Addicted? Recognizing Destructive Behaviors Before It's Too Late By Marilyn Freimuth, PhD

Rarely do addicts look like Lindsey Lohan or Ozzie Osborne. Celebrity news, depicting dysfunctional stereotypes, dangerously masks the real face of addiction. Most addicts go to work, pay their mortgage, and raise their children; and are addicted to more than just substances. Addicted? Recognizing Destructive Behaviors Before It's Too Late takes a new look at America's number one health problem-behavioral and substance addictions. Marilyn Freimuth documents that our health care professionals routinely miss addictions. For this reason, we must learn how to identify our own addictions and those of the people we love.

Dr. Freimuth provides screening tools and other easy to use methods for recognizing the most common substance and behavioral addictions. Most books on addiction focus on identifying and treating addictions in their most extreme forms. But, Dr. Freimuth believes we do not have to wait until the problem is severe. Just as we are taught the early warning signs of cancer, Dr. Freimuth shows readers how to recognize addiction's early warning signs and prepare for change-whether you are the addicted person or the loved one of someone who is-before it's too late.

Parents, health care professionals, managers, teachers, lawyers, police-- anyone who works with the public-- will find the material in this book a valuable resource because behind many problematic behaviors lies an addiction. The content of Addicted? is engaging and brought alive through case histories and extensive use of autobiographies of addictions including those written by Wurtzel, Cheever, Knapp, Lawford, and Moyers.

Praise for her new work:

"A clinically wise approach to figuring out whether you or your loved one suffers with addiction. I very much recommend it." -Lance Dodes, M.D., author, The Heart of Addiction

"Addicted? is a guide for taking action against the deception of addiction, while there's still time. A must-read for anyone facing the deception, denial, and desperation of addiction." -William Cope Moyers, author of Broken

"Addicted? de-stigmatizes addiction and offers hope for those who struggle, whether adolescent, young adult, aging adult, or concerned friends and family. Addicted? is a book to read at first suspicion, when you may be already wondering how it could have happened." -Chris Volkmann, coauthor of From Binge to Blackout: A Mother and Son Struggle with Teen Drinking

Biography: Dr. Marilyn Freimuth Baron is a Yale-trained psychologist specializing in addiction diagnosis and treatment and Professor of Clinical Psychology at the Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, California. In addition to maintaining a part-time private practice in New York City, she consults with private sector and government agencies regarding the training of health care professionals to assess and initiate treatment for substance and behavioral addictions.

She is a frequent lecturer around the country on the subject of addiction assessment and co-occurring disorders. Her most recent book, Addicted? follows on the heels of Hidden Addictions: Assessment Practices for Health Care Professionals, Psychotherapists, and Counselors written for medical and mental health students and professionals.

She lives in Wisconsin with her husband and two teenage sons.