It seems like there is a growing segment of the population who makes a weekly date (or, in some cases, multiple weekly dates, depending on how many versions they follow) with their DVR or with groups of friends to watch the “Real Housewives” television show phenomenon.

I have seen enough episodes to ask the question, “Why?”

What draws people to watch faithfully every week or watch every series every week? What satisfaction is had by watching women backstab each other, trash-talk each other behind each other’s backs, steal each other’s men, lie and manipulate others for attention, and flaunt their excessive lifestyles?

In short, what is to be gained by watching women treat each other so poorly?

You suspect your teen is using drugs. Maybe they’re not acting like themselves. Maybe they’re cutting school or shirking other responsibilities. Maybe their grades are dropping. Or their behavior is worsening. Maybe they’ve started hanging out with a bad crowd.

Maybe they’re being secretive and have even stolen money from your wallet. Maybe their physical appearance has changed with rapid weight loss or red eyes. Maybe you’ve noticed a change in their sleep habits, energy level and mood. Maybe you’ve actually found marijuana or other drugs in their room.

Naturally, the thought and possible confirmation of your child using drugs trigger a rush and range of emotions: anger, frustration, disappointment, sadness, fear.

If you think your child is using drugs, how do you approach them? Where do you start?

In the continual quest to find balance in our relationships, we must take time to explore whether we tend toward codependence.

Co-dependence is one of those psychological terms that describes a dysfunctional way of behaving in important relationships in one’s life. It is primarily a learned behavior from our family of origin. Some cultures have it to a greater degree than others — some still see it as a normal way of being.

Yet the costs of co-dependence can include distrust, faulty expectations, passive-aggressiveness, control, self-neglect, over-focus on others, manipulation, and a slew of other unattractive traits.

Wondering if you might be involved in a co-dependent relationship? Read on…

Some people are simply irresponsible.

They may be careless and capricious or outright reckless. They “forget” about appointments. They’re chronically late. They neglect to plan ahead. They’re financially irresponsible. They don’t take care of their stuff. They make rash decisions that get them into trouble. They ignore deadlines. They act as though others should bail them out of whatever trouble they get into.

We all know people like this. And they’re not all adolescents. It could be a friend, a family member or a colleague. We may love them yet we experience them as terribly frustrating. We want to shake them. Yell at them. Knock some sense into their brains. But none of this seems to make a difference to them. They shrug it all off.

Why? Because they have Responsibility Deficit Disorder (RDD), a much-needed diagnostic category that I have just created.

One day, after hours of sliding my cursor from Twitter to Facebook to stats for my blogs and back to Twitter — when I should have been writing instead — I emailed Dr. M., a cognitive therapist.

Dr. M. had previously helped me understand that worry is an addiction — it hits the same pleasure center of the brain that other addictions, such as alcohol, do.

The more I worry, the more it reinforces me to worry. Ever the pleasure-seeker, I worry more and perpetuate the cycle. Yet, once I understood the worry addiction, I worried less.

While I am inclined toward overindulging in pleasurable activities (In my mother’s words. “Susan, you’re an extremist!”), I am also driven to avoid the consequences in the quest for maximum pleasure.

People often talk about running away to another, better place to escape their problems. But they are reminded that the problems remain even if they clean up and do things right this time around.

I often have thought of getting a fresh start somehow. I got that opportunity, but in an unfortunate way.

A failed suicide attempt left me completely disabled, unable to work and with a severe hypoxic brain injury that affected many aspects of my life. I had to start from rock bottom and completely rebuild my entire life.

Before the suicide attempt, I had a great job, made great money, bought a new car and had lots of friends that I hung out with often. In retrospect, I had everything and I was proud of myself for working so hard and doing so well.

Behind the scenes, I had a bad drinking problem and was constantly self-medicating my anxiety and depression.

Have you tried to lose weight? 

More than one third of U.S. adults currently are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Physicians and other health care professionals urge us to lose weight or risk becoming vulnerable to a host of diseases, including diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. Weight loss has become a national conversation.

