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Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

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April 20, 2014 By Admin

Self Medication – The Human Brain

Inner Workings of Self-Medication Process

 

mindfulHappiness_exploringSelfMedication_AnthonyQuintilianiTo continue our discussion about the self-medication process we will first turn to the human brain.  The human brain is the most complex system known to science.  Here, my comments will be basic.  Self-medication often has roots in the quality of our earliest childhood experiences (attachment and object relations with significant care-takers).  Insecure attachment sometimes leads to low frustration tolerance and internal self-discomfort as well as interpersonal insecurities.  Such vulnerabilities cannot well serve a person facing serious emotional challenges, especially if such challenges occur early in life.  Attachment style and personality variables may play significant roles in the realities of mind, brain, body and heart.

mindfulhappiness_SelfMedicationThe frontal/prefrontal brain areas deal mainly with executive functions; the limbic area deals mainly with survival needs and emotional reactivity as well as memory of such experiences; and, the reward centers release dopamine in the process of consciously rewarding experiences (habits) – like changing mood for the better via drug use.  Positive reinforcement occurs when consequences of behavior are desired (feeling “high”); negative reinforcement occurs when behavior leads to avoiding expected negative experiences ( depression, anxiety or reactivity especially when trauma is involved).  In these situations, unhelpful habits are born and eventually may dominate. When we are conscious of the relationship between stimulus, behavior and consequence it is operant/instrumental conditioning.  When are not conscious of the relationships (stimulus, behavior, consequence and environmental cues) it is classical conditioning.  Both forms of conditioning exist in the formation of both unhelpful habits and helpful habits.

neurotransmitter_MindfulHappinessLet’s focus on chemical addictions as a example.  Humans want to be happy and do not like to suffer any form of physical or psychological pain.  We also dislike boredom.  According to the mindfulness traditions, life gives us three core options: happiness, suffering, and boredom.  Our emotional responses to whatever life brings to us is an inside job.  When people suffer – especially when they do not have wise-mind skills for living – they want immediate relief.  We humans do strange things to control this desired clinging to joy and avoiding pain.  In fact even when we escape/avoid pain, it feels like a form of joy.  Suppose a person feels very sad/depressed; it will not take long for that person to discover that taking stimulant drugs results in  almost immediate short-term relief (an improved mood).  Suppose a person is very anxious (stressed or fearful); likewise, it will not take long to discover that taking a depressant/sedative drug reduces  the anxiety.  In both cases the person likes the consequence of their behavior; however, the improved mood does NOT last. Effects are short-lived, about the half-life of the drug being ingested.  This form of self-medicating is reliable for a while until biological and/or psychological tolerance sets in.  Consequently,  dosage and frequency of self-medicating behaviors increase as the person becomes reinforced by their drug-taking behavior.  The self-medicating habit takes on a life of its own – as a strong habit to reduce emotional suffering.  Often recovery from drug use problems begins with small, more helpful, competing habits.  In fact, early recovery may be defined as the use of newer helpful habits to weaken older self-medicating habits.

drug-rehab-centers-road-to-recoveryUse the helpful habits more and the unhelpful habits less, and we are on the way to recovery process.  It is all about motivating a person to dare to place a helpful behavior (mindfulness habits for example) against an unhelpful behavior – a self-medicating behavior that has produced some short-term relief from suffering.  In self-medication the negative state we are trying to escape from does not improve long-term, and the new behavior (drug-taking) may result in a new problem – addictions.  Recovery takes time, safety, and authentic caring in a therapeutic or helping relationship with psychotherapists, body-workers or peers in recovery.  Become aware of self-medication – fight it with helpful habits that produce lasting improvements.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC

Author of Mindful Happiness

CLICK HERE to Order!

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Filed Under: Featured, Self Medication Tagged With: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, MINDFUL HAPPINESS, SELF MEDICATION

April 12, 2014 By Admin

Self-Medication as Unhelpful Habit:

A Primary Source of Unhappiness

Self-medication to reduce or avoid pain and suffering is a major unhelpful habit in the United States. It is a desperate human effort to reduce pain and suffering in physical and psychological experiences. Therefore, we humans may be hard-wired for it. When we suffer and do not utilize effective wise mind skills, we are simply doing our best to improve this emotional moment. It will require skilled mindfulness practices to improve our happiness.MindfulHappiness_SelfMedicating

Self-medication was once thought to be caused by personality types and deep-seated learned emotional reaction to discomfort (fear, shame, unmet emotional needs, an array of desires, and strong attachment to craved objects). More current, evidence-based interpretations expand this view into the area of social-emotional reinforcement and conditioning. Outcomes are always negative in the long-term; the original emotional cause becomes more serious (anxiety, depression, traumatic symptoms, substance misuse, eating problems, digital addictions, anger, etc.), and the habit of self-medicating leads to “addiction” to whatever behavior improves the moment. The best one can hope for is very short-term relief from immediate suffering – only to be followed by repeated efforts to reduce and/or avoid more suffering. Since the process becomes a habit via both positive and negative reinforcement (reward and avoidance of punishment/suffering) – as well as brain plasticity in activated brain regions that sensitize the related behaviors- self-medicators tend to remain trapped between suffering and ONLY short-term relief from it. Since impulsive reactivity to reduce and/or avoid pain is part of this process, people who self-medicate tend not to possess effective psychosocial coping skills. Thus, self-medication is their very weak, eventually unhelpful coping skill.

Zen_Stones_by_kuzy62In future posts, we will investigate how self-medication works in the life-experience areas of substance misuse, depression, anxiety, trauma and anger. More later on this very harmful habitual behavior. It will become more clear that part of this problem relates to the automatic processes of the brain. It will take a mindful MIND to improve one’s happiness.

 

by  Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC

Author of Mindful Happiness

CLