Human beings are capable of becoming addicted to virtually anything, from plastic surgery to texting. “Sex, drugs, booze – everyone is familiar with the obvious addictions, but here is a list of America’s Top 5 Addictions,” according to best-selling author of Addict Nation, Jane Velez-Mitchell:

1. Prescription Pill Addiction: There’s a growing trend in America to try and solve all manner of discomfort – real or imagined, physical or emotional, with a pill. Pharmaceutical drugs like Vicodin, Oxycodone, Ambien, Xanax, Klonopin, and Valium fill medicine cabinets and are killing us. Nationwide, deaths from prescription drug overdoses are the second-leading cause of accidental death behind car accidents. In some states, prescription overdoses are the leading cause of accidental death.

2. Food Addiction: Millions of Americans have been self-medicating with fat and sugar for so long the activity has become a standard of living. As a result, our country is suffering from a mind-blowing obesity crisis. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. It would be safe to say obesity is our nation’s biggest health issue, and reports show this epidemic impacts every facet of our lives – from health care to global warming. We’re fat! Our kids are fat! The situation is making us miserable, sick, unattractive and costing us a fortune.

3. Addiction to Crime and Punishment: What’s surpassed baseball as our #1 national pastime? Crime. America’s extreme fixation on violence and murder has reached epidemic proportions, and it is hurting us emotionally and financially. Our justice system prefers to spend untold millions of tax dollars – sealing off the crime scene, forensic testing, offering rewards, arresting the suspect, holding news conferences, going to trial, and then locking up, feeding, clothing and guarding the convicted criminal – rather than spend a tiny sliver of that cost preventing crime in the first place. This addictive mindset is a crime in itself.

4. Addiction to Shopping: While buying something that you actually need is not addictive shopping, American culture has played a shell game with us, creating all manner of artificial needs that are really not needs at all. New cars, tech gadgets, baby showers, and the ever-growing number of holidays are opportunities to enforce the rules of the cult. You need to buy more. Shockingly, the United States accounts for about five percent of the world’s population and almost one-third of global consumption. As we shop our way into massive debt as a nation, the freight train of over-consumption is only accelerating.

5. Addiction to Technology: The book “Addict Nation” suggests Cyber-addiction is perhaps the most complex societal contagion America is facing today because the nature of the Internet is all-encompassing. There is e-mail, texting, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Skype, Google, Yahoo, iTunes, and innumerable chat rooms. The Internet also acts as a porthole for other addictions like online gambling and porn, making it easy to score with a simple click.

“Will the American people hit bottom on these cultural addictions and change?” asks Velez-Mitchell. “Do we really want a nation filled with citizens who are overwhelmingly obese, drug addicted, hooked on sex, criminally minded or drowning in debt? The choice is our’s. Addict Nation tackles the issue of cultural addictions and promises to shine a light on those who would profit off of our misery.”

The list of celebrities who have overdosed on legal prescription drugs is long and growing fast, with Michael Jackson as the reigning “King.” A couple of years before his death, Michael Jackson had been sued after racking up a one hundred thousand dollar tab at a Beverly Hills pharmacy. Famous friends, from Yuri Gellar to Deepak Chopra, were extremely concerned about the star; Chopra refusing him painkillers and Gellar warning Jackson he was going to die if he continued to abuse drugs.  But, here’s the key fact. Not a single drug mentioned in connection with Michael Jackson’s death is an illegal drug. They were all LEGAL prescription drugs being inappropriately prescribed and then abused by perhaps the world’s most famous, and arguably, most talented pill popper.

Michael Jackson has plenty of competition. The list of celebrities who have overdosed on legal prescription drugs is long and growing fast. Heath Ledger OD’d in his fashionable Manhattan loft on a combination of Oxycodone, Hydrocodone, Diazepam, Alprazolam, Temazepam, and the painkillers OxyContin and Vicodin, the anti-anxiety drugs Valium and Xanax and the sleep aids Restoril and Unisom. Anna Nicole Smith had a head-spinning array of legal prescription drugs in her system when she died in a Florida hotel room. Lexapro, Zoloft, Cipro, Klonopin, Valium, Lorazepam, Ativan, Robaxin and the powerful sleep aid Chloral Hydrate were found in her system. All were perfectly legal pharmaceutical drugs.

