Alcohol. Cigarettes. Chocolate. The Infographics Show.
And…Taxidermy? People are addicted to all sorts of things, but some are pretty bizarre - bizarre
enough to spawn a long-running TV series named “My Strange Addiction”.
These are some of the weirdest things people have ever been addicted to.
One of the strangest addictions is a surprisingly common one - Pica. This is the bizarre compulsion
to eat things that aren’t food. Some people are fixated on a specific object, like the woman on My
Strange Addiction who couldn’t stop drinking warm paint. Others chew their hair relentlessly. But
some just eat whatever they can get their hands on - which, naturally, can lead to serious medical
issues as the body wasn’t meant to digest things like rocks, buttons, and screws. Some severe pica
sufferers have needed surgery, with one patient’s stomach containing a shocking 1,446 items. It’s
most commonly seen in pregnant women and people with other mental or developmental disorders.
A related disorder is less harmful - but no less strange.
Have you ever picked up an ice cube from an empty cup of soda and sucked on it or chewed it?
It’s an odd feeling, and one most people don’t want to repeat too often - unless
they have Pagophagia. These people are obsessed with eating and chewing ice.
While this isn’t as dangerous as Pica due to the ice just dissolving into water,
it can be a sign of iron or zinc deficiency. While people can live with this condition
without harming their digestive system, the same can’t be said for their mouths - chewing ice
can result in broken or damaged teeth, and the hard and cold substance can cause gum injuries.
But some addictions can be too much of a good thing.
The famous addiction show profiled a fifty-five-year-old man named Tom who had decided
to get fit - really fit. He got into cycling and soon escalated his exercise routine to six hours
on his bike a day. Getting healthy, right? Not so much - his doctor warned him that he was putting
too much wear and tear on his body and could be putting himself at risk for a heart attack if
he continued to overexert himself. What drives an older person to break down their body with extreme
exercise? Maybe fear of mortality - in which case, he could be bringing on what he fears most.
It’s not the only way exercise can backfire.
One of the only celebrities to appear on My Strange Addiction, Lauren Powers was a model and
fitness guru who got into bodybuilding as she got older - even winning amateur bodybuilding
competitions. But she took it way too far, working out up to thirty-six hours a week.
To ensure her body could stand up to the pressure, she became addicted to supplements and injections
of human growth hormone - the controversial drug that gets athletes kicked out of their sports.
While she beat an earlier substance abuse addiction,
the powerhouse motivational speaker seemed to have replaced one addiction with another.
And some health regimens can have even worse consequences.
A woman named Kimberly was worried about her weight as a college student,
so she turned to a shortcut - taking laxatives to help her food go through her body quicker.
It took off the pounds - but kick-started a terrible addiction,
to the point where she now takes hundreds of laxatives a day. It wreaked havoc on her body,
causing ulcers and malnutrition due to the abuse on her digestive system. Laxative abuse is common
among people with eating disorders, but few take it to this extreme without endangering their life.
How far would you go to get that perfect look?
When most people think about tanning, they think about relaxing at the beach. But that
isn’t really an option for many people- and that’s where tanning booths come in. These
artificial sun lamps can give you the bronzed look you’re searching for - but they also wreak havoc
on the skin and can increase the risk of cancer. While a few sessions before a vacation won’t cause
any long-term damage, some people become addicted. Not only are they searching for the perfect shade,
but the ultraviolet rays of a tanning booth can release endorphins - which make people feel good.
The combo leads to some people paying a visit to the tanning booth far more often than is healthy.
And that’s not the only change people make to their bodies.
Cosmetic surgery is becoming an increasingly common decision - usually, people have surgery
to fix a feature they never liked, like their nose; or tighten up some areas that
are sagging with age. But some people just can’t get enough. Estimates are that up to
ten percent of the people who have plastic surgery become addicted, and many take it
too far - winding up with their face looking unnatural or suffering medical complications.
Doctors are starting to recognize this as a disorder in its own right - body dysmorphic
disorder, where people become obsessed with their appearance and see exaggerated flaws.
And some people go for more…colorful changes.
Kids often want to make their first body modifications pretty young.
Sure, little girls getting their ears pierced is pretty common, but mom is likely to shut down
a nose ring and tattoos are out of the question. Maybe mom was worried that once they get started,
they’ll never stop. Some people get a high of endorphins when they get a new tattoo or piercing,
and keep coming back until they’re more canvas than person.
Some people have dozens of piercings or more all over their face, or even tattoo their entire body.
While not all of these people are addicts, doctors get worried when the desire for more
and crazier modifications starts to change from artistic expression to self-mutilation.
And sometimes, people’s idea of what’s good for them is just…nuts.
