I have worked in the healthcare field for more than fifty years. I began my career working in addiction medicine. After working with men and women suffering from addictions to drugs like alcohol, heroin, and cocaine, I began to realize that addiction is not just about drugs.

                We know that people can have addictive relationships with food, work, and even sex and love. In my book, Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: Overcoming Romantic and Sexual Addictions, I say,

                “When we find that our romantic relationships are a series of disappointments yet continue to pursue them, we are looking for love in all the wrong places. When we are overwhelmed by our physical attraction to a new person, when the chemistry feels fantastic, and we are sure that this time we have found someone who will make us whole, we are looking for love in all the wrong places.”

                In the book, I also quoted Dr. Stanton Peele, an authority on addiction who reminds us,

                “Many of us are addicts, only we don’t know it. We turn to each other out of the same needs that drive some people to drink and others to heroin. Interpersonal addiction — love addiction — is just about the most common yet least recognized form of addiction we know.”

                Now Dr. Raphael Cuomo has extended our understanding of addiction even further. In his book, Crave: The Hidden Biology of Addiction and Cancer, he says,

                “We live in a society saturated with addiction, but not just the kind that ends in emergency rooms or interventions. This is not only about heroin, meth, or alcohol. It is about the relentless cycle of stimulation and reward that defines ordinary life. Binge eating. Compulsive phone checking. Nightly glasses of wine. Doomscrolling. Sugar, caffeine, porn, social media validation, and manufactured outrage.”

                I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Cuomo. I asked him questions that I thought my readers would be most interested in learning about including the following:

• What first got you interested in the cancer connection and why is this connection both hidden and important?

• If you were talking to a group of guys, what are some of the things you would say to them about how the book could help them?

• Tell us in what ways food is a drug and what do we need to know to keep from becoming hooked?

• What is “Digital Dopamine” and why is it a hidden public health problem?

                You can watch my full interview with Dr. Cuomo here.

                Most of has have concerns about cancer, know someone who has been diagnosed with cancer, or have fears that we ignore or obsess about. Dr. Cuomo offers a new perspective I found very helpful. He says,

                “We often think of cancer as a genetic accident. A cell mutates, begins to divide uncontrollably, and escapes detection. The story is partially true. But it omits the most important questions:

                What makes the body permissive to that escape?

                Why does the immune system, which identifies and eliminates abnormal cells every day,                 begin to miss its targets?

                Why do repair systems fail to correct damaged DNA?

                Why does cellular growth shift from regulated to rebellious?”

                In ten, information-packed chapters, Dr. Cuomo answers these and many more questions that can help us understand the biology of addiction and cancer:

1. Molecular Scars
2. The Addicted Society
3. Craving is Chemical
4. Inflammation Nation
5. Food as a Drug
6. Digital Dopamine
7. Nicotine, Alcohol, and the Usual Suspects?
8. Beyond the Individual
9. Biology Can Change
10. The New Prevention

                In his concluding chapter, Dr. Cuomo says,

                “Prevention, as commonly understood, has struggled to match the evolving reality of cancer. Cancer involves more than external exposure. It arises from internal conditions. Disease takes hold when the body’s environment shifts toward permissiveness, inflammation becomes persistent, immune surveillance weakens, insulin signaling grows erratic, and repair mechanisms fall behind damage. These issues arise collectively, resulting from behavioral, emotional, and structural patterns repeated consistently over time.”

                For more information about Dr. Cuomo and his work, you can visit him here: https://raphaelcuomo.com/

                You can watch my interview with Dr. Cuomo here: https://youtu.be/GLuHclBPH4U

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