The Addictoholic Deconstructed: An irreverently quick and dirty education by a doctor who says f*ck a lot by Labor Nicole

Author:Labor, Nicole
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Laborhood Change Project, Inc.
Published: 2019-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

S E V E T E E N:

THE DISEASE MODEL....I DIDN’T FORGET, YOU FORGOT

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap,

but by the seeds that you plant.”

​ – Robert Louis Stevenson

​I can’t tell you the number of times I have heard someone say, “I am so addicted to XYZ” and what they really mean is that they really like XYZ and they have poor self control regarding XYZ. I also often hear, “I have an addictive personality” which isn’t really a thing. What they generally mean by that is that they tend to go to extremes or they tend to like things at full force until they become bored with them. A true ‘addictive personality,’ if there were such a thing, would likely be a personality that was ever changing to suit the needs of the individual and those around them. It would be a personality that was dominated by manipulation, dishonestly, control and deep down self loathing. A personality that makes moving into the world of using substances almost second nature. I don’t think that’s what you meant when you said, “Oh, I avoid chocolate covered strawberries, I have such an addictive personality I would probably eat the whole box!”

​Addiction is a disease process. There are actual changes in the brain that make it next to impossible to stop without help. For it to be an addiction, it needs to produce a negative effect. There needs to be negative consequences that the individual recognizes, acknowledges, and then just plows on through, leaving them with a sense of guilt and shame that triggers the chronic stress cycle.[33]

So it is a disease. Similar to other diseases, it has an organ, a defect in that organ, and symptoms that result because of that defect. The organ involved is the brain. Both the midbrain and the cortex are directly affected. The defect in the midbrain involves a down regulation of dopamine receptors, and in the cortex there is a decrease in activity and a weakening of pathways around stress relief, self soothing and coping skills. The symptoms of the disease include continuing to use the drug or behavior despite knowing better and despite the negative consequences. Craving, the overwhelming sense that we need to change the way we feel and desperately, is another symptom. When cravings occur, we will almost mindlessly reaching for anything we know that will fix that. Symptoms of the disease also include behaving in a way that is contrary to our own value system (hello, guilt and shame), but feeling in the moment that we just have to do it. For those that want to argue that most of the ‘symptoms’ are behavioral and therefore don’t count, please go tell that to the neurosurgeons and psychiatrists that treat frontal lobe syndrome from brain tumors.[34]

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.