How the World's Heaviest Man Lost It All

I remember reading an interview with a psychologist who worked at a clinic dealing with videogames addiction in the FT Weekend magazine many years ago. He said almost all addiction is rooted in trying to escape pain or suffering. For a lot of the patients addicted to videogames it was an escape from loneliness and other problems.

One argument the author makes is that generally it's not that people merely lack willpower, it’s that “there are a thousand people on the other side of the screen whose job it is to break down the self-regulation you have.” And you could certainly extend that to food.

I'm reminded of one of my very intelligent friends in school who practically disappeared one year from all social activity and academics... because he got addicted to WoW. I have a very addictive personality with regards to games, especially RPG's/adventures, and have refused to ever play WoW because of the fear of addiction.

As much as I love computer games, I also recognize that video gaming have irrevocably resulted in stunting my social and personal development. I don't blame video games so much as recognize my vulnerability to gaming. Just like how alcoholics can't just have a sip, well neither can I. I know that if I play even a simple game like Hearthstone, I'll go down a rabbit hole that will take months to crawl out of. I'll stop doing certain regular activities, like studying, seeing friends, pursuing my long-term career, exercising, meditating, etc.

We talk about substance abuse and deride the addicts, but we also have a growing number of people who have behavioral addictions to their smartphone, games, news websites, e-mail, social media.

These addictions can arise when a person can’t resist a behavior, which, despite addressing a deep psychological need in the short-term, produces significant harm in the long-term. Deep gaming sessions for me tended to correlate with a certain unhappiness, specifically loneliness, and lack of fulfillment in my life. For one of my friends, gaming is a drug that placates the fact that for years, he has hated his job and has had issues finding a new one.

"One way of doing it is taking drugs and alcohol, and the other thing is that you can just shut down your emotional awareness of your body. And so a very large number of traumatized people who we see — I’d say the majority of the people we treat at the trauma center and in my practice — have very cut off relationships to their bodies. They may not feel what’s happening in their bodies. They may not register what goes on with them. And so what became very clear is that we needed to help people for them to feel safe feeling the sensations in their bodies, to start having a relationship with the life of their organism, as I like to call it."

[Also interesting, but not related: that psychiatrist found that yoga helped reset the connection between mind and body for those who had experienced trauma.]

The man appears to have had an addiction problem, maybe a treatment similar to the ones used to treat opioid addicts might have been more useful than building a house for him and giving him access to unlimited amounts of food.

> After turning him down several times for gastric bypass, the government eventually decided that paying for it might ultimately be cheaper than covering his existing expenses.

It's messed up that someone like him was ever turned down. I want to see the circumstances and reasoning behind that.

That's a baseless assumption.

But then again, I realize the vast majority of them probably feel powerless to help. I have no explanation for him not being given a caseworker to manage some of this stuff. It just seems cruel not to consistently offer these things, especially when he was clearly a threat to himself. I realize they can't force, but it should have been offered multiple times in my opinion.

I'm sure some of it is the view that he did it to himself. It is a lifestyle and a moral misgiving that he allowed himself to do that, and folks tend to throw those folks to the side. It is quite unfortunate.

The biggest kicker, however, is that he's still likely not getting psychological care (it costs money) and loneliness is a huge issue. If these outweigh the above, it might not work out.