Kind of a tongue twister, but this Doctor really did a great job at deconstructing addiction for the layman. She lived it as a heroin addict while in medical school and for years after. She wrote her experience in this inciteful Book.
She is such a valued resource in educating people on why their loved ones are acting so rude and ridiculous.
It really does come down to what we’ve heard before-those damn pleasure centers that we ALLlove so much.
The hippocampus and amygdala are our motivators to get up every day & seek out pleasure- however small.
That part of the brain becomes so flushed & overwhelmed with opiods ( thanks in part to Purdue-👿) that the addict can’t derive ANY pleasure from ANYTHING else, so they spend every waking minute of every single day seeking out ways to achieve that pleasure.
This usually means trompelling on anybody and anything just for one more day of trying to reach the pleasure centers’ levels of the day before. It soon becomes a grueling game of only using to avoid sickness with almost zero pleasure. A viscious horrible rat wheel cycle of a never ending purple gobstopper in a relentless version of groundhog day.
She gives the best explanation of the brain of a person with substance use disorder.
I know I usually write about addiction in the form of opiods, but I actually have some intense interest in the fallacy (?- is that the right word?) of alcohol dependance.
Since it’s so widely shown, glamorized and basically accepted, on the movie and media scene; and since it’s even politically correct (does that even mean the same thing anymore?) to laugh at an alcohol meme; it sometimes gets overlooked as the horrible, slow killing addiction, it is, or can be.
“We live in an opioid epidemic. The articles about it come out every week. People are addicted and dying and it’s horrible. According to the CDC, there were about 47,000 deaths related to opioid use in 2017.
So, it might surprise you that according to the same CDC data, there were about 88,000 deaths related to alcohol use”.
If someone you know insists that they have it under control, there’s a great questionnaire on The government’s website SAMSHA This is the very same website that the social media influencers will give you when they say they “have access to rehabs all over the country” including the ones they ‘broker’ for, if you have good insurance.
But all that aside, if you need help please CLICK or CALL. I’ve called it and they’re very informative. There’s also tons of articles on this site for moms of teens and everyone. This site is our tax dollars at work, so use it.
Meanwhile, if you have managed to quit, or moderate your usage, or even thinking about it; I’m sure the thought has crossed your mind of what would you do instead of drinkng?
It’s sounds like an easy enough question, but those who spend hours and hours with their ḂḕṠṮ ḞṙḭḕṆḊ will understand this fear.
No worries, Benya Clark (from Medium again) has the answer. He listed cooking, drawing, and running as his top three.
Now to those who are used to massive amounts of dopamine that substances provide; these are going to sound boring. And they probably will be at first. Until the natural Dopamine sources get built back up, you’re going to have force yourself, with some good accountability partners maybe, to start small and build up the habit— Ya know-
ᴊᴜꜱᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴅɪᴅ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴀʟᴄᴏʜᴏʟ ᴏʀ ᴅʀᴜɢꜱ
Boredom, ingrained habits in the brain, and the lifestyle of connection that all and drugs bring; along with this lack of Dopamine; is the reason for allot of relapses. People feel alone, lost, and bored, without their old coping mechanisms.
The good news is, new friends, new coping skills, new job opportunities can and WILL happen when you don’t have the consequences that addiction brings. You will mostly have your FREEDOM back. You won’t be enslaved to the time and MONEY.
THIS Article quotes the average American spends $22,600 over 40 years drinking 1 – yes 1- cocktail a week. ($11). There’s a Spending calculator you can use HERE. I guess it’s variable what constitutes “too much” spending on alcohol. I certainly would not use that to predict if someone is addicted.
It’s surprising how much addiction actually cost – just for the point of sale. Not even touching on the money from jobs lost, fines, insurance, and the many other fees that go along with alcohol & drug use.
Drugs are a completly different story when it comes to money.I would say you can quadruple those numbers, easy, if a movie star or wealthy person.
It’s all very sad.
Not sad for the business end, but sad for families and children.
It’s not a fact that escapes people with a substance use disorder (SUD- not addict). It’s one thing that contributes to their shame and blame of their condition. So much so, that I think it keeps alot of them IN that very cycle, because they think they can never pull out successfully or make up all that money or fix all that they’ve broken.
Our healthy brains KNOW it can be done, but remember, their brains are technically damaged or at least temporarily hijacked in the areas of emotion, self control & that darn jacked up reward center.
My favorite person with a SUD-turned Doctor, says it best in this video. If that link doesn’t work- here’s next best one. Nicole Labor. Also buy her book and stuff… She humanizes addiction because she’s been there. Even while in Med school!
Regardless of where you or someone you love is at in their consumption journey, there is no reason to not at least have the conversation about how they’re doing and where they feel they want to be in 5 years.
Study after study, and -headline after obituary- show that all addictions are progressive, leading to jail, death or recovery. So early intervention is paramount. It is a treatment condition. Despite the statistics shown, you can be part of the 21 million Americans who are in some form of recovery rather than the 88k who die every year due to alcohol related deaths.