A person indulges in a nice refreshing drink
of…human blood? No, this isn’t a fictional vampire - it’s a woman named Julia Caples who wants to
live the life of one. She claims to feel stronger and healthier after feeding off human plasma,
but at least she’s not sneaking into people’s homes in the dead of night. Caples, who is part
of a community of fellow wannabe vampires, uses a ritual knife to take blood from consenting donors.
She drinks up to a half gallon of blood a month, a little every day, and claims to have craved
it since she was a little girl. But doctors warn that not only is there no nutrition in consuming
human blood, but it could expose Caples to any diseases that are in her donor’s bloodstream.
You probably know a few people with this next addiction - but did you know it has a name?
Oniomania sounds like a serious medical condition, but it’s actually just the clinical name for
being a shopaholic. While it’s easy to joke about that girl you know being one because
she seems to have a new purse every month, actual shopaholics struggle to stay afloat.
Many find themselves spending any money they have for that high they get from purchasing,
landing themselves in serious debt and hiding their addiction from their families.
And there are enough people fighting this battle that support groups are readily available for it.
And some people are addicted to a very specific type of purchase.
Literature fans are used to this - they have a house full of books, many of which they haven’t
read, but they can’t stop buying! They’ll read this new book on vacation - any day now.
An addiction to buying books is so common that it even has its own name - bibliomania - and
it’s usually harmless except for making it harder to navigate around the house.
But in extreme cases, people fill their house with every book they find - often
multiple copies of the same book. And when he ran out of money to fill his addiction,
Iowa man Stephen Blumberg stole a staggering 23,000 books - worth over five million dollars.
It’s not the only hobby that can have serious consequences when it goes too far.
Your mom probably thinks you’re a video game addict, given all the times she had to call
you downstairs for dinner. But this is becoming more common - especially with the increase in
open-ended video games that never actually have a natural stopping point. When your dad was fighting
the good fight against Bowser, the game eventually ended and the credits rolled - which was the
perfect time to do his homework. Now, video games encourage both ongoing play and ongoing
spending on microtransactions. Video game addicts have spent thousands of dollars they don’t have
on in-game items, and that’s far from the most extreme. Gamers playing marathons have refused
to get up to eat, drink, or sleep - which has led to collapses, medical conditions, and even death.
Sometimes, addictions start the minute you’re born.
Amy and Becky, two identical twin sisters profiled on My Strange Addiction,
were obsessed with looking and acting alike. They wore the same clothing, did the same activities,
and even made sure they were always eating the same amount of food down to the ounce - so one
of them would never go up a clothing size over the other! It sounds like a cute way
for little girls to enjoy being twins - except that Amy and Becky were forty-four
years old at the time the show aired! They had spent so much time working to
be identical well into adulthood that neither of them knew how to live without the other.
Family can drive people to strange behaviors.
My Strange Addiction profiled a woman named Casie who had recently
lost her husband Shawn. Shawn had been cremated so Casie could take him home
with her - but she had taken that a little too far. She wouldn’t go anywhere without the urn,
even taking it out shopping with her. When her family tried to stage an intervention, they
discovered her shocking secret - she had begun eating his ashes as a way to be closer to him.
While cremation ashes are sterile and not dangerous, it was clear that Casie’s grief
over the loss of her husband had developed into a bizarre addiction that was only escalating.
She’s not the only person who has unusual methods of dealing with death.
Barbara, another woman profiled on the show, suffered several tragic losses in her life.
That led her to become obsessed with death and what comes next - to the point where she spends
most of her time in the cemetery. Rather than fearing death, she believes that she’s counting
down to being reunited with everyone she’s lost and relates more to the dead than to
the living. When she’s not in the cemetery, she’s obsessively planning all the details
of her own funeral - including writing her own funeral in advance. While self-planned funerals
are becoming more common, few people treat it like an event they’re looking forward to.
And one man took this fixation with death even further.
In one town in Brazil, funerals have a constant presence. A man named Luis Squarisi
attended the funeral of his father in 1983, and then…never stopped. He’s attended every
funeral in his town for over three decades and says that the first thing he does every morning
is to check the obituaries. He even calls the hospital to find out about recent deaths.
Squarisi is known all around town by the funeral directors, and it’s rare for any family members
to object to his presence at the funerals - even if he’s never met the deceased. An odd obsession,
but one he seems likely to continue - until he attends one final funeral as the guest of honor.
The desire for companionship does odd things to people.
Debbie is one of many cat lovers in the world - but she takes it a little further than some.
She has twelve cats and began collecting them since her husband’s death.
She centers her life around them and is willing to do anything for
them - including cause herself physical harm because Debbie is severely allergic to cats.
She makes do with allergy medication and suffers through her symptoms, despite the fact
that her doctors have told her that her feline obsession is a danger to her overall health.
