tonight on "nightline," bizarre addictions. people hooked on sleeping with blow dryers eating fem out of bras, even eating glass. where do strange addictions come from? and how to shake them. we meet people trying to quit. the power of touch. scientists say the teams that touch the most win the most. why tough touches tend to be top athletes. how touch may make you feel braver and your kids better in school. and the sports guy. bill simmons didn't become the most influential sports writer in america without his share of heart break. tonight he talks about the thrill of victory and the agony of -- you know.

in a rare look behind the curtain. good evening. i'm terry moran. we talk a lot about addiction these days to describe everything from compulsive sexual behavior to actual drug use. but the psychology of addiction remains a mystery to us. why some people develop a need for a particular form of stimulation. well, tonight, we're going to look at some of the most difficult to explain cases. strange addictions. people whose animating desires as overpowering as it may feel to them are just inexplicable to the rest of us. here's john donvan. >> reporter: bedtime for lori. for this too. lori's blow dryer. on her pillow at the foot of the bed. or just tucked in.

right there. the blow dryer and lori started sleeping together when she was only 8. now she's in her early 30s. the explanation is both simple and complex. >> -- may not be as severe or in the same bracket as drugs and alcohol and things like that but nonetheless it's an addiction. >> reporter: that's right, for about awe quarter century, lori says she could not get through the night without the sound and the heat and maybe the company and the certainty of her blow dryer being there by her side. is it embarrassing? >> it's not embarrassing for me. this is my life. >> reporter: if it were embarrassing would lori have signed up for this? tlc's "my strange addiction." a weekly catalog of some of humanity's lesser known but now documented obsessions. from out of control tanning to compelive scab picking to the woman who wears furry animal suits and the guy who can't stop eating glass and there's been a hair eater and a kitchen cleanser eater and the woman who can't stop eating her bras and you go the idea. a lot of eating-really lated

stuff going on. >> i eat it. i crave it. i'm addicted to couch cushion. >> reporter: and then just stuff. >> if i'm ever having a bad day, putting on the suit and going out will end the day on a good note. >> reporter: are we supposed to laugh, cry? pity? well, we're supposed to watch, that's for sure. how do you keep these things from feel like a freak show? >> i think our titles are to grab the attention of the viewer. >> reporter: another tlc show includes the word freak in the title. "freaky eaters." mike, he's called dr. mike having earned a psych doctorate, a pioneer in online degrees, also consults for "my strange addiction." which he says is a show with serious intentions. >> when you are watching into minute seven or eight and you're seeing that person or their family to tears and then you see

therapists who treat that person with compassion who treat that person in a way that no other health professional has been able to get through to that person, i think people then say wow this is doing something very good despite the title which, you know, our insider secret is it's to get the viewers. >> reporter: certainly to lori her blow dryer addiction is no joke. >> if it broke in the middle of the night, i go to the store and buy one. >> reporter: then the nights she was slaeping away from home and couldn't power on the comfort. >> i literally would have withdrawals if i didn't use it. i would have to rock myself. i'd shake. i'd, you know, have to bundle up. have to wrap myself up. i'd have to do a lot of different things to cope with not having it. >> reporter: that sort of compulsion plus the fact her pea havior was potentially harmful, there's a fire hazard here fit the show's definition of what qualifies as an addiction. >> it causes a person stress. >> it makes for an addiction if

it's bad for you. >> correct. >> reporter: fine if they're not takeing over your life or causing you harm the way that eating kitchen cleanser or picking scabs can set off an infection. so one of the shows promises they'll get a therapist into the picture to help you get unhooked from your strange addiction. how hard was it to stop to finally stop? >> very hard. it was hard. it was really hard. not an easy process. but i was really determined to do it. >> reporter: lori says her therapy helped her understand that her blow dryer addiction is the result of growing up in a house with a lot of other kids and that she just needed a warm and quiet place to herself and found that in the white noise and the heat of a blow dryer. knowing that she says helped her switch out for a much safer space heat they're now sits at the side of her bed. in lingo recognizable to graduates of 12 step programs everywhere -- >> i'm done.

i'm really done. i've been blow dryer free now for probably eight -- eight months. >> reporter: that, plus the benefit for what she calls the blow dryer community out there. >> i am 55 years old and have slept with some sort of hair dryer since i was about 10. >> reporter: many whose members she says wrote in to thank her. >> i really raised a lot of awareness to this. and people out there that might not get it and might think that we're just a bunch of weirdos and to blow dryer users out there, we're just like any other people. >> reporter: only the few get to say things like this on television. i'm john donvan for "nightline" in new york. >> congratulations to lori for being blow dryer free there. "my strange addiction" premiers sunday june 12th on tlc at 9:00 p.m. still ahead, the dallas mavericks beat the miami heat tonight. did the power of touch make the difference?

