Name your poison.

• Author: Schulz, Mona Lisa
• Position: HEALTH BEAT - Addiction

DO YOU HAVE TROUBLE keeping off weight, no matter what diet you try? Are there times when you would kill for chocolate, have to stop everything for a cigarette, or are not able to get to sleep without a drink? These days, it is so common to see people medicate their moods through compulsive consumption. Sixty percent of our nation is overweight. It clearly is not from a lack of information. Despite our counting carbs and fat grams, people are not really looking at why we, as a society, cannot lose weight

When we think of addiction, we tend to think of those people with multiple DWIs or that chain smoker who buys cartons of Camels in front of us in the supermarket checkout line. In fact, most of us have addictions that are much subtler than that. An addiction is whatever you do, whatever you put in your mouth to cover up an emotion that you cannot handle. What do you use to fix a mood, soothe anxiety, or help you relax? It may be French fries, cake, cookies, wine, beer, chocolate, cigarettes--the list goes on and on. If you continuously are medicating your moods, you also are numbing the intuitive information that is underlying your emotions.

Having a chocolate chip cookie every once in a while is not an addiction, and going out for drinks every so often after a bad day at work is not going to land you in rehab. So, how do you know when you are in over your head? Here are four warning signs that can help you identify if you have a problem with addiction:

* Is what you are using getting out of hand? Does it cause you legal problems? One DWI is all you need.

* Does whatever you use interfere with relationships? Are you sneaking certain things or hiding them from friends and loved ones?

* Do you use things in a way that prevents you from getting in touch with your responsibilities and fulfilling what you need to do in your job? Do you duck out for a cigarette when you should be working?

* Does your use have an ill effect on your health? Given that 60% of all Americans have a weight problem, at least 60% of us have difficulties with an addiction of some kind.

As I was sitting in the airport on a recent trip to New York, I saw a picture of a model on the cover of a magazine; the headline screamed: "Booze! Drugs! Bulimia!" When I got to my hotel, I noticed that the check-in area is attached to a bar. As I was waiting, I watched cocktail hour unfold: I saw all of these twenty- and thirty-somethings--and some 50-year-olds laying to be...