “The Diabetes Drug That Could Overshadow Ozempic,” NYTimes.com, 04/11/23
Source: “Newly Approved Diabetes Drug Has Record-Breaking Weight Loss Effect,” NatureWorldNews.com, 06/07/23
Source: “Eli Lilly Weight Loss: Top 5 Over The Counter Alternatives To Eli Lilly (Tirzepatide) Weight Loss Drug,” OutlookIndia.com, 01/27/23
Source: “Nine prohibited stimulants,” Tandfonline.com, March 2021
Source: “Mounjaro,” Drugs.com, undated
Image by GovernmentZA/CC BY-ND 2.0

The Allure of Tirzepatide

As previously mentioned, the latest new anti-obesity wonder drug, tirzepatide, is raising hopes everywhere on behalf of morbidly obese individuals (except those with type 1 diabetes) who may benefit from it. Some say it looks like a real game-changer.

So far, it has received the okay from the Food and Drug Administration to treat type 2 diabetes, but not yet for weight loss, which remains an “off-label” use. The application for weight-loss approval has allegedly been “fast-tracked.” One aspect that remains to be determined is the matter of “maintenance dose versus treatment dose.” Reportedly, this substance provides a “significant and persistent decrease in body composition.” Journalist Miguel Brown says,

[I]t seems to stimulate weight control by imitating the actions of endogenous enzymes known as incretins. This endocrine system regulates biochemical aspects relating to digestive as well as lowering glucose levels upon eating.

Testing was performed on more than 2,500 individuals who were given various dosages. Those who received what is agreed to be the maximum safe and effective dose lost 22.5 % of their total body mass. Other dosage protocols led to the subjects losing on average 21.4% (medium dose) and 16% (low dose). Tirzepatide is touted as the first experimental treatment that in its Phase 3 of testing was able to yield more than a 20% reduction in weight.

Those patients were obese, but not suffering from diabetes. From an article published mere days ago, we learn that in a subsequent trial, whose subjects all had diabetes,

Patients who took Eli Lilly’s weight loss drug tirzepatide lost up to 34 pounds, or 16% of their body weight, the company said in clinical trial results.

This report added that the control group of patients, who received only placebo injections, nevertheless lost an average of seven pounds, which would be interesting fodder for an additional study. However, approaching the matter from a different statistical angle,

About 86% of patients in the trial who took tirzepatide lost at least 5% of their body weight, compared with about 30% in the placebo group.

At any rate, the numbers are almost as good as those attributed to gastric bypass surgery, and possibly better than the results obtained with the popular pharmaceutical rival, semaglutide. The head of the National Center for Weight and Wellness, Dr. Scott Kahan, was quoted as saying that tirzepatide and its brothers could “herald a radical shift in metabolic syndrome therapy.”

Overall, the trial results are said by the chief scientific and medical officer of the American Diabetes Association, Dr. Robert Gabbay, to be “substantial and highly clinically meaningful.” Meanwhile, a new study (slated to wind up in 2025) has been registered, which will try out both tirzepatide and semaglutide on obese patients who are afflicted with various comorbidities.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Newly Approved Diabetes Drug has Record-Breaking Weight Loss Effect,” NatureWorldNews.com, 06/07/22
Source: “Eli Lilly says obesity drug tirzepatide resulted in weight loss of up to 34 pounds,” CNBC.com, 04/27/23
Image by Mark Licht/CC BY 2.0

Fries and the Causal Pathway

Dr. Pretlow says,

Fried foods, like fried potatoes, are crunchy and chewy and also involve a lot of hand-to-mouth motion and mouth manipulation. That’s high displacement activity value, thus people with anxiety would eat those foods to displace such.

Envision other items that are fried, and how much fun they are to consume. With an order of chicken wings, for instance, a person can look forward to quite the participatory eating experience. It can be very primal, almost as if you were crouching around a campfire, picking apart the contents of a roasted dinosaur egg.

In 2014, the U.S. situation was grim, with the Department of Agriculture’s public school regulations providing plenty of loopholes:

For example, a small container of fries counted as a vegetable. Yes, they’re made out of a potato but they’re a starch that’s been fried. The fruit requirement could also be fulfilled by providing a small cup of fruit juice, which meant kids were missing out on important fiber intake. At the time, more than 90 percent of the food brought into a school cafeteria was frozen, including pizza, which counted as two servings of whole grain.