“Our nation is in the throes of a prescription drug abuse crisis of unprecedented proportions and our myopic, jaded and complacent criminal justice system is in see no evil, hear no evil mode! “ So says best selling author and TV host Jane Velez-Mitchell in her new book Addict Nation-An Intervention for America.

Velez-Mitchell believes the federal government, the medical community and the pharmaceutical industry all have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo because it has become multi billion dollar industry. The airwaves are awash with commercials for prescription drugs and companies are spending billions on these ads. A Harvard/M.I.T. study confirmed this concluding: every $1 the pharmaceutical industry spent on Direct to Consumer advertising in the year 2000 yielded an additional $4.20 in drug sales. The amount Americans are spending on prescription pills has increased at a stunning rate over the last couple of decades, careening toward the 300 billion dollar mark.

“The celebrity stories of addiction I cover on my show Issues are just the tip of the iceberg and point to an “addictogenic” society in the United States,” says Velez-Mitchell.  Instead of OD’ing on cocaine, heroin and LSD, our medicine cabinets are filled with Valium, Vicodin, Prozac, Klonopin, Paxil, Zoloft, Percocet, Wellbutrin, Xanax, Oxycontin and Ambien… and our misuse of these drugs is killing us.

The Associated Press reports that “defense attorneys and prosecutors are set to discuss, among other topics, plans for TV coverage of the trial of Michael Jackson’s doctor, who faces a charge of involuntary manslaughter.”

Dr. Conrad Murray has pleaded not guilty in the death of the music superstar on June 25, 2009.

“Addict Nation-An Intervention for America” is available online (http://addictnation.org) and in stores.

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About the bestselling author: Jane Velez-Mitchell is an award winning television journalist and author of Addict Nation-An Intervention for America. She currently has her own show on HLN, “Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell.” She is often seen commenting on high-profile cases for CNN, TruTV, E! and other national cable TV shows. Velez-Mitchell is an environmentalist, “out” lesbian, animal protection advocate, vegan, and recovering alcoholic with over 15 years of sobriety.

Charlie Sheen may be testing negative for drugs, but bestselling author Jane Velez-Mitchell, a recovering alcoholic with over 15 years of sobriety, thinks his biggest challenges are ahead. “Charlie Sheen is classically cross-addicted and needs major therapy and in-patient rehabilitation for an extended period of time.  He appears to struggle with alcohol, sex, porn, drugs, and rage addiction. That’s a 5-star blended cross-addiction where the behaviors are enmeshed and very hard to overcome.”

In her new book Addict Nation-An Intervention for America (HCI Books, Feb. 2011), Velez-Mitchell writes, “Happiness is an inside job and addictions stand in the way of that.” She believes Americans have collectively become cross-addicted to a number of dysfunctional behaviors including obsessive cleanliness, overeating, prescription drug dependency, sex addiction, and obsessions with technology, war, incarceration, celebrities and crime. “There’s a growing trend in America to try and solve all manner of discomfort, real or imagined, physical or emotional, with a pill, or a meal, or a video game—anything that takes us out of the moment.“ According to Velez-Mitchell, that tendency has morphed into a “cultural addiction.” Nationwide, deaths from prescription drug overdoses are the second-leading cause of accidental death behind car accidents. In some states, prescription O.D.’s are the leading cause of accidental fatalities.

But, this epidemic is being, for the most part, ignored. Why? “Addict Nation” points out that there are billions of dollars made each year on prescription drugs and all the other “legal” forms of self-medicating. In essence, “those industries have become our pushers.”

According to Addict Nation, our health and happiness doesn’t matter to the people that profit from addicts like Charlie Sheen. Most things that are being presented to Americans—from purple pills to hamburgers—are being designed, packaged and marketed to get us hooked. Addict Nation tackles the issue of “societal addictions,” and promises to shine a light on those who would profit off of our misery.

