Addicted to Reading

Rowan · Post by **Rowan** » Mon October 20th, 2008, 5:29 pm

Okay bored as I am here at work, I started glancing through MSN's articles and couldn't resist the link to America's Most Unusual Addictions.

No. 1 on the list is an addiction to reading, but I'm not sure I buy what is said to accompany this claim:

"One of the most unusual issues I've treated is a reading addiction," says psychiatrist Dr. Harold Levinson, M.D. Surprisingly, an inner- ear disorder can lead to this addiction. The inner ear fine-tunes the brain's concentration and sensory systems. A dysfunction in the inner ear leads to scrambled signals and impaired concentration, which disrupts the normal reading process. This can lead to reading problems, anxiety, restlessness and even phobias.

After treating the inner ear disorder, the reverse can happen: people become addicted to reading because they can now read clearly and easilyand they love it!

"People lose sleep because they stay up all night reading, and some even stop working," says Dr. Levinson. He treats this type of addiction with a combination of counseling and antimotion-sickness antihistamines (to re-stabilize the inner ear).

What do you think? And are you addicted to reading? I feel that I am, but it doesn't stop me from working or doing other things, yet if I don't have a book to read, I feel quite lost...

Spitfire · Post by **Spitfire** » Mon October 20th, 2008, 5:44 pm

[quote=""Rowan""]
"People lose sleep because they stay up all night reading, and some even stop working," says Dr. Levinson. He treats this type of addiction with a combination of counseling and antimotion-sickness antihistamines (to re-stabilize the inner ear). COLOR][/quote]

You mean this ish't normal behavior?? What if I don't want treatment!!

But seriously, I am not sure about this one. People are putting a label on everthing nowadays! It would similar to a person who was hearing impaired and when they got a hearing aid became addicted to listening? I mean really! Perhaps it can happen...I guess you can become unballanced in anything these days!

Misfit · Post by **Misfit** » Mon October 20th, 2008, 5:46 pm

You bored at work too? Amazing one can play on the internet, but heaven forbid (!) you can sit and read your book

I'm addicted, although I don't know about any ear infection causing it. Anytime I'm going anywhere where I'm going to have a waiting period (doctor, vet, etc) of even 5-10 minutes I'll make sure I have a book with me. I even read whilst doing the cardio at the gym now that I've found the marvelous flipklip book holder that is.

SonjaMarie · Post by **SonjaMarie** » Mon October 20th, 2008, 5:47 pm

I'm not addicted! I can stop any time I want!....Oh who am I kidding! LOL!

If there's a 12 step program count me out!

SM

SonjaMarie · Post by **SonjaMarie** » Mon October 20th, 2008, 5:49 pm

[quote=""Misfit""]You bored at work too? Amazing one can play on the internet, but heaven forbid (!) you can sit and read your book

[/quote]

What if you read your book on the computer? Unfortunately that only works if the book you want to read is available to read on your computer or you have one of those EBooks accounts.

SM

Misfit · Post by **Misfit** » Mon October 20th, 2008, 6:06 pm

[quote=""SonjaMarie""]What if you read your book on the computer? Unfortunately that only works if the book you want to read is available to read on your computer or you have one of those EBooks accounts.

SM[/quote]

That's too painful on the eyes, at least for me. I read a bunch of the ABNA excerpts from Amazon on screen and just about died from eye strain. I'll take a plain old book any day.

SonjaMarie · Post by **SonjaMarie** » Mon October 20th, 2008, 6:14 pm

[quote=""Misfit""]That's too painful on the eyes, at least for me. I read a bunch of the ABNA excerpts from Amazon on screen and just about died from eye strain. I'll take a plain old book any day.

[/quote]

Yeah I prefer not to read books on my computer.

SM

Divia · Post by **Divia** » Mon October 20th, 2008, 9:20 pm

hmm. What does "addicted me." I need to know how many books I need to read in order to become addicted.

Margaret · Post by **Margaret** » Mon October 20th, 2008, 9:44 pm

Hey, check out the little ads at the top of this thread - they're all about programs for overcoming addiction. As Sonja Marie said: Count me out!

Divia · Post by **Divia** » Mon October 20th, 2008, 11:11 pm

Well I can tell you want I am addicted to and that is the computer and amazon.