WTF! WANT TO LOSE WEIGHT? GO ON A COKE DIET!

BILL: "Whenever I go five pounds over the weight I want to be," write Freda, "I tell my husband I feel depressed. Since I've been diagnosed as bi-polar, he believes me. Then, taking enough cocaine with me into my bedroom to sniff away all hunger pangs for a week, I just don't eat. When I've lost five or six pounds, I come out so cheerful my husband is afraid I'm on a bi-polar high and doesn't ask questions."
DR DAVE: Sounds like a twist on Robert Lewis Stevenson. He went into his bedroom and wrote his famous "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide" on a six-day cocaine binge. So, what's Freda's question to us?

BILL: Doc, it sounds to me as if she's saying she can turn her addiction on and off at will.

DR.DAVE; The delusion that cocaine is easier to control than other drugs runs deep. Horror novelist Steven King, so addicted to cocaine during the 1980s that he can't remember several books he wrote during that era, flatly believes that his cocaine use saved him from alcoholism! He says "without
coke, I would have died of alcoholism at the age of 55."

BILL: In "Cocaine Nation," Tom Feiling argues that like marijuana, cocaine should be legalized. I also know that Sigmund Freud himself was a user. Other than that, I have to admit to ignorance about what we used to call blow or snow back in the 70s.

DR. DAVE: Well, potential members of Feiling's "Nation" -- people arrested on cocaine charges – are like a gossip column Who's Who: actor Tim Allen, DC Mayor Marion Berry, Baseball MVP Ken Caminiti, First Brother Roger Clinton, Actress Jody Foster, Linebacker Lawrence Taylor….

BILL: ..and my favorite beach duo, Baywatch's Yasmine Bleeth and the man who could save her from the sharks—Richard Dreyfuss. You know, Doc, given the emphasis on looks among the people you just named, I bet a lot of them are like Freda. They use coke only for the kick, but also as quick-fix dieting. Now, I don't want to be hypocritical. I used to live on the 5-Martini Diet myself -- pass out before dinner. But to my layman's mind, combining cocaine and depression compounds Freda's deeper, bi-polar problem. Why hasn't this course of self-medication killed her?

DR DAVE: If she was doing condensed potency cocaine-- smoking it as crack -- it could have killed her. Like many people strung out on vintage Chardonnay and Chablis who look down at the 100-proof bourbon drunk, coke snorters like Freda think the way she takes the drug protects her from addiction. Sigmund Freud quit extolling its "snortability" virtues after recognizing overdoses were killing its users—including a close patient friend

BILL: Beside counseling Freda to find a 12 Step program, what advice do you have for her?

DR.DAVE: Cocaine cravings can come out of nowhere, and be very intense. Although all recovering people should have a good relationship with their physician, my first referral for a cocaine addict is to get under the care of a board-certified Addiction Physician. Our readers can use the American Society of Addiction Medicine "physician finder" to find a certified MD in their city.

BILL: And of course, cocaine is not just Freda's disease. By turning what seems to me a deliberately blind eye, her husband is a classic enabler. Dave, if he came to talk to you about his wife's problem, you would no doubt point it out to him. What else would you advise him?

DR DAVE: The same thing I would tell Lindsay Lohan's parents after her recent positive urinalysis for cocaine. Quit using ever-louder shrieks of how much you love your family member outside each successive courtroom or ER; and get actively involved in Naranon -- "walk the talk."

BILL: Since alcohol-only addicts like me are becoming ever more rare, I'm not surprised at the growth of Naranon, for friends and families of people who are drug addicted.

DR.DAVE: Only a little less well-known its' AA counterpart, Alanon, Naranon has become a large international organization with meetings popping up daily in all 50 states. Our readers can find a local meeting and extensive literature for family recovery on their website

Dr. David Moore is a licensed psychologist and chemical dependency professional who is a graduate school faculty member at Argosy University's Seattle Campus. Bill Manville is a Book of the Month novelist; his most recent work of non-fiction, "Cool, Hip & Sober," is available at online bookstores. Bill also teaches "Writing To Get Published" for Temple University and at writers.com.