The author boldly takes an inventory of our collective “wreckage” as a nation and suggests we may own an “amends” to the world around us.

“It’s incomprehensible that we Americans are lavishing in material items with no consideration for the damage we are doing to the planet. We need to start producing, not to profit, but to satisfy real, pressing needs of Mother Earth. Ironically, this may boost our Gross National Happiness like nothing else…and give us a good foundation for kicking our addictions.”

Velez-Mitchell says she’s got a blueprint for change, but first we must see what is really going on. This is an intervention!

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About the bestselling author: Jane Velez-Mitchell is an award winning television journalist and author. She currently has her own show on HLN, “Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell.” She is often seen commenting on high-profile cases for CNN, TruTV, E! and other national cable TV shows. Velez-Mitchell is an environmentalist, animal protection advocate, vegan, and recovering alcoholic with over 15 years of sobriety.

http://addictnation.org

In the controversial book Addict Nation-An Intervention for America (HCI Books, 2011), best selling author and HLN TV Host Jane Velez-Mitchell says, “Americans have become war junkies!” She believes the U.S.A. has collectively become obsessed with war and that it is no longer an aberration, but something Americans have come to expect.

Recovery experts define addiction as an overpowering craving to indulge in a behavior, followed by an uncontrollable binge, subsequent remorse, and a return to craving which encourages the pattern to repeat. Our nation’s war cycles fit these criteria according to recovering alcoholic and author Jane Velez-Mitchell. She writes, “We justified the Vietnam War with the rationalization of the domino theory, binged on war, felt a tremendous regret, created the anti-war movement, and then – over a few decades – forgot every lesson we learned. It’s the same pattern of the drunk who gets arrested, feels sorry, vows to stay sober, and then goes out and gets drunk all over again. Addiction is a disease of amnesia.”

Velez-Mitchell says the media, government, and private sector are also culturally hooked on these destructive customs and therefore justify, romanticize, and promote them–in essence, becoming “pushers” for war. For the military, the industries that profit from war and the politicians who are influenced to support war, the stakes are higher than ever. War has become more expensive and more and more profitable than ever before.

According to the New York Times, if you look at it in terms of cost per soldier, Iraq/Afghanistan takes the prize as the most expensive conflict ever – even when adjusted for inflation. It cost about 132-thousand dollars to house, clothes, equip, transport and engage a soldier in Vietnam for a year. It costs more than 1 million dollars a year to keep a soldier fighting in Afghanistan.

In Addict Nation she writes, “Our nation’s addiction to war could – one day – get us all killed. All addiction is progressive. So, it stands to reason that our current addiction to war – if allowed to spiral – will invariably lead us into some kind of cataclysmic conflict that could literally wipe millions of people off the face of the earth in a matter of moments.“ Now, as we become more involved with international conflicts, the question begs: what will “hitting bottom,” the lowest point in an addict’s life, look like for the United States?

Addict Nation is available in stores and online. More information about the author is at http://addictnation.org.

HOLLYWOOD, CA—According to the new book “Addict Nation,” Americans are being lured into addiction. And what American women are hooked on isn’t necessarily illegal or even hard to come by. Prescription medications are making us high. Fast food is making us fat. The Internet keeps us constantly distracted with everything from gambling to porn, to compulsive social networking. Television seduces us into buying more stuff we don’t need while we drown in debt. Massive profits fill the pockets of a handful of “pushers” at the expense of everyone else.

In her new book Addict Nation-An Intervention for America (HCI Books, Feb. 2011), bestselling author Jane Velez-Mitchell says, “It’s time to take our power back!” She believes Americans have unwittingly supported a number of dysfunctional business practices that threaten our health and the earth.
According to Velez-Mitchell, women are especially vulnerable to manipulative marketing; applying more than 100 chemicals to their skin each day through cosmetics, and exposing themselves to toxic cleansers in the home. She believes women should lead the way to a more natural lifestyle that is gentler to the earth by voting with their dollars.