A 2016 article recalled how in 2004, Texas agriculture commissioner Susan Combs banned soft drinks, sweet desserts, and fried food from the state’s schools and said something humorous:

Last week, Miller announced his decision to return deep fryers and soda machines to Texas schools. During the very same announcement, Miller also stated that he has created a five-point plan to combat childhood obesity.

Apparently, some people believe that in a restaurant, as long as children order from the “kiddies’ menu” they will be served healthful food. But quite recently, South Coast Herald reporter Tammy Jacks wrote,

Normally, you’ll find deep-fried foods, such as fried chicken or chips, processed meat including sausages as well as white, sugary carbs such as white bread or pizza loaded with fatty cheese… Limit the amount of times you order kiddies’ meals and be aware of what’s on the menu.

This news is dismaying:

A research team in Hangzhou, China, found that frequent consumption of fried foods, especially fried potatoes, was linked with a 12% higher risk of anxiety and 7% higher risk of depression than in people who didn’t eat fried foods.

The long-term study of nearly 150,000 people seems to indicate that depression and anxiety are significantly linked to the consumption of french fries. Furthermore, this unfortunate result appears to be more prevalent among younger people. Dr. David Katz, who has appeared in Childhood Obesity News posts before, and who was not involved in the study, pointed out that it could be a “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” type of question. People who are already anxious or depressed tend to self-medicate with comfort foods, which in a large number of cases means something fried.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Students Aren’t Eating Healthy School Lunches,” MedicalDaily.com, 11/17/14
Source: “School food reversal a deep-fried disgrace,” Statesman.com, 09/23/16
Source: “These food myths could be to blame for childhood obesity,” SouthCoastHerald.co.za, 11/10/21
Source: “New research suggests that french fries may be linked to depression,” CNN.com, 04/24/23
Image by Peter Rivera/CC BY 2.0

Rechanneling the Displacement

In “The Displacement Mechanism as a Basis for Eating Disorders,” Dr. Pretlow wrote:

Theoretically, the displacement mechanism functions by rechanneling overflow mental energy to another behavior, typically whatever behavior is most readily available at the time or is most commonly used in the animal’s repertoire…

That sentence includes an important clue as to why overeating is so disastrously prevalent. Granted, there is still plenty of starvation all over the globe. But in most societies that are even moderately successful, food is everywhere. Something capable of being eaten is readily available to almost everyone at almost any time. Nutritionally it may be worthless, but it is presented and labeled as food, and is publicly accepted as such.

Humans are a species of animal, and for a large portion of humankind at present, food consumption is a “most readily available” behavior. Eating is ideally positioned as the go-to displacement mechanism.

A world leader in consumption

That is certainly true in the United States. Back when automobiles first appeared on the landscape, who would have guessed that gasoline establishments would also sell hot dogs? No matter what sort of retail enterprise a person walks into, edible merchandise (one hesitates to call most of it “food”) is probably on offer. Yes, even at the hardware store, the checkout counters abound with candy and snacks.

Eating is definitely a “most commonly used” behavior. In ancient times and many remote places, it was accepted that a passing traveler would be offered food, or at the very least, water. In more recent eras, people attended the theater or the concert hall for the play or the symphony, and ate not a morsel.

Public snacking severely frowned on

As for noshing on the street, that was something only the most ill-bred people would do. Respectable, middle-class parents would not dream of letting children stain their good clothes and make a spectacle of themselves by chowing down in any public place other than a restaurant. Exceptions were made for outdoor cafes in Paris, but the French were known to be decadent anyway.

Okay, maybe that is old-fashioned nonsense, but the social norms around food consumption might have helped to keep the obesity rate a lot lower. Currently, food is a big part of not just religious or traditional holidays, but of all kinds of social occasions. Even in business offices, food may show up as part of the transaction, and an enormous amount of commercial finagling is conducted over opulent restaurant meals.

In the same paper, Dr. Pretlow wrote,

If the rechanneled behavior is destructive, it is possible for the individual to consciously rechannel the overflow mental energy to a non-destructive behavior. Examples are rechanneling to the breathing drive by slow, deep breaths, or rechanneling by wringing the hands.

