Rethinking Addiction

[Faith No More]

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This forum makes me laugh sometimes. A thread like this gets barely any attention, but a thread literally about shit, people jump on like flies on... well.. shit.

Not a criticism, just an observation.

Anyway, I also wanted to say that I think his point about 'bonding' and connections goes for more things other than just addiction. I think it's doubly the case for depression, for instance. Hell, depression is almost always (in my experience) linked very closely to addiction. Find me an addict who isn't depressed. So his talk, his actual point, is far deeper and covers a lot more than just addiction. It touches on the real reason why people get addicted IMO.

I think the chemicals hooks referred to, are actually a symptom, not a cause. I've always thought this. I'm not a scientist so my discounting of such might be completely baseless, I don't know the ins and outs and I don't pretend to know what I'm talking about, I'm sure I'm probably completely wrong. But personally I don't look at addiction and just think it's either something you have the capacity for or you don't. Like, a lot of people I know say addiction is something that 'just happens' in the brain, like a switch being turned on for 'chemical' reasons.

That just doesn't make sense to me. For instance, one example I can think of is smoking. A lot of people are addicted to cigarettes right? Some people just can't stop (so they say). But I can pick up a fag, chain smoke like a motherfucker, and never touch one again. I've never felt any inclination to smoke, even after having several cigarettes. Now, I literally had this discussion the other day with someone who works in a doctors practice and likes to think they know it all medically, their response was "oh well your brain is wired differently". However on a night out, when I'm in a different sort of mindspace (when I'm pissed, basically), that's the only time I ever really have a want for it, a craving if you like. I've always found it difficult to comprehend why someone, or rather how someone, could be in some way predisposed to addiction, and others would be seemingly immune? Is it just a 'chemical imbalance'? That seems way too simplistic to me.

I see smoking addiction for many people as habitual, rather than deeply rooted in depression or such like. A lot of people say they smoke due to 'stress', the funny thing is, smoking regularly actually makes you more stressed. Hence I can see how the vicious cycle of addiction begins. But I think smoking addicts are so for different reasons to alcoholics, for example. Smokers in general don't seem as unhappy people as what alcoholics do, for instance. I don't think it's just about 'chemicals in our brain'. I really think the reasons for addiction are more to do with social factors than to do with chemical or neurological ones.

Just my take anyway.

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It's silly, isnt' it?  The bestiality thread gets 5 pages in an hour, but nobody wants to join in here.  Oh, well.  It's a touchy subject that some people might not want to discuss, and it's also pretty serious.  A lot of the time when I come here, I just want to shut my brain off.  That's why I didn't come back to this right away, at least.

This is essentially my understanding of how this all works.  Your brain works on what is essentially a reward based system.  When you do something that is postiive for yourself, your brain releases certain neurotransmitters, which is what gives you the pleasant feeling.  When the neurons that are receptors for those neruotransmitters take in the chemicals, it "excites" them, which causes them to want to receive those neurotransmitters again.  That's what makes your mind want to repeat the process, and that is how you learn to do what is beneficial for yourself.

Drugs exploit this system by coming in and unleashing large doses of those neurotransmitters into your brain that in turn "excite" large numbers of receptors, and that translates into you really want to repeat the behavior of ingesting those drugs.  Now, your brain requires a certain level of those neurotransmitters in order to run properly, like having a balanced mood, and bonding is one of those things that helps release those neurotransmitters and keep a good balance.  If you lack the neurotransmitters you ought to be getting from bonding, you're going to have receptors that need to be used but are not, and when you do drugs, you're essentially using them as a replacement source for what you don't get from bonding.  So, if you can then find those proper bonds in life and get your neurotransmitters from the proper source, you no longer need the drugs, however, if a person quits without bonding properly, they are going to be more prone to relapse.

The problem is, and the reason his approach is incomplete, those receptors in your brain can get so overstimulated by heavy drug use that no amount of proper bonding is going to fufill the craving you get from those overstimulated receptors.  It even gets to the point where the receptors are so overstimulated that the person becomes sick if they're high, and the person doesn't even really get high from the drug use.  Pretty much all the drugs do at that point is make the sickness go away.  

Now, of course this all varies by drug, because they release different neurotransmitters.  That's why some drugs are extremely addicting but others are not.  And since people's brains are different, drugs are going to affect people in different ways.  One drug might be really addictive to one person while another person might not be drawn to it all.

Anyway, that's my basic understanding of it.  I'm sure it's all more complicated like that, and anyone can feel free to add something I missed or correct it if I was wrong about something.