Anne Katherine, a psychotherapist and certified mental health counselor in the Seattle area, is willing to bet that every family has at least one member about whom someone has said, "I don't know why they keep doing that." She is just as certain that most therapists have at least one "hard-to-help client"--someone who needs group therapy but keeps "forgetting" to sign up for it, for example, or someone who decides to go off his or her medications even though they're working well.

Katherine, the author of "When Misery is Company" and several other groundbreaking books of popular psychology, calls such self-sabotaging clients "misery addicts." For people who are addicted to misery, happiness itself is threatening. These are people for whom Alfred Lord Tennyson's generally accepted adage of 1850 ("Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all") is just not true.

Their logic, Katherine explains in her new book, goes like this: "Something good happened to me¿I was happy¿Then this horrible thing followed, or came from the same place or person that made me happy¿I was nearly crushed by my grief. This means that happiness leads to crushing grief¿Therefore, if I avoid happiness¿I'll protect myself from grief."

While different people might substitute other words for happy or grief, Katherine says the internal logic is the same: "People try to protect themselves against feeling bad by not feeling too good." She offers as an example the experience of someone who remembers feeling special when people sang "Happy Birthday" to her. "Then my father slapped me out of the chair, and I nearly died from shame. So if I can avoid being honored, I'll protect myself from shame."

According to Katherine, misery addicts are addicted to avoidance, self-sabotage, and a system of survival that results in loss of joy, intimacy and potential. She says this is more complicated than other addictions. "With alcoholism, for example, you get abstinent first then change your lifestyle," she said. "With misery addicts, the lifestyle is the problem."

Things get even more complicated because misery addiction is often masked by ancillary addictions such as alcoholism, workaholism, excessive caretaking, or overeating. Katherine says misery addiction operates behind the scenes "like a puppeteer behind a curtain," so even the most talented therapists often miss it in their clients.

Recovery represents joy and serenity for most addicts who experience it. But for alcoholics, drug addicts, and compulsive shoppers who also suffer from a larger addiction to misery, recovery itself can be a trigger to relapse. "In some cases, the mere possibility that things might go well, or that good feelings might arise, is enough to trigger behavior that brings back the misery," writes Katherine.

She said she started to see positive results when she began to treat her clients' self-sabotaging behavior as an addiction to misery and gave them a process that incorporates the Twelve Steps and integrates other essential components of recovery such as community, abstinence, and mutual support. "The recovery process gives a new, different, and healthier system to substitute for the old one," she writes. However, because the tools that make recovery work often seem threatening, she suggests that misery addicts may need to first work with a trusted therapist, and from that solid foundation add special tools and skills that promote positive action and growth. She underscores the importance of choosing a therapist who knows about addiction and the recovery process.

Katherine created Avonlea, a nonprofit recovery center in Washington, and also founded Misery Addicts Anonymous, the first Twelve Step mutual-help group for misery addicts.

Since this is a newly defined problem and her book is the first to address misery addiction, Katherine said that it may be difficult for misery addicts to find support or information in their areas. If this is the case, she encourages them to attend other open Twelve Step mutual-support meetings such as Overeaters Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous. They can also contact Misery Addicts Anonymous (P.O. Box 1732, Coupeville, WA 98239; 360-710-5362; www.miseryaddicts.org). Katherine's book is published by Hazelden; call 800-328-9000 or visit www.hazelden.org/bookstore for more information.

--Published Feb. 23, 2004