The previous post mentioned how a parent can guide a child to some practice that will facilitate grounding, perhaps by suggesting, “Close your eyes and repeat to yourself, “I am safe, I am home, and I am going to be okay’” — which is kind of in the same league with deep breathing and fist clenching. Another simple, unobtrusive ploy we might try when stressed is acupressure, at the Hand Valley Point (see illustration).

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Hand pressure points: Everything you need to know,” MedicalNewsToday.com, 03/13/19
Image by Servier Medical Art/CC BY 2.0

News Flash: Kids Are Different

Yesterday part of the discussion was about how young people, especially when they reach their teen years, can be very resentful of any implication that they need help in any way. And even if they do acknowledge the need in some manner, usually the last people they look to are their parents. (After all, aren’t their parents the ones who messed them up in the first place?)

So, what are we supposed to do about possible interventions? In “The displacement mechanism: a new explanation and treatment for obesity,” Dr. Pretlow explored the idea that effective intervention could be based on the displacement mechanism and added,

It would seem to provide subjects with believable hope that they can curb their overeating without struggling or relying on willpower. In addition to dealing with the sources of the displacement, it also is possible to replace the displacement with another displacement that is less destructive.

Sometimes, a parent (or other mentor figure) may be able to help kind of sneakily, so the child will not realize that anyone presumes to be capable of helping in any way, and will maybe not take offense or resist the suggestion.

But to make things even more complicated, apparently, children have different personality types (who knew?) Okay, that was a facetious comment, but it is a factor of which the aspiring helpful adult needs to be aware. Fortunately, guidance is available from such professionals as Dr. Shefali Tsabary, who identifies six “extraordinary” types of children who may need careful and individualized guidance lest they crash and burn:

1. The Anxious Exploder… often fussy, irritable and get triggered by the slightest thing.

A parent is advised to maintain a grounded, firm, calm demeanor and suggest, “When you feel nervous, close your eyes and repeat to yourself, ‘I am safe, I am home, and I am going to be okay.’”

2. The Hyperactive Explorer… need to be honored and not shamed for their passionate spirit.

3. The Overpleaser… soft and pliable, easy to mold and shape… Parenting tip: Honor and teach them how to protect their boundaries. “You are a giver, and you may encounter many who will keep taking from you. Remember that it’s okay to say ‘no.’”

4. The Dreamer-Recluse… shy and introverted, and can struggle with social and conversational skills… Help them feel secure and highlight their strengths.

5. The Rebel Nonconformist… They won’t comply until they’re convinced it’s something they wish to do…. These kids need to feel respected for their determination.

Unfortunately, this type of young person is also exquisitely sensitive to attempts at manipulation. If a grownup tries to convince such a youth that “it’s something they wish to do,” that young person will see through it in a second, and become even more resentful. Dr. Tsabary suggests teaching such a child, “Don’t fight rules simply for the sake of fighting, or you will burn yourself out.” This is, for better or worse, the type of lesson that can be best taught, and perhaps only taught, through example.

6. The Happy-Go-Lucky… These kids are always laughing and in a good mood. The only downside is that they can be too relaxed and seem unmotivated.

Dr. Tsabary offers a shining piece of wisdom: “Happy-Go-Lucky kids are actually the gurus of living in the present.” In the long run, it is much easier for this type of young person to eventually develop a serious side, than for an Anxious Exploder to manifest a happy-go-lucky side. So cherish that light-heartedness, and please don’t squelch it!

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “There are 6 ‘extraordinary’ types of kids, says psychologist,” CNBC.com, 03/18/23
Image by Great Himalaya Trails/CC BY-ND 2.0

Displacement’s Two Faces

So, we were talking about how the displacement mechanism has two faces. If a person is stuck in what seems like a no-win situation, where no good answer is within sight, and the deck is stacked against them, sometimes they will just dive into the nearest pool of alcohol, or pick up the nearest crack pipe, or spend a day’s pay on half a dozen cheeseburgers and four large orders of curly fries, washed down by a strawberry milkshake and a chocolate milkshake.

Then, there is the benevolent side of displacement. Faced with a grim life event, that same person might follow a friend’s advice and go out for a run. It might feel pretty good, and they might go for another run the next day. This has no direct effect on the dire circumstances, but somehow the person feels like the awfulness has been pushed back just a bit, and the tiniest glimmer of light shines through the clouds.