Cats, sure, but rats?
Theresa, another My Strange Addiction fan favorite, had a unique choice in pets - hairless
rats, fifty-two of them. Her entire apartment is full of cages containing her not-furry friends,
and she had to quit her job to keep up with feeding the rats and cleaning their cages. This
has even led to her becoming estranged from her daughter, who was disgusted by what her mother’s
home was becoming. Unlike many of the other people who use their addictions as a coping mechanism for
being alone, Theresa does have a family - at least until her daughter reaches her breaking point.
A common cause for addictions is the search for comfort - but that can go way too far.
Another episode profiled Krista, a loving mother of twelve - but her “children” were
all stuffed teddy bears. It’s common for a child to get attached to a stuffed animal,
but pretty rare for that to continue into adulthood, and Krista’s obsession had only
deepened. She had given each of them their own names and personalities and spent much of each day
taking care of them - including a nightly bedtime ritual. Despite this, she managed to get into a
relationship with a non-ursine man - but he was increasingly frustrated by the fact that she spent
more time talking to the bears than to him. But if you asked Krista, she didn’t have a problem.
For some people, those childhood obsessions never go away.
It’s common for children to carry around comfort objects, and separating from them
can be a hassle - as any parent who has tried to wash that favorite blanket has found out.
While this usually fades away as kids get older, people who experience trauma can often develop a
stronger fixation on an object that soothes them. Whatever caused her fixation, Tamara from My
Strange Addiction was still carrying her childhood pillow - named Boo - around wherever she went as
an adult. This included toting it along with her in her shopping cart in the grocery store.
While less disruptive than some addictions, it was sure to cause some odd stares - to
say nothing of the awkwardness if she had to go to a furniture store.
But some obsessions with objects take a more bizarre turn.
It’s not rare for guys to get a little too obsessed with their car. Maybe they get paranoid
about anyone eating or drinking in it, spend way too much time buffing it, and even give it a name.
But that’s nothing compared to Nathaniel, who not only named his car Chase,
but seems to believe he’s dating the automobile. He hasn’t been in any other relationship due to
his commitment to the car and even takes the car out on dates as part of a romantic relationship.
He should probably hope the local drive-in doesn’t close, or things could get awkward.
Some addictions, though, can be more physically harmful.
Keeping yourself groomed is important, but it’s easy to let it go when you’re too stressed or
busy. Suddenly your fingernails are way too long and it’s time for a clipping. But Jazz, one of
the strangest cases profiled on the show, had been obsessively growing her fingernails out for
twenty-two years without clipping them. One of her nails was two feet long, and her bizarre feature
was making it hard to do basic tasks like brushing her teeth or tying her shoes. Her addiction
was hurting her quality of life, but she seemed terrified to even consider using a nail clipper.
Sometimes, it takes serious physical consequences before people make a change.
No one really likes the smell of gasoline, do they? It’s certainly not pleasant when
you fill up the gas tank. However, a woman named Theresa has been spending thirty years obsessively
smelling gasoline. Not only does she sniff it whenever she gets the opportunity, but she has
taken to carrying a water bottle filled with the thick liquid on her at all times - pulling it out
for a sniff every ten minutes and getting up in the middle of the night for a fix.
This has had a terrible impact on her health, including memory issues and anemia,
and her family contacted the show hoping to get her help before it was too late.
Sometimes, a seemingly harmless habit can take an extreme turn.
Rock-collecting is one of the safest hobbies around - although it can certainly kill a
conversation once you pull out the collection for guests. But no activity is harmless when
someone is obsessively addicted, as My Strange Addiction showed about a woman named Belinda.
Not only did she spend an excessive amount of time hunting for the perfect rock,
but every time she was rock-hunting she fell into a trancelike state. She would lose track of time,
disappear for hours, and would even wander into dangerous areas to find a rock that spoke to her.
And even recommended habits can get out of control.
Keeping the home clean isn’t something most people look forward to, and they try to get
it over with as quickly as possible. Cyntrelle, though, finds that keeping her home clean consumes
her life - she spends up to eight hours a day scrubbing and polishing the home. By the time it’s
clean to her satisfaction, she’s usually exhausted and has no time for anything else in her life.
Making it worse, she loses her temper any time someone in the household leaves an area
that isn’t clean to her satisfaction. She is obviously addicted to cleaning,
but compulsions to clean are also affiliated with obsessive-compulsive disorder, which
can lead people to believe that their welfare depends on completing simple, repetitive tasks.
Some addictions are just plain gross.