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n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n the greatest athletes are said to have good touch. some tiny thing they do that makes the ball go in or just go farther. but another kind of touch may be even more important to success on the court. basic human touch. those high-fives and fist pumps that players trade. it's not just athletics. the power of touch may extend to every corner of our lives. here's dan harris. >> reporter: let's do an experiment. try watching these clips from game three of the nba finals not through the lens of whose winning or losing but through the lens of how the players are touching each other. so for example check out this telling moment as dirk nowitzki of the dallas mavericks gets

fouled and then scores anyway. his teammates rush over and give him high-fives. >> it continues as like all the teammates. it's really contagious, right, all the guys are really into it. it has to do with momentum and it really fosters -- you can imagine those guys are going to play tougher on defense. >> reporter: these two social psychologists from uc berkeley recently analyzed 90 hours of nba play looking at every team every player and touch, from high-fives to flying shoulgder bumps and they found the teams who touch the most win the most. >> touch instills trust. it contagiously spreads good will. it makes players play better on behalf of each other. >> reporter: what's more, they say the players who touch the most perform the best. one of the league's touchiest players is miami's chris bosh be a top performer in these finals

where he's keeping up his touchy-feely ways. >> i think it's just all about encouragement. you know, you feel a little better when you make a good play and somebody pats you on the back and tells you "good job" or they kind of bring you out of your shell for one and it's good for the team. >> reporter: it's not just basketball players who benefit. studies should study have shown that babies who are massaged will sleep better and cry less. students patted on the back by their teachers are more likely to contribute in class. check out this study where women were placed in a brain scanner and told they were about to be delivered a shock. when their partners held their hand, the fear circuitry in their brains totally shut down. the berkeley researchers say you can wield the power of touch to your advantage in your everyday life with total strangers. studies have shown that waitresses who touch their customers get better tips. doctors who touch their patients get more favorable reviews.

excuse me, sir, can i ask you to sign a petition -- and petition gathers who touch passersby on the street get more signatures. i tried that one. 60% of the people i touched signed compared to only 25% of the people i didn't touch. is there any chance i could get your signature on a petition for more park space? okay. you can't go around just touching anybody anywhere. >> no, you know i mean we always have to have common sense. >> reporter: what the research shows is touch can trigger the release of oxies toy s to yiy tocin in the brain. it can light up the reward centers. it opens a window into a powerful primal language among humans. >> you're going to be the one responsible to try to communicate a certain sense of emotions to the other person through very brief touches to their forearm. >> reporter: in their lab at berkeley, the researchers who studied the nba have also

demonstrated that we humans have a remarkable ability to communicate emotions through touch. even when we can't see the person we're touching. they had me give it a try. they told me to communicate things like love sympathy anger and disgust to a stranger on the other side of the curtain. i don't know if i was able to communicate anything at all but i tried. and then they brought in another stranger who had to communicate those same emotions on my forearm while i did the guessing. i don't know what it says about me but the easiest ones to identify were anger and disgust. >> so, dan, i have your results. >> reporter: all right, good news or bad news? turns out i guessed correctly 7 out of 8 times but i only communicated effectively 5 out of 8 times. >> so you are better at reading signals than sending out signals. what do you make of that? >> reporter: sounds about right. i think my wife would agree with that. the senior scientist on this project is by the way, an

eveterant toucher. he shook my hand and patted my shoulder. i noticed you shook my hand. is that your way of trying to get me to ask easier questions? >> oh yeah always manipulate. >> reporter: back to the nba. you might ask, aren't the best players and teams touching more because they're winning? the researchers say they took that into account and still the teams and the players that did the most touching did the most winning. as if to prove the point in game three of the finals just minutes after born twice touched his teammate dwyane wade and with 30 seconds left in the game he hit the winning basket. for "nightline," this is dan harris in berkeley, california. and, uh, wow! i really need to shop for a better rate. any thoughts? well, i can do two things. first, we'll show you our progressive direct rates and rates from our competitors. people who switch save an average of over $500 a year. very cool! oh, and the second thing?