Who knows, they might even decide to make running a habit! And while it won’t directly change whatever the heck is going on in other compartments of life, somehow the person feels more confident, and actually dredges up from deep inside the mental and emotional resources needed to cope.

Creating hope

It is just possible that a child who overeats can be induced to try some of life’s other satisfying activities, like the ones Dr. Pretlow’s team has suggested. In a certain way, it resembles the quaint homespun psychology of our great-grandparents, who repeated such maxims as, “The devil makes work for idle hands.” Children would be assigned chores to keep them busy, and if along the way the child discovered a talent for helping farm animals through the birthing process, or for making quilts or embroidering wedding dresses, so much the better.

Even in a limited environment with few material possessions, people discovered activities that gave their lives meaning and purpose. They found behaviors that could be engaged in productively and with satisfaction, while their less fortunate peers got lost in addictions like moonshine and gambling.

An expanded universe

Caged rats are frustrated and unhappy, and if given the chance they will press a lever to obtain as many hits of cocaine as they can. But also, if housed in a more generous cage with social relationships and other interesting ways to pass the time, they will expand their behavior repertoire and leave the dope alone, or at least cut down.

That’s what we want to see happening with kids — for them to find activities they can master and excel at and profit from and gain satisfaction from, to the point where they won’t be tempted to use substances to gain a momentary illusion that their challenges have magically been met. Our best hope is that they will achieve actual goals and satisfactions that will remove them from the all-encompassing grasp of their problems.

An article was published about a month ago about different kinds of children who might need some extra attention that could help them steer clear of difficulties like addiction. Of course, for a lot of kids, the very last thing they want to hear is that some grownup has diagnosed them as being in need of intervention. And worse, they are deeply insulted by the implication that an adult would possibly be capable of helping them in any way. The natural reaction is, “You want to know how you can help me? Get off my back.”

Come back for more about these distinct types, and how to approach their particular personalities.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “There are 6 ‘extraordinary’ types of kids, says psychologist,” CNBC.com, 03/18/23
Image by Jason Evans/CC BY-SA 2.0

The Value of a Passion

Let’s recall what Dr. John Foreyt wrote to Dr. Pretlow:

To me, life events associated with stress, tension, anxiety, depression, loneliness, fear, anger, boredom need to be treated in ways such as you describe.

One thing that Dr. Pretlow has described is the positive kind of displacement activity. As he explains to children and teens,

There’s a mechanism in your brain called the displacement mechanism that’s causing you to overeat. It helps your brain deal with situations that you can’t easily face or are frustrating, yet, you can’t avoid… The good news is that you can control your displacement mechanism, and your overeating will stop.

In a paper called “The Displacement Mechanism as a Basis for Eating Disorders,” he says,

[I]t is possible for the individual to consciously rechannel the overflow mental energy to a non-destructive behavior. Examples are rechanneling to the breathing drive by slow, deep breaths, or rechanneling by wringing the hands.

This brain stress can be rechanneled through many conduits. In some settings, like a classroom, deep breaths and squeezing fists might be the only choices. But out in the world, the possibilities are endless. Go for a bike ride, fiddle with a fidget toy, jog, fling some kettlebells around, play a musical instrument, juggle, dance, do some kind of artwork, or just go for a walk.

Still, there is a difference between a pastime and a passion. One troubled individual might view filling up the page of a fancy coloring book as a tolerable distraction. For somebody else, there is only the compulsion of (capital A) Art. Passion is what really has the best chance of helping an addict to let go of an addiction, or never develop it in the first place. This is why a parent is wise to stop and think before deciding that a kid is “going overboard” with an interest.

Even an expensive toy like a drone might be worth considering, because flying one of those requires a lot of attention and concentration, making it just the sort of diversion the brain finds acceptable to keep it from a worse path.

Think carefully

Just pause to ponder the alternatives, in the “going overboard” department. Maybe you believe the preoccupation with video games is too much, and even worry that it is an addiction in itself. But maybe, all things considered, no matter how trivial and useless you think the achievement is, beating everybody at a favorite game still qualifies as a benevolent displacement that keeps the child away from something much less desirable, like weighing 300 pounds. It’s worth considering.

