Study offers insight into brain chemistry behind addiction
August 13, 2009
MONTREAL — Researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute have gained fresh insight into the brain chemistry behind addiction by studying the least likely of addicts — Parkinson’s disease patients.
Typically, those suffering from the neurodegenerative disorder are the polar opposite of an addictive personality. Most patients with Parkinson’s are found to be introverted,
rigid and slow to anger — not the excitable, impulsive temperament that’s necessary for addiction, said Alain Dagher, lead author of the MNI study.
Yet paradoxically, some patients who are treated for the tremors associated with Parkinson’s disease do develop addictive behaviours. For example, the incidence of pathological gambling in treated Parkinson’s patients is eight per cent compared with one per cent in the general population.
What Dagher and his colleagues discovered is that some of these patients might have been given too much medication to stimulate dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain. People with the disease lack dopamine.
“In some instances, Parkinson’s disease patients become addicted to their own medication, or develop addictions such as pathological gambling, compulsive shopping or hypersexuality,” Dagher said.
So what does Parkinson’s have to do with addiction? Dagher, a neurologist, has found that people suffering from addiction have elevated levels of dopamine in their brains.
Thus, the link between some Parkinson’s patients under treatment and addicts is higher-than-normal levels of dopamine in their brains. Previously, some scientists had questioned whether too much dopamine in the brain could trigger addiction.
“People with addiction, we think, have an excess of dopamine,” Dagher explained. “And with Parkinson’s disease, you give a drug to increase dopamine in order to relieve symptoms, and some people get overdosed. One of the effects of this excessive dopamine stimulation from the drug appears to be the development of addictions — especially pathological gambling.”
The practical implications of the research means that doctors will have to be much more careful in prescribing medications to patients with Parkinson’s, Dagher said.
As for addiction, researchers will need to focus more on genes that predispose people to elevated dopamine.
Nearly 100,000 Canadians have Parkinson’s. Addiction prevalence is much higher. One out of every 10 Canadians, aged 15 and over, have symptoms consistent with alcohol or illicit drug dependence, according to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
The MNI study was published Wednesday in the journal Neuron. Researchers from McGill and the University of Cambridge were also involved.
Montreal Gazette
© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette
A Message of Hope – and a Plan of Action
July 12, 2009
Addiction forges its own chains of pain and problems that grow with each day and seem impossible to overcome. If you, or someone you know, are a captive of addictive behavior, the Word of God and New Heart Place have both a message of hope and a plan of action. Anyone can be set free from addictive behavior, can experience victory in Jesus, and become an overcomer in life! The key is to identify the root cause of your problem and instead of running away from it, run to God! Do this, and your mind and spirit will be renewed; and no matter what you struggle with, you will find freedom in Christ!
Why People Don’t Recover
June 29, 2009
Why People Don’t Recover
The reasons why people do not seek help for their problems are as many and varied as the people themselves. But here are some of the common obstacles to pursuing and maintaining recovery:
1. Problem behavior attracts longed-for attention.
2. The pain isn’t great enough—yet.
3. Fear of launching into the unknown.
4. Someone is enabling the addiction (message to the enabler: stop it!)
5. Fear of exposure. Guilt is private but shame is public. The only answer is openness and making amends for the past. This resolves the guilt and robs shame of its power.
6. Pride.
7. “Praying for a miracle” when God wants you to take some action.
8. Seeking a quick fix.
9. Despair.
10. Physiological or biochemical dependency.
11. Fear of failure.
12. Fear of rejection.
13. Fear of change.
14. Running from reality.
15. False sense of happiness. During an episode of addictive behavior, everything feels great.
16. False sense of power.
17. Fear of insanity if separated from your fix.
Addiction and the Road to Recovery
June 29, 2009
Road to Recovery
Road to Recovery
Addiction and the Road to Recovery
Steve Arterburn
New Life Ministries
Acceptance is the first principle of recovery. Recovery begins when an individual moves from denial to acceptance. It does not happen all at once, and it isn’t something that another person can do for the individual suffering from an addiction. Still, each time you confront a person with reality you help bring him closer to accepting his situation and seeing the need to change.
Most people have lived in denial for years before they come for help. Often they have been surrounded by “co-conspirators” who have enabled their dysfunctional behavior to continue and who have reinforced their denial system. Together they have constructed a delusional world where the full extent of the problem is never acknowledged, let alone dealt with. The first job of treatment, then—and the first step toward recovery—is to bring someone to the point of acceptance.
Sometimes people ask if a person can be helped who does not want help. Usually what they are really asking is whether they should wait until the person asks for help, or whether there is something they can do to help the process along.
Residential Aftercare – New Heart Place
June 26, 2009
New Heart Place gives men an opportunity to rebuild their lives with a new start in a safe environment while they learn how to re-engage into society. New Heart Place is an inpatient facility (Residential Aftercare) set out in a very quiet area in Snohomish outside of town. It offers a quiet and tranquil environment for these men to live.
