Wendy’s eating was much like an addiction to crack-cocaine. It began for her at age 2. She enjoyed eating and even after cleaning her plate she would beg for more. If she still felt hungry, she would steal food right off others’ plates.

Eating was the only way Janet could feel safe and happy. Her worries vanished when she was alone with her food. She first turned to food for comfort as a child, when dealing with a mentally ill mother, Janet had to be the responsible person in the home...

Andrea remembers as a little girl that she felt something was wrong with her. It began when she scarfed down a big piece of cake and asked her mother to give her more. She feels that as an overeater, the body’s message of “I’m full” means “eat more.

Belinda is an overeater who addiction isn’t marked by continual weight gain, but via increasingly crazy diets. She would bond with certain food items so fiercely she would isolate herself from other people.

Paul jokingly recalls seeing the Beatles at Shea Stadium in 1965 and then waking up in 1980. In that span, Paul became addicted to heroin, committed multiple felonies, recovered through methadone treatment,

George first started “using” at age eleven. He grew up the son of bar owners in the Brooklyn. His parents taught him how to mix cocktails. Drinking in his family was normal and George now considers most of his relatives to be addicts. As a teen,

Christine grew up in an alcoholic household. The smell of beer reminds her of her father. And she swore never to become like him. She vowed never to be a drinker, so she turned to pills. On the outside, Christine appeared to have it all.

Michael was a young successful lawyer and entrepreneur who lived under the mantra “Work hard. Play hard”. He would get drunk, and cruise around town in his Cranberry Red BMW 5-series believing he had earned his right to party.

Alex might just have been the wealthiest drug addict you’d ever meet. His story is the classic example of “stumbling forward” for years; improving his life-standing while falling deeper and deeper into addictions, including to crack-cocaine.

Spencer grew up in a nice neighborhood, but remembers his parents and other family members constantly in emotional turmoil.  It often lead Spencer to escape to his grandparents home for quiet time but the troubles were too much; his first suicide attem...