Dr. Pretlow has even seen a case where a young woman obtained enormous relief just by writing out elaborate Action Plans with which to attack the several displacement sources that confronted her.

She reported,

All the mindless urges and the snacking and stuff like that really just went away. I just wrote it down. My action plan for finances and stuff like that, and then they disappeared. No more eating urges. I mean, I’m definitely going to continue to write down my action plans.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Image by Pat Hartman

Extirpate the Roots of Addiction

Prevention is always better than cure. No argument there! The prevention of childhood obesity, for instance, is much preferable to letting obesity develop, and then trying to help a 300-pound person shed half their weight. One cause of obesity is the astonishing amount of gratuitous eating that people do. Now, it looks as if quite a lot of that is actually displacement activity, in reaction to life situations that seem inescapable by any acceptable path.

To step one increment further back, what if we could help kids avoid desperate life situations? Or, what if they could figure out how to handle those occasions more effectively? Or, what if we could make it easier for them to find something so interesting to do with their time and talents, that other matters would fade into obscurity?

The good kind of displacement

For purposes of this discussion, let’s just go ahead and call it a passion. If a person has a passion in life, chances are that preoccupation might use up enough of their mental energy to keep them out of at least some kinds of trouble. Also, this is a twofer. Finding a passion can both shield someone from becoming an addict in the first place, and help someone recover from their destructive relationship with eating.

A person can consciously rechannel their tumultuous overflow mental energy to a nondestructive behavior. As Dr. Pretlow and co-author Suzette Glasner have written,

[W]e sought to examine the application of displacement theory as a novel treatment for eating addiction and obesity.

If the rechanneled behavior becomes destructive, it is possible for the individual to consciously rechannel the overflow mental energy to a nondestructive behavior. Examples are rechanneling to breathing behavior (by taking slow, deep breaths), rechanneling to squeezing the hands, and rechanneling to hobbies.

“Hobbies” seems kind of dismissive and superficial. It could imply a lot of different types of activity, and a wide range of relationships to the activity. Watching sportsball on TV, while perhaps a legit hobby, will probably not pull somebody out of an addiction. But something might, if the person is really into it, and if it satisfies a lot of needs on different levels. A passion might help a person break up with their habit, or better yet, protect them from acquiring it in the first place.

Anyway, in this paper the authors go on to say,

If the displacement mechanism accounts for overeating, then targeting this mechanism in treatment should facilitate significant reductions in overeating without necessitating willpower to eat less.

As everybody knows by now, willpower doesn’t work. So the idea of having something that does work sounds pretty good.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Reconceptualization of eating addiction and obesity as displacement behavior and a possible treatment,” Springer.com, 06/22/22
Image by graibeard/CC BY-SA 2.0

Uproot the Seeds of Addiction

Nice picture, but it makes better sense and would be more accurate to say, “Remove the soil from which the seeds of addiction grow.” Sadly, it is difficult to illustrate something, for instance, soil, not being there.

What is the fertile ground that encourages addiction? As mentioned in the previous post, frustration can do the job efficiently. When a child has a particular talent, a natural bent for some activity, too often the parents and other authority figures are eager to thwart those impulses, and use tools like bribery or force to separate kids from their preferences. The result can be terribly sad.

A malleable young person can be persuaded or coerced to give up something they love, but there is a price to pay. Underneath the surface, trouble develops. Dr. Pretlow has compared that kind of situation to a dormant volcano. This quotation is from a previous Childhood Obesity News post that was republished by Obesity Prevention of America:

Often, a distressing life situation causes an overstock of energy to accumulate within a human being. In a very basic, instinctual way, the boiling energy wants to find expression in fighting, fleeing, or engaging in some other activity to “let off steam.” When a person’s preferred form of displacement behavior is overeating, the results can be dismal and long-lasting.

Sure, eating can reduce stress in the short term, but ultimately it creates situations that produce more stress — like being bullied, bursting out of one’s clothes, being nagged to start a fitness program, etc. Underneath, conditions are heating up and a gang of energy is looking for an excuse to erupt. All kinds of negative consequences might accrue. Like natural gas, it can blow the place up, or be tamed into keeping people warm and cooking their food. The “beauty part” is, under the right circumstances and with some help, that energy can be used for good, and repurposed into activities that have some redeeming value.

