Dibs

In 2004, Neal David Sutz of Scottsdale, Arizona sued Dr. Phil McGraw and Paramount after refusing to sign a document allegedly required of all the TV show’s audience members specifying that they are not mentally ill or under psychiatric care. Sutz talked about his suit on Howard Stern’s show, and plugged his documentary film-in-progress about bipolar disorder. Now he wants to give away 45 million free copies of his bipolar recovery guidebook, Kick It With Gusto, via his blog, BipolarDisorderWeb.com. A veritable depressive Renaissance man, Sutz is also the author of This Is Your Captain’s Wife Speaking and 101 Ways to Get Noticed at an LA Stoplight. He claims his latest publicity stunt is the largest free-book giveaway in America’s history. He says he picked the 45-million figure because that’s the estimated number of Americans with depressive disorders. He says he’s giving books away because his fellow sufferers “need to not have money stand in the way.” On his blog, he reminds himself to take his medication, and writes longingly of poker. “People need to understand that mental illnesses are brain disorders and are physiological just as much diabetes is a physical disorder,” announces Sutz in a press release. “730,000 people try to kill themselves every year in this country and 30,000 succeed. Ninety percent of those people suffer from a diagnosable mental illness. This is more people than died of AIDS last year. Mental illness is a serious problem in America and we need to do something about it.  This blog and this book are my part.” Yeah, but isn’t reading really hard when you’re really depressed?