Adult Thumb Suckers Come Out

Habit Is Fairly Common, And Not Necessarily Bad - Just Embarrassing

(WebMD)  "I had an overbite for a long time, and I had braces to correct it," Boyes says. The overbite was a direct result of thumb sucking, and it came back after his braces came off.


Erotic Elements

Many find thumb sucking erotic, which may be behind some of the discomfort people feel about it.

The association with oral sex needs no explanation; less obvious is an association with masturbation.

In the 1870s, the Victorian era, medical men started to take thumb sucking seriously. At first they were most concerned about the teeth, but they noted that the practice sometimes went along with masturbation.

By the early 20th century, doctors had come to believe that there was a definite cause-and-effect relationship. Not only did thumb sucking cause dental deformities, but it also caused masturbation, at the time considered a disease unto itself.

Stars such as Madonna, Rachel Williams, and Rosanna Arquette have toyed with the sexual implications of thumb sucking by posing for photos with their thumbs provocatively in their mouths.


How To Stop

Thumb suckers who carry the habit into adulthood may not be inclined to give it up, or else they would have long ago, at their parents' urging. But social pressure may eventually get to them, in which case Manevitz says cognitive behavioral therapy, a form of psychotherapy used to help people change all sorts of behaviors, is the best treatment.

"As with any habit, the person has to make a commitment that they do want to stop," Manevitz says.

Once committed to stopping, "the No. 1 best thing is to substitute a habit with a habit," he says. A thumb sucker may try sucking on something else, like a lollipop.

Anti-anxiety drugs may be helpful also for people who suck their thumbs primarily when they're anxious.


Thumb Suckers Among Us

No one knows exactly how many people continue to suck their thumbs into adulthood. The vast majority of research focuses on children's thumb sucking.

Through a survey on his web site, thumbsuckingadults.com, Harvey has learned a lot about visitors' habits. "What it doesn't portray is what percentage of the population actually indulges," he says.

He suspects it's not as rare as one might think.

When his stepdaughter, age 19 — not surprisingly a thumb sucker herself — went off to college recently, Harvey predicted that she would find three other thumb suckers living in her dorm. "It turned out that she had three on her floor."

Sources: Alan Manevitz, MD, psychiatrist, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Harvey. Lindsey Boyes. American Academy of Pediatrics. Medical History, January 1996. thumbsuckingadults.com. Time, Sept. 19, 2005.