From an authority

John Foreyt is a Professor at the Baylor College of Medicine’s Department of Medicine and Department of Psychiatry. He’s also the Director of the DeBakey Health Center’s Behavioral Medicine Research Center, Department of Medicine. He’s published 17 books and more than 400 articles, and is regarded as an authority in the field of obesity. Dr. Foreyt wrote to Dr. Pretlow,

From a behavioral point of view, displacement as a major cause of overeating and the treatment you describe makes good sense. To me, life events associated with stress, tension, anxiety, depression, loneliness, fear, anger, boredom need to be treated in ways such as you describe. Maybe if they are caught and treated effectively in children there would be a lot less obesity in adults.

It is a worthy goal, to treat addiction to the point where the individual is in permanent recovery. No one suggests that stamp collecting can take the place of a 12-step program or inpatient rehab. On the other hand, having an interest in life is certainly a useful supplement to any other intervention. As Dr. Pretlow and co-author Suzette Glasner have written,

Rechanneling diverts the focus to a nondestructive medium.

People don’t need to let the restless energy take advantage of them and get them in more trouble. We don’t have to remain at the mercy of the slumbering volcano. We can take advantage of all that rogue energy, trap it and train it, as part of our addiction escape strategy.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “The Role of Cognitive Behavior Therapy-Based Treatment,” ObesityPreventionOfAmerica.org, 02/14/20,
Source: “Reconceptualization of eating addiction and obesity as displacement behavior and a possible treatment,” Springer.com, 06/22/22
Image by Sara J./CC BY-ND 2.0

Avoid Planting the Seeds of Addiction

The previous post left off by observing that an occupational passion, a creative obsession, or even a spiritual calling can, on the practical level, resemble an addiction when its requirements do not match up with what someone else believes is the most appropriate use of that person’s life. While growing up, some people need to try out different types of activities and experiment a bit to discover their interests. On the other hand, some know at the age of five what they “want to be when they grow up” and proceed, if allowed, in an unwavering course along that path.

This brings up another point. When a young person is absorbed in art or music, or even in rebuilding vintage cars, and the grownups actively discourage the enthusiasm, that negative dynamic provides a fertile ground for addiction to grow. It would be inaccurate to call this a thought process, but there is an emotional reasoning process (not the best kind) that goes something like this: “If I can’t do what I want, and what matters to me, how about if I just do nothing, and see how you like that?”

Next thing you know, the kid is hooked on downers and failing in every available direction. In other words, one of the best ways to cure addiction in a young person is to prevent it from ever happening, and one of the best ways to do that is to help and allow the kid to figure out what he is good at; what she enjoys doing; what he gets a thrill from accomplishing; what she is intellectually stimulated by.

Roots of addiction

Many people overdrink, overdrug, or overeat as a way of dealing with their other problems, and of course becoming an alcohol, drug or food addict is a fake cure that brings plenty of additional (and worse) problems into the person’s life. But is every use of the displacement mechanism a fake cure? Not if it saves the person from destruction, and helps them to avoid visiting various kinds of destruction on the people close to them.

Which is exactly what has happened to the people whose lives have been changed by flyfishing and by getting actively involved with all the peripheral details and underlying causes connected with that activity, like saving the world’s rivers from death by unrelenting pollution.

What if every kid who is hooked on cigarettes or beer or whatever, could find a positive and productive displacement activity? It might not directly solve their immediate problems, but could very well provide the first few steps of the grand stairway that leads them out of the life that contains those problems.

Dr. Pretlow wrote in “The displacement mechanism: a new explanation and treatment for obesity,”

Moving the opposing drives out of equilibrium, by resolving a person’s problems (displacement sources), theoretically should halt the displacement mechanism and might comprise an intervention for overeating/obesity, as well as other addictions. If the individual can either face or escape from the problematic situations, the displacement behavior of overeating should stop on its own without struggling and without willpower.

It is possible that the young person in the illustration on this page was destined by family tradition to be not a track star, but a teacher. And maybe that will happen someday. But meanwhile, we know for sure that we’re not looking at a person addicted to eating. Being allowed to discover a passion and follow it can undoubtedly help a young person to face problematic situations, by discovering strengths, and can even help her or him to escape from the problematic situations. This is something that parents might want to take under serious consideration.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Image by Steve Pisano/CC BY 2.0