The program lasts for one year and the focus is on living a Christ-Centered-life and learning to live without addictions. They attend regular groups and have to be able to make the commitment for the entire time. These men are given the opportunity to learn a trade and are placed in job opportunities as well once they are ready for this step.
There are so many treatment facilities out there, but none that have the opportunity’s that we offer. Many of the local Intensive Outpatient programs have low success rate. Most go back out and relapse quite soon after treatment. Our men are showing a good rate of success. They are not only staying clean from drugs and alcohol, but they are becoming strong men of God.
Restoration and Relapse
June 25, 2009
Spiritual Transformation
In aftercare treatment planning, one must include a clear plan of restoration. This plan must include a great deal of accountability and ongoing oversight. Relapse and recidivism rates for addicts still remain relatively high after completion of treatment. One must be on guard to discern the role of spiritual transformation in the life of the addict. Addicts will say—and genuinely believe, along with many others supporting the addict—that they have committed or recommitted their lives to Christ, that God has forgiven their sin, and they have been healed from their addictive desires.
The implication is that if the therapist continues to insist on strong accountability or a need for continued treatment, they are doubting the power of God to change lives. This is very difficult bind for Christian counselors. On one hand we must seriously believe in the power of God to heal and change lives, while also being aware that healing is almost always a gradual process. Furthermore, the Christian counselor knows as well as anyone the subtle power of sin and the ways of the world to tempt the addict to use again. Even in the midst of the healing process, offenders can and do experience relapse—some relapse numerous times—but eventually establish control over the problem.
We must balance the need to affirm healing in the offender with appropriate concern for the reality of relapse and renewed addiction. The church, as a community of grace and healing, looks to the hope of the gospel for the power to change the behavior of addicted persons, to heal the wounds of the their victims, and to provide reconciliation with the body of Christ.
Effective Drug Abuse Treatment
June 23, 2009
Nearly three decades of scientific research has yielded 13 fundamental principles that characterize effective drug abuse treatment. These principles are detailed in NIDA’s Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment: A Research-Based Guide, from the National Institute of Drug Abuse.
1. No single treatment is appropriate for all individuals. Matching treatment settings, interventions, and services to each patient’s problems and needs is critical.
2. Treatment needs to be readily available. Treatment applicants can be lost if treatment is not immediately available or readily accessible.
3. Effective treatment attends to multiple needs of the individual, not just his or her drug use. Treatment must address the individual’s drug use and associated medical, psychological, social, vocational, and legal problems.
4. At different times during treatment, a patient may develop a need for medical services, family therapy, vocational rehabilitation, and social and legal services.
5. Remaining in treatment for an adequate period of time is critical for treatment effectiveness. The time depends on an individual’s needs. For most patients, the threshold of significant improvement is reached at about 3 months in treatment. Additional treatment can produce further progress. Programs should include strategies to prevent patients from leaving treatment prematurely.
6. Individual and/or group counseling and other behavioral therapies are critical components of effective treatment for addiction. In therapy, patients address motivation, build skills to resist drug use, replace drug-using activities with constructive and rewarding nondrug-using activities, and improve problem-solving abilities. Behavioral therapy also facilitates interpersonal relationships.
7. Medications are an important element of treatment for many patients, especially when combined with counseling and other behavioral therapies. Methadone and levo-alpha-acetylmethodol (LAAM) help persons addicted to opiates stabilize their lives and reduce their drug use. Naltrexone is effective for some opiate addicts and some patients with co-occurring alcohol dependence. Nicotine patches or gum, or an oral medication, such as buproprion, can help persons addicted to nicotine.
8. Addicted or drug-abusing individuals with coexisting mental disorders should have both disorders treated in an integrated way.
9. Medical detoxification is only the first stage of addiction treatment and by itself does little to change long-term drug use. Medical detoxification manages the acute physical symptoms of withdrawal. For some individuals it is a precursor to effective drug addiction treatment.
10. Treatment does not need to be voluntary to be effective. Sanctions or enticements in the family, employment setting, or criminal justice system can significantly increase treatment entry, retention, and success.
11. Possible drug use during treatment must be monitored continuously. Monitoring a patient’s drug and alcohol use during treatment, such as through urinalysis, can help the patient withstand urges to use drugs. Such monitoring also can provide early evidence of drug use so that treatment can be adjusted.
12. Treatment programs should provide assessment for HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B and C, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases, and counseling to help patients modify or change behaviors that place them or others at risk of infection. Counseling can help patients avoid high-risk behavior and help people who are already infected manage their illness.
13. Recovery from drug addiction can be a long-term process and frequently requires multiple episodes of treatment. As with other chronic illnesses, relapses to drug use can occur during or after successful treatment episodes. Participation in self-help support programs during and following treatment often helps maintain abstinence.
Behavioral Change (Part 2)
June 17, 2009
Addicts have developed strong, highly programmed, even automatic behavior patterns in order to maintain their addiction. They will go to extraordinary lengths to deny, minimize, or rationalize this addictive behavior.