It’s not something anyone looks forward to after taking a shower - cleaning the drain of all that
nasty hair that builds up. But in one of the most memorable episodes of My Strange Addiction,
a man named Evan suffering from anxiety found that this gross ritual was the only thing that
relieved his tension. Not only did he look forward to doing it every time he showered,
but he started doing it in social situations - whenever he was in a new person’s home,
he would sneak away to their bathroom and clean their shower drain for them.
Certainly odd, but maybe it’s a win-win for the homeowner?
And sometimes, common addictions get taken to the next level.
Whether you’re an early riser or a fat orange cat who hates Mondays,
a lot of people can’t get the morning started without a cup of coffee. Like all substances,
the more people consume caffeine, the more it takes to have an effect. A Florida couple,
Mike and Trina, found a shocking way around these diminishing returns - they started taking their
coffee up the other end. They give each other coffee enemas, spend several hours each day
absorbing coffee - and swear they’ll never go back to drinking it. While Trina even claimed that this
bizarre treatment helped her gastric issues, most people will probably stick to Dunkin’.
One man may either be a highly unusual addict - or a very good con artist.
Roger Tullgren, like many other people, is a huge fan of heavy metal music.
But the Swedish man took his obsession a little further than most, being obsessed
with attending concerts to the exclusion of just about every other part of his life.
He couldn’t keep a job, so he took an unusual approach to make ends meet. Instead of seeking
therapy for his heavy metal addiction, he applied to the Swedish government to classify it as a
disability so he could get benefits - and they agreed! With a monthly check coming his way,
Tullgren was now free to spend all the time he wanted at concerts - but it seemed the novelty
may have worn off because by 2012 he was back at work part-time. Probably better for his hearing.
But what drives people to addictions that can kill them?
While pica can have serious physical consequences, it usually doesn’t rise to the
level of hyalophagia - a disorder where people are specifically obsessed with eating glass.
Given that tricking people into eating glass is a common murder method in prison dramas,
it doesn’t take much to see why this is a bad idea. One rogue shard can pierce someone’s
stomach. My Strange Addiction profiled a man named Josh who liked to bite into champagne glasses
and light bulbs, and while he disregarded the risk to his life from this behavior,
he also seemed to relish the attention it brought him as a daredevil performer.
When people think “Comfort object”, they usually don’t think “burns and electrocution”.
A woman named Lori has been sleeping with her blow dryer since she was eight years old,
which would be odd but safe - except that she keeps it running during the night as she sleeps,
enjoying the noise and the warmth coming from it. Naturally, this was one of the
most dangerous addictions ever profiled on My Strange Addiction, because at any time
the dryer could severely burn her or start an electrical fire. But by the time the show aired,
she had been doing it for so long that she refused to even go a night without it - and the
years of conditioning might have made it extremely challenging to go to sleep without its presence.
Two people developed an obsession that was both unsanitary and disturbing.
It’s always a sad sight to see while driving down the road - some unfortunate animals who
weren’t quite fast enough while crossing. Most people keep on driving and maybe say a prayer,
but one man took his compassion a little too far. In season three, My Strange Addiction followed a
man who collected roadkill and gave them proper burials. But that was nothing compared to Divya,
a young woman who was so obsessed with taxidermy that she spent much of her free time searching
the roadways for dead animals. She would bring them home and stuff them, creating
an elaborate collection of preserved animals - much to the worries of her friends and family,
who were worried that the constant contact with roadkill might expose her to deadly parasites.
And then there’s one man who took celebrity worship way too far.
When people think of Justin Bieber fans, they usually think of teenage girls screaming at his
concerts. But one German songwriter may have been the biggest fan of all. Tobias Sheldon didn’t just
enjoy Bieber’s music, he wanted to be the younger pop star - and spent over $100,000 on plastic
surgery to transform himself into a double of the Canadian singer. The results were…mixed, as the
fact that he appeared on both My Strange Addiction and the plastic surgery show “Botched” indicates.
Sadly, Sheldon’s Bieber obsession led him down a bad path that eventually led to his 2015 death.
But one of the most common addictions may be one you have without even knowing it.
How many hours have you spent aimlessly scrolling social media? You don’t even enjoy it - all the
news is so depressing. It’s even gained a name - doomscrolling. Yet you and millions of others
may actually be addicted to social media. The big sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram
all encourage endless scrolling, and many people find it taking up an abnormal amount of their day.
Like online gambling and video games, social media addiction is one of the newer types - and
addiction specialists are scrambling to figure out the best way to help people
kick the habit. But My Strange Addiction has been off the air for more than half a decade,
so no documentary crew is coming your way to follow you as you yell at random Twitter accounts.
Addicted to The Infographics Show? Feed that urge by watching “What Is Sex Addiction”, or check out
“Why Are You So Addicted to Your Smartphone?” for more on how these devices get in your head.