Addicted to Drama

Book excerpt: With empathy, humor, and unique insight, a psychologist examines drama addiction and charts a path for healing in this groundbreaking book. Do you know someone who seems to thrive on chaos, a person who manufactures crisis where there is none, makes mountains out of molehills, and whose very presence feels like an inescapable whirlwind? You may even label them a “drama queen.” This person might be someone close to you. This person might even be you. In this groundbreaking book, clinical psychologist and mind-body expert Dr. Scott Lyons turns the notion of the “drama queen” on its head, showing that drama is actually an addiction and those who are suffering with it are experiencing a much deeper psychological, biological, and social pain. For a person addicted to drama, the intensity becomes their way of coping. Their life is a constant cycle of crisis, chaos, and chronically high levels of stress. They may never be able to relax without an internal alarm going off, sending them spiraling back toward chaos. Drama is the stirring, the excitement, the exaggeration, the eruption, the unrest, and the medicine to feel alive in relation to the numbing of the internal and external world around them. For a person addicted to drama, the drama is often how they survive—or think they do. With studies, primary research, and patient stories, Dr. Lyons deconstructs this little-understood addiction, sharing: what drama addiction is and what it is not how to identify patterns of drama addiction in yourself and others the somatic effects of drama addiction, including chronic fatigue, autoimmune disease, joint and muscle pains, and other conditions the origins of drama addiction— and how we are heading towards a global pandemic of a dependency on crisis and chaos accessible exercises for recovery and healing Rather than dismiss addiction to drama as just attention-seeking, Dr. Lyons offers clear-eyed empathy, humor, and practical strategies to help us all understand and break free of the drama cycle.