1. Focus honesty and behavior change.
This requires the therapist to maintain a strong initial focus on honesty and behavior change. When the addict seeks to divert discussion to family, emotional, or relationship concerns prematurely, the therapist must redirect attention to behavior. While effective treatment may address these issues, the clinician must help the addict stop using them to escape dealing with his or her addictive behavior.
One way of doing this is to link the tangential topics the client raises with the central issue of their addiction. For example, a counselor might refocus a client’s response toward the behavior in this way: “So how is the way you approach your anger toward your wife similar to the way you acted out your anger in your sex addiction?” “How is your tendency to denigrate yourself reflected in your addiction ritual?” The assumption here is that addiction has a life of its own and operates apart from other concerns. Unlike many other clinical issues, addiction is both symptom and disease.
2. Changing ritual behavior patterns.
All addicts will need to change certain behavior patterns. Even those who engage in substance addictions need to evaluate behaviors that lead them into their use. These behaviors are usually referred to in the addiction community as “rituals.” The competent Christian counselor will help an addict assess the cycle of how he or she acts out. What behaviors always seem to lead to the addictive behaviors? Taking detailed histories of usage and behavioral patterns will be helpful.
When this information has been sorted out, addicts must establish boundaries against those behaviors. Alcoholics will need to avoid certain friends, areas of towns, or stressful situations that lead them to drink. Food addicts may even need to avoid going to the grocery store in the early days of recovery, or they may need to schedule meals at regular times and find help to eat at those times religiously. Sex addicts will need to avoid people and places that trigger them into their fantasies or “connecting” rituals. For example, those sex addicts who use the computer to connect will need to become accountable for every minute of access to it.
Physical Stabilization and Self-care (Part 1)
June 16, 2009
Addicts may have caused physical damage to their bodies. Alcoholics will have possible neurological, gastro-intestinal, or liver complications. Food addicts may starve themselves to death or suffer the effects of chronic obesity. Sex addicts run the risk of sexually transmitted diseases or a variety of sexual dysfunctions. Any addict also runs the risk of stress resulting from chronic fear and anxiety, often due to the consequences of the addiction.
It is always wise for addicts to undergo a complete medical evaluation. Alcoholics may need to even be hospitalized in order to stabilize the detoxification effect of stopping usage. Anorexics may also need to be stabilized in the hospital to prevent the effects of chronic malnutrition.
When stabilization has been achieved, it is always also wise for an addict to undergo a thorough neuro-psychiatric evaluation. Levels of depression must be determined. Assessment for the presence of a variety of forms of attention deficit disorder is also important. Some addicts will need pharmacological help for depression. Others will need different drugs that help manage the brains needs for constant stimulation. It is always wise to develop a relationship with a competent psychiatrist who can perform these kinds of evaluations.
Abstinence from the ‘drug’ of choice will, over time, deal with the level of neuro-chemical tolerance the addict has developed over the years. With help and sure accountability, alcoholics and drug users are able to achieve total abstinence from a substance. Food addicts may be able to abstain from certain kinds of food.
Those addicts who use a behavior or simply their thought life to achieve a neuro-chemical effect will have a harder time at abstaining, as secrecy is easier to maintain and accountability is so much more difficult. Some, like gamblers, can stop certain behaviors altogether. Sex addicts, however, can arouse themselves by fantasizing about sexual behavior can achieve the effect. Sex is perhaps the most notable example of this. The protocol with sex addicts is to have them abstain from all forms of sexual activity for a period of time, even if married, in order to achieve a detoxification effect from sinful sexual activity.
Finally, addicts will need to learn adequate self-care. As opposed to Paul’s teaching, they have been treating their body more like the city dump than the temple. Being tired or physically depleted makes any addict more vulnerable to acting out behavior.
Above All Else
June 15, 2009
Sounds important! Could it be that the Holy Spirit has given us insight to the holistic, sustainable healing of a man’s life? Could it be that heart is really the point in the vast world of addiction treatment and recovery?
“Above all else, guard your heart, for out of it proceed the issues of life.” (Proverbs 4:23)
While our culture offers many helpful treatments for the plethora of disorders and issues affecting the human heart, no human therapy has been or will ever be able to actually transform a heart into “something new.” Adjusted, yes. Modified, certainly. Healed, possibly. But, brand new?
Yet, that is the promise…indeed, the offer…of the “Heart Creator Himself.”
“I will give you a new heart, with new and right desires, and I will put a new spirit in you.”
O.K., fair enough. But how?
I’m afraid there is no way, humanly speaking. The transformation of a human heart – the soul of a man – is the exclusive “field of expertise” God has reserved for Himself, alone.
The Apostle Paul describes this amazing transformation to his spiritual children in Ephesus:
“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” – Ephesians 2:1-10
If that “heart/soul transformation” has taken place, the addict becomes the disciple, and a new life begins:
16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! – 2 Corinthians 5:16-17.