On an individual basis, most of us either have tried to lose weight or are actively engaged in maintaining a healthy weight.  Why we struggle with weight and how best to lose weight are hotly debated topics.  The nation’s current weight struggles have been attributed to a range of biological, societal and personal problems such as unhealthy school lunches, media advertising, too much corn and corn syrup in our diets, sugar substitutes, lack of willpower, overreliance on fast and prepackaged foods and many more.

But what gets in the way of your ability to lose weight?

Everyday, when we open our electronic mailbox, we get our fair share of unsolicited email. Of course, the unsolicited offers have gotten a lot more subtle and duplicitous. A few years ago, dozens of marketeers tried to get us to post badly sourced and designed infographics.

Now they’ve moved on to something that, in my opinion, looks a lot like deception.

In today’s email box, we found an email from “Jeffrey Redd, Project Outreach Director” with an email address of jeff@va.gov.samhsa.net sharing with us “a guide about finding treatment, free of cost.” Wow, really? A new fantastic resource from the folks over at SAMHSA?

But wait, hold on a minute. That email address doesn’t look quite right…

Did you know that most addiction treatment specialists have little formal education or training in addiction? Fourteen states require only a high school diploma or a GED to become an addiction counselor; 10 require only an associate’s degree.

But it gets worse — fully 20 states in the U.S. don’t require any degree, or don’t even require addictions counselors to be certified or licensed in any way.

Is it any wonder then that many addiction or rehab programs still rely on an outdated model that’s directly dependent upon how long companies are typically reimbursed for treatment — 30 days? Or that many programs still use treatment methods largely unchanged from the 1950s — not research-backed, modern approaches to treatment?

A groundbreaking report published last year from Columbia University lays out the sad facts of addiction treatment in the U.S. As the report notes, “Some [treatment programs] promise “one time” fixes; others offer posh residential treatment at astronomical prices with little evidence justifying the cost. Even for those who do have insurance coverage or can pay out-of-pocket, there are no outcome data reflecting the quality of treatment providers so that patients can make informed decisions.”

In October 2012, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) set out to find if they could exercise complete control over habitual behaviors in mice.

By inhibiting a small region of the prefrontal cortex — region of the brain responsible for planning and thought — the scientists were able to break the mice’s habits, but, to their surprise, the mice immediately began forming new behavior patterns.

Until now, psychologists and behavioral therapists believed that habits were hidden in the illusive “subconscious.”

But the MIT study shows that the brain is not just aware of habits: it controls them completely, moment by moment. And no matter how long the habits have existed, we can now shut them off, as by the flip of a switch.

Ah, the holidays: Candy canes, cozy slippers, festive lights, family peace, marital joy, and grateful children.

Or not.

The holidays are stressful. There are the challenges of too much family, not enough family, not enough money, continual exposure to food and alcohol, and perhaps worst of all, the gap between our actual life and our fantasy life. As if gazing into the perfect happy scene within a snowglobe, we might fall into a trance of how our life should be.

We might feel torn apart by nostalgia and grief over the good times and good people of the past, and wracked with guilt and inadequacy for failing to create a more wonderful life for ourselves. We might feel scared about our dissatisfaction and hypnotized by the promise of fulfillment just beyond the hard glass.

Addictive and codependent behaviors thrive during this season of fantasy.

I have a poster in my office from the 1950s. It’s yellowed with the passing of years, but it still makes me smile. A man is changing a tire in the snow and the situation isn’t going as planned. He has a  grimace on his face and tire chains are wrapped around his wrists like shackles. A woman is standing over him with a pack of cigarettes. The text reads:

“When tempers need to be controlled… Why be irritated? Light an Old Gold!”

Times certainly have changed. Societal views on cigarettes, and toward those who smoke them, have been flipped upside-down. Smokers are segregated. They must stand fifty feet away from shopping centers, hide in a bush when they see a child, douse themselves in perfume or cologne before leaving their homes.

Sarcasm aside, smoking isn’t popular anymore, nor is it attractive.