I had no idea how messed up HLN “Issues” host Jane Velez-Mitchell once was. This is not news to readers of her last book, iWant, but I somehow missed that revealing tome, only to get a version of the story in the early going of her new work, Addict Nation: An Intervention for America. JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL podcast excerpt: "We are trying to consume our way to happiness. And its making us miserable. Back when I was drinking, I would have a rough day, I thought alcohol was my solution. Turned out alcohol was the problem. Once I gave up alcohol, I became happy, joyous and free." Jane jumps right into her own struggles on page one, which takes her a home in the hills of Los Angeles, where she was startled to realize, “Hey, that’s the place I hit bottom fifteen years ago.” Apparently that was the night she was carried out on somebody’s shoulder in an alcoholic blackout. Got your attention now, right? I think that was the idea. Addict Nation divides the participants in America’s addictions to everything from pills and alcohol to guns and sugar into twelve chapters that start with “The Stuffers: Addicted to Consumption” and ends with “The Sobers: Emotional Sobriety.” Velez-Mitchell and co-author Sandra Mohr tackle addiction by producing a high-tech, graduate-level research report on the subject. Jane Velez-Mitchell • • • • • •