"Unhooked" Can Help You Quit Any Addiction

While your average super mom can check her 12-year-old’s algebra while making her spouse’s favorite recipe and reading her 6-year-old the latest Junie B. Jones book, she tends to neglect one person: herself.

And whether it’s one too many weekend cocktails or finishing off a box of cookies, lots of moms have a lingering addiction they’ve been meaning to master, just as soon as everyone else’s needs are met.

Author Susan Shapiro, who overcame a 27-year smoking habit, has teamed up with her former addiction therapist and dad of three, Dr. Frederick Woolverton, to tell you its OK, if not essential, to put yourself first.

In their new book, Unhooked: How to Quit Anything, the pair shares a series of riveting and eye-opening narratives on toxic habits, how they can keep you from reaching your dreams, and how feeling like hell (for a little while) is the best thing you can do for yourself and your family.

Momtourage:  How can anyone feeling guilty about an addiction “start stopping?”

Susan Shapiro: First you decide you need to quit. And realize your smoking, drinking, gambling, or overeating is unhealthy. Then, as we say in Unhooked, you figure out what's missing from your life. What do you want to put all that time and energy into?

Fred Woolverton: Success in stopping does not come about from feeling guilty.  Success comes from the conviction that something far better lies at the end of the road that begins with stopping.

Momtourage: For moms especially, this means disrupting a well-honed routine: Can making small changes help?

Susan Shapiro: Yes! One 45-minute weekly therapy appointment was how I quit my 27-year two-pack-a-day habit. And many shrinks, including Dr. Woolverton, will do appointments over the phone. 

Fred Woolverton: Small changes are as significant as big changes in life. Small reductions in using a substance to which a person is addicted do not work; but small that support stopping are as significant and helpful as the biggest of changes.

Momtourage: What inspired you to collaborate on this book?

Susan Shapiro: I felt that Dr. Woolverton's brilliant, perceptive addiction theories had saved my health, my life, my marriage and my career 10 years ago. He kept saying he was going to get them all down in a book but he seemed too busy. Years later, when he moved from New York, my home city, to Arkansas and I was ending therapy, I wanted to keep a close connection to him and Unhooked became a reality.

Fred Woolverton: I have developed a lot of ideas about and approaches to the treatment of substance abuse over the years. I have seen them help innumerable people who were in terrible trouble. Sue not only experienced the benefits of these ideas and treatment first-hand but also knows how to edit and to write.  And Sue wanted to make a contribution, as I did, to those who needed the help that she got.

Momtourage: Moms have a hard time putting themselves first, even if there’s a long-term payoff like improved health: What should they ask themselves in order to decide if it’s really worth it?

Susan Shapiro: Do they want their children to emulate them? My father was a chain smoker growing up. If you're smoking, drinking too much alcohol, or overeating, you are handing that to your child. The happier and healthier you are, the happier and healthier your children will be. 

Fred Woolverton: Do you want to live a life such that will make you proud if your children follow in your footsteps?

Momtourage: Fad diets, exercise machine commercials and the like offer false hope for a quick fix. What should someone quitting a long-standing habit be prepared for, realistically?

Susan Shapiro: When I quit smoking, Dr. Woolverton told me I'd feel like hell for a year. But he said if I committed to a program we worked out, I would sell a book by the end of that year−something I badly wanted. After 9 months, I sold a book and was totally done with cigarettes. I actually sold two more books by the end of that year. And quit more addictions. Who knew I'd then start toking and drinking too much? I did the “substance shuffle,” so it took me longer to get rid of everything toxic from my life. But I felt much, much better within 9 months. 

Fred Woolverton: Be ready for hell.  At first.  What makes “quitting” addictions and “dieting” a multi-billion dollar industry is that the fixes just don’t work, so people buy the product, use it for a while, get a taste of success–and then failure sets in. Then people start all over again.  This happens because people are promised a “quick fix” and that they’ll “feel great.” None of that is true. You will feel terrible for a while, even for a year, but then life really begins. I always say that the life of recovery is the most wonderful, gratifying and richest life there is. The pain that lies at the beginning of the road is worth every ounce of it. But don’t be fooled into the lie that you will feel great right away, it is not true.

Momtourage: You’ve both fought addictions in the past. What advice do you have for anyone with family and friends that continually want to smoke, drink, shop, or overeat together?

Susan Shapiro: Set limits. Learn to say no. I don't do dinner parties anymore. I switch to lunches and control which restaurants, so I know I can order healthy. I wrote an essay about how I spent two years saying no and they turned out to be the happiest, healthiest most productive years of my life.

Fred Woolverton: To add to that, don’t try to force your will on your family and friends. Unfortunately, the desire to stop must come from within.  If you think they need it, offer help.  Express concern.  But don’t push the issue and don’t, most of all, become a nag.  If you can motivate the person from within him or herself, great!  If not, lead the best life you can, and wish that others may follow in your footsteps.

Momtourage: Can a spouse or partner help?

Susan Shapiro: Yes! My husband was actually the one who pushed me to quit smoking. He offered to help and pay for the addiction therapy since the smoke bothered him so much. At first I was mad but then I made him quit some of his bad habits and we both wound up much healthier and fell in love and lust again.

Fred Woolverton: Definitely.  Support and love will prevail over substances in many cases. If the substance prevails over those, then parting ways can often bring a partner abusing substances face to face with what he or she values most.

Momtourage: What else should a quitter give herself permission to do?

Fred Woolverton: A person quitting a substance should give himself or herself permission to engage in (healthy) activities that soothe, that calm, that quiet a jittery self.  That may involve exercise, music, massage, reading–whatever soothes the soul.

Susan Shapiro: To feel like hell for a while. In Unhooked we talk a lot about how to "suffer well." Once you know it's not going to be easy, you can treat yourself nicer and give yourself room. When you quit a toxic habit you are making room for something beautiful to take its place.