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sports fan to appreciate the talents of bill simmons, the writer whose take on the game and how it's played has at times seemed to carry the weight of a pronounce innocentment by the holy see. >> reporter: welcome to dude heaven. that's what you might call watching up to four hours of sports on tv every day. >> the good thing is i can say it's my job. that's what i tell my wife. >> reporter: and she's still buying that? >> it's true. >> reporter: behind the scenes at espn los angeles with bill simmons who might just be the most successful professional sports fan of all time. he's a columnist, author documentary producer podcast personality. discussing everything from the nba playoffs to arnold schwarzenegger. >> is this bigger than hugh grant? >> hugh grant situation was more salacious. >> more salacious than knocking up your housekeeper?

>> here comes larry bird. >> reporter: and a man with opinions on everything from larry bird's divinity. >> i call him the basketball jesus. his autobiography drive, we refer to the bible in my house. >> reporter: you don't think that's at all -- to call larry bir the basketball jesus? >> no. >> reporter: he calls lae prone james' former facial hair -- >> the beard is awful. >> reporter: to the coaching ability of gene hackman in "hoosiers." >> -- decide to use him as a decoy, like, what coach would do that? >> reporter: simmons has been writing his sports guy column for espn.com. before that, he wrote it in boston. he was a pioneer on the web. one of the first web-only columnists. did you invent the internet? >> please al gore did. i was one of the first people who kind of realized hey, this is different than newspapers. how do i use this to my advantage? i had to figure out a way to

write that column in a way that i could pull readers to where i was despite the fact i wasn't going in locker rooms. i started writing about all the stuff me and my friends were talking about. arguing about sports movies. talking about reporters not in the way reporters were doing it, going into the locker room and getting quotes. >> reporter: forget journalistic objectivity, it meant admitting he was a hopeless boston sports fan for whom bill buckner's legs can still evoke pangs of sorrow. >> behind the plate! >> reporter: where does it rank as the worst moments in your life? >> oh it's in the top ten, probably the top seven or eight. >> reporter: it never gets better? >> no, no no. no. >> reporter: do you get as much joy from winning as pain as you get from losing? >> losing is stronger than winning. >> reporter: what does it tell you about what you decided to do with your life? >> i think people like getting kicked in the nuts every once in a while. >> reporter: hundreds of thousands of readers every month it including jimmy kimmel.

who liked simmons so much he hired him to write for his late-night talk show when it first launched. what's the one thing you know about bill that people don't know? >> bill's not a good athlete. a sports watching guy should be his name. >> reporter: he's been called worst. cranky commentator keith olbermann has writ than simmons has no discernible insight or talent. simmons called olbermann a pious unlikable blow-hard who lives alone. there are people in the world who don't like what you do. >> i think it's law of averages. if you have a lot of reader you have a lot of people who don't like reading you. >> reporter: simmons seemed to be having the last laugh with an umpire that keeps growing, launching a new website this week called grantland.com which will showcase a power host roster of writers including cluck klosterman. >> the new website is going to be 70% sports 30% pop culture.

it's going to try to fill in some of the voids i feel like are out there. >> reporter: you're not the sports guy anymore? >> i still have the title but only because it's just the name of the column. i'm old now. my son slept till 7:20 today. i'm never been more excited. that's the latest i've gotten up in five years. >> reporter: what about his legacy? i mean his ultimate legacy? if your kids grow up laker fans is that okay? >> no. >> reporter: if the kids are yankee fans? >> those are killers. >> reporter: will you love them? >> i just feel i fail as a parent. >> reporter: you would love yourself less? >> i wouldn't allow it to happen. it's like saying are your kids growing up to be a serious killer? no, i sure hope not. it's my job not to let that happen. >> reporter: just one more job for the sort of sports guy. >> larry bird with the big three point -- >> reporter: i'm john berman for "nightline" in los angeles. >> well we want to note that espn and abc news share a parent company in disney. more with j