My Age of Anxiety by Scott Stossel

You may have heard about this new book. It received tremendous pre-publication publicity and thoughtful reviews in major publications. Scott Stossel is the editor of The Atlantic magazine so he’s well connected in journalism and publishing, and Stossel is a terrific journalist so yes; his new book is extremely well written.

What knocks us back most though in reading “My Age of Anxiety” is that Stossel’s story is extraordinary—it’s a memoir of his horrific anxiety disorder and his attempts to cure, manage and often mismanage it. But, here’s the big thing: his story is also very, very ordinary—anxiety disorders are now the number one mental illness, and also at the top of the list of physical complaints that Americans bring to medical doctors.

What you might have heard about Stossel is how bad his anxiety is. He has multiple crippling phobias—heights, spaces, flying, public speaking and strangest—a fear of vomiting, both the act itself and the additional fear of fearing it will happen. Yes, that’s the craziness of phobia and anxiety.

Most of us don’t have those kinds of over the top nameable anxieties. But as people in recovery it would be rare to not have anxiety at all. After all—many of us drank or drugged or ate to not feel something that scared us. Anxiety was both a cause and a trigger, and, you’ve heard this, “Take the rum out of the fruitcake and you still have a fruitcake.” When we stop using we still have fears and phobias and worries that we have had to find new ways to manage.

So I’m strongly recommending Stossel’s book as  great cultural commentary, a wonderful piece of new nonfiction, and as an example of a kind of sideways addiction memoir—you’ll see the lengths to which Stossel goes to chemically manage his fear.

But the greatest strength of this new book is the way that Stossel brings us a global perspective—history, science, memoir, psychology and raises the big question of why anxiety and why now in our modern, advanced culture. He questions the basis of anxiety and invites us to both forgive and help ourselves –and those we love—who live with this terrible, daily disorder.

Here are Stossel’s words from “My Age of Anxiety”: 

“Is pathological anxiety a medical illness, as Hippocrates and Aristotle and many modern psychopharmacologists would have it? Or is it a philosophical problem, as Plato and Spinoza and the cognitive-behavioral therapists would have it? Is it a psychological problem, a product of childhood trauma and sexual inhibition, as Freud and his acolytes once had it? Or is it a spiritual condition, as Soren Kierkegaard and his existentialist descendants claimed? Or, finally, is it—as W.H. Auden and David Riesman and Erich Fromm and Albert Camus and scores of modern commentators have declared—a cultural condition, a function of the times we live in and the structure of our society?”

The Opposite of Worry--Less Fear is a Game Away

Having a tendency toward anxiety I have always been interested in remedies, therapies and practices that can reduce fear and generate calm. I do yoga and meditation and visualization. I have taken magnesium, calcium and Bach Remedies. And I read books. Lots and lots of books. And over the years I have learned so much that has been very helpful.

But this week I am reading what may be the most helpful book on managing anxiety, and my great surprise is that this is not intended as a book for worried grown-ups, but a book to help parents with their children’s anxiety and fears.

The new book is, “The Opposite of Worry” by Lawrence J. Cohen, Ph.D. In this book Cohen addresses parents of children with anxiety disorders or who have fears that interfere with their learning or their ability to socialize or play. He gives a brief intro to clinical anxiety and fear disorders but concentrates on how to help children through fear with out nagging, shaming or being overly logical—explaining, explaining, explaining.

And he offers a number of entertaining games parents can play with their kids to help them understand their fear responses and to reduce fear. He introduces games you can play on the spot—at home or away --and “games” like “Duck Guard” that teach children to understand their bodies fear processing and to externalize the fears. Children can learn to incorporate these “games” (techniques) into their own self-management.

It’s a brilliant and helpful book for parents. But from page one I thought, “This is also for me and all of my recovering friends who are still fearful, worried, too careful and anxious. We need these techniques and we are better served by Cohen’s playful, subtle and nonjudgmental approach then by anyone lecturing, explaining or shaming us with the usual, “You have nothing to fear” approach.

Yes, using a book designed for parents is of course, self-parenting—the life-long task of many of us in recovery. And perhaps reading about anxiety in children is the safest, least threatening way to sneak up on our own fear responses and literally tease them out in a safe, comfortable way.   

The other benefit of using the techniques and games in  “The Opposite of Worry” to change our own fear responses is that we are then much better equipped to help our children or grandchildren with their fears. Anxiety is often shared in families and passed from parent to child, so here is a delightful, playful and compassionate way to change what we teach.