TLC’s “My Strange Addiction” shocked and amazed people in equal parts. The uproar about the show wasn’t for nothing, as it featured a wide range of people with very unusual and often uncontrollable behavior, surpassing everyone’s expectations when it came to reality TV.
While the show’s main goal was to shed light on compulsive behaviors, a small part of the audience found some of the cases featured in the show relatable and even familiar. Others just felt fascinated by the people shown, to the point that it was inevitable not to wonder what was going on with them beyond what was seen on the TV screen.
It’s been years since the show ended, but the curiosity remains the same. Fortunately for all of us, TLC’s 2023 spin-off “My Strange Addiction: Still Addicted?” has given us updates about some of the most interesting stars from the show, and whether they overcame their strange habits.
Keep watching to find out more!
Many loyal viewers remember Nathaniel, a man from the third season of “My Strange Addiction” who had an extreme fixation with his car. He went beyond what could be described as a love for the automotive, as he considered his cars romantic partners.
A 27 years old Nathaniel wasn’t ashamed to admit that he felt ‘love at first sight’ and ‘an instant connection’ once he saw this car, which he named Chase, in a resale lot. On top of that, Nathaniel passionately kissed Chase for the cameras, causing a mix of shock and amusement in viewers, as seen in the comment section of the episode’s YouTube video shared by TLC.
Over a decade after Nathaniel’s “Dating My Car” episode aired, he went back to the spin-off “Still Addicted?” to retell his story. In it, Nathaniel tearily revealed that Chase was destroyed during a mechanic check four years before, confessing that it broke his heart to remember that his red car was no longer with him.
To remember Chase, Nathaniel built a bed with some of its surviving parts and decorated it with a blanket which is printed with many pics of the two together. Besides that, a massive collection of their shared photos is still stored on Nathaniel’s computer, meaning that he’s still very far from overcoming his addiction to the car, despite the lack of Chase in his life.
Minor cosmetic procedures such as injections aren’t rare in the beauty industry, but what happens when these are illegal, and consumed by a person in massive quantities?
This was the case of Karmello, a woman from New York who appeared in the fourth season of “My Strange Addiction” because she couldn’t stop injecting liquid into her buttocks.
Though Karmello’s situation seemed slightly peculiar on the surface, the truth is that the injections she was getting were illegal and put her life severely at risk. According to the show, these illegally sourced injections could contain a wide variety of dangerous liquids such as cement and metal lubricant.
Fortunately for Karmello, she saved her life by overcoming that habit of hers. As she revealed in the third episode of “Still Addicted?”, she has definitely ‘grown as a woman’ and is now a ‘better mom’. Her son was the strongest motivator behind Karmello’s decision to stop the injections into her body, as she realized the risk she was exposed to when she watched her “My Strange Addiction” episode when it aired.
Karmello’s case ended on a heart-warming note about how she overcame the difficulties and addiction to be present for her child.
The fourth season of “My Strange Addiction” brought us one of the show’s most memorable cases with Lisa, the woman who was addicted to her cat’s fur. Her obsession went beyond just petting her cat, as Lisa licked her beloved pet’s hair and often ate it.
The worry about Lisa’s addiction was focused not only on the unsanitary implications of eating cat hair, but on her general health too, as she could develop ulcers, gastrointestinal bleeding disorder, or even a stomach rupture because of it.
Despite being aware of the dangers of consuming car hair, Lisa still does it these days. As she admitted in the first episode of “Still Addicted?”, she loves the fur’s ‘cottony’ texture on her mouth and is not planning desist anytime soon. That’s not all, though, because Lisa passed from having one cat to owning six of them now, all of whom she grooms with her tongue.
By the time she appeared in the third season of “My Strange Addiction”, Ayanna from Texas had been growing her fingernails and toenails for over 25 years. In her words, she was a ‘long nails goddess’ and didn’t plan on changing that, regardless of how much her nails interfered with the exercises she needed to do to keep herself healthy, after being diagnosed with diabetes.
These days, Ayanna takes care of her nails with the same commitment she did a decade ago when she was featured in the show, with the difference that her nails are now shorter. At some point, she grew them to over 19 inches combined, but issues with her worsening diabetes and COVID-19 made Ayanna feel very helpless physically.
As she confessed in “Still Addicted?”, cutting her nails was an emotionally devastating process given how much effort she had put into them and how special her nails made her feel for almost three decades.
In the third season of “My Strange Addiction”, we were introduced to Andrea, a woman from Georgia who had been eating tape for several years. She started her addiction when she was 13 years old and stuck with it because it was relaxing, though she was later advised to stop because of the harmful effects that eating tape could have on her health.
Nevertheless, what pushed Andrea to stop her addiction wasn’t the medical advice itself, but seeing herself in the show. As Andrea confessed in the spin-off “Still Addicted?”, she recalled seeing herself on screen and thinking ‘I really do that?’, finding her behavior ‘weird’ on the spot. To overcome that addiction, Andrea figured out that the origin of her addiction was the ‘peaceful’ feeling which the tape used to give her.
So Andrea replaced the tape with chewing gum, and seems content with it for now.
Back in the first season of “My Strange Addiction” we met Bianca, a woman who loved eating cigarette ash and pottery. Though her family and friends commented negatively on her addiction, Bianca wasn’t very concerned about the comments or whether her particular eating habit could affect her health.
These days, Bianca no longer consumes ashes or takes bites from flower pots. In her “Still Addicted?” episode, she proudly confessed that she’d changed her addiction because of her children, being encouraged by the fact she didn’t want them to see her eating any of that.
However, Bianca replaced her previous obsession with chalk, which she now consumes just as she did with ashes.
Although the spin-off “Still Addicted?” doesn’t update us with many infamous cast members from previous seasons, it’s great to see so many of them again, regardless of whether they overcame their addiction or not.