The Invisible Machine by Eugene Lipov MD

Author:Eugene Lipov, MD
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781637741610
Publisher: BenBella Books
Published: 2023-01-23T00:00:00+00:00

ADDICTION

Why do people use drugs? Why do they use alcohol? “They are trying to take their troubles for a swim,” says Eugene. “Let’s say it’s alcohol. They keep drinking; they are trying to get to a point where they are not sensate. They are not feeling the pain. They’re trying to find something to alter their consciousness.”

According to the American Addiction Centers, “Those diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder are three times more likely to abuse substances . . . People seeking treatment for PTSD are fourteen times more likely to also be diagnosed with a substance abuse disorder (SUD) . . . Research has found that service members and veterans who have heavy drinking tendencies are more likely to have PTSD, depression. War veterans with a PTSD diagnosis, who also drink alcohol, tend to be diagnosed with binge drinking.”57

Renowned Hungarian-Canadian physician and bestselling author of, among others, The Myth of Normal and In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Dr. Gabor Maté has spent decades working with the impact of trauma on our biology, often with a focus on addiction.

“When you look at the literature on what causes stress for people, it’s uncertainty, lack of information, loss of control, and conflict. Now, if I had to design a society that’s gonna impose those stresses on a large population, I’d design exactly the society that we have right now,” says the doctor in a 2022 interview with Jamie.

Dr. Maté also defined addiction as “manifested in any behavior in which a person finds temporary relief or pleasure and therefore craves it, but then suffers negative consequences in the long term and does not give up [the addictive behavior] despite the negative consequences . . . that can include drugs, but it could also be things like shopping, eating, work, gambling, sex, relationships, and pornography . . . So, that relief that people feel [once they’ve displayed the addictive behavior], that means that the primary problem is not the addiction. The addiction is an attempt to solve a problem: the problem of discomfort with the self, the problem of lack of peace inside, the problem of emotional pain, the problem of stress, the problem of alienation. Addiction always comes along as a solution, as an attempted—doomed, but an attempted—solution to a problem. Now the question is, where did that problem come from? Not from genes, and not from a choice, but from trauma. My mantra on addiction is not, “why the addiction” but “why the pain?” The pain comes first. The addiction comes second. And that pain always originates in trauma—always, always, always, always.”

Dr. Maté believes stress affects us even before we are born. “[Our] biology is affected by life experience and emotional factors, beginning in uterus. You can stress pregnant mothers, whether animal or human, and that’ll affect the biology of the brains of their yet unborn children in a way that’ll predispose [the child] toward addiction. And so on through the life span so that, yes, there’s a biological dynamic inseparable from the psychological circumstances.

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