She writes, “Frankly, if we hope to survive as a species, the future better be female . . . or at least centered on matriarchal values and respect for women and girls. This is where American women come in. We are the most powerful nation on earth, and about half of us are female. As Americans who pride ourselves on helping others, we need to get our own “house in order” so that we may carry the message to others.“

Addict Nation tackles the issue of cultural addictions, and promises to shine a light on those who would profit off of our misery. Velez-Mitchell says she’s got a blueprint for change, but first we must see what is really going on. This is an intervention!

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About the bestselling author: Jane Velez-Mitchell is an award winning television journalist and author. She currently has her own show on HLN, “Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell.” She is often seen commenting on high-profile cases for CNN, TruTV, E! and other national cable TV shows. Velez-Mitchell is an “out” lesbian, animal protection advocate, vegan, and recovering alcoholic with over 15 years of sobriety. Contact: Sandra Mohr 213-446-6334

Click HERE to watch Sober TV Host Jane Velez-Mitchell do her Impression of Lindsay Lohan on “The Soup”

Pitching her new book “Addict Nation,” TV host Jane Velez-Mitchell has some fun with The Soup’s Joel McHale…and it’s all about Lilo.

It’s pretty shocking and hilarious to watch buttoned-up TV host Jane Velez-Mitchell strut around in a skin tight white dress and sun glasses doing her best impression of entitled star Lindsay Lohan. Lilo, fresh out of rehab, has now been accused of stealing a necklace. Jane, a recovering alcoholic with 15 years sober, thinks that celebrity addiction issues are a very serious matter foreshadowing a national epidemic.

Are we a nation of addicts?

The feisty TV host and author of “Addict Nation-An Intervention for America,” Jane Velez-Mitchell says “The high profile tragedies we cover on my show “Issues” (HLN Channel) are just the tip of the iceberg. Celebrities are bringing into focus our national addiction to prescription drugs!”

There’s a growing trend in America to try and solve all manner of discomfort, real or imagined, physical or emotional, with a pill. And because prescription drugs are “legal” many don’t acknowledge the devastating wreckage pills are creating in the lives of addicts. We have become a nation of pill-heads. According to Velez-Mitchell, prescription drug abuse is a “cultural addiction.” Nationwide, deaths from prescription drug overdoses are the second-leading cause of accidental death behind car accidents. In some states, prescription O.D.’s are the leading cause of accidental fatalities.

But, this epidemic is being, for the most part, ignored. Why? “Addict Nation” points out that there are billions of dollars made each year on legal drugs, and those industries have become our “pushers.”

In her new book Addict Nation-An Intervention for America (HCI Books, Feb. 2011), bestselling author Jane Velez-Mitchell says, “It’s time to take our power back!” She believes Americans have collectively become devoted to a number of dysfunctional behaviors (overeating, prescription drug dependency, sex addiction, and obsessions with technology, war, incarceration, celebrities and crime) and that the United States is in danger of “hitting bottom.”

Addict Nation tackles the issue of cultural addictions, and promises to shine a light on those who would profit off of our misery. Velez-Mitchell says she’s got a blueprint for change, but first we must see what is really going on. Addict Nation is an intervention!

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About the bestselling author: Jane Velez-Mitchell is an award winning television journalist and best selling author of “Addict Nation.” She currently has her own show on HLN, “Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell.” She is often seen commenting on high-profile cases for CNN, TruTV, E! and other national cable TV shows. Velez-Mitchell is an environmentalist, vegan, and recovering alcoholic with over 15 years of sobriety.

In ADDICT NATION you will see how you and I, and other Americans, are being lured into a slew of addictions. And what we are addicted to isn’t necessarily illegal or even hard to come by. Prescription medications are making us high. Fast food is making us fat. The Internet keeps us constantly distracted with everything from porn to gambling to compulsive social networking. Television bombards us with violent scenarios. From billboards, to online pop ups to commercials, we’re seduced into buying more stuff we don’t need while we drown in growing debt. Massive profits fill the pockets of a handful of “pushers” at the expense of everyone else.

Sadly, what’s happening is the exact opposite of what our founding fathers had in mind. The United States of America was created to precisely to celebrate“life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

This book is designed to be a blueprint for change. But, first, we need to wake up to what’s happening.

This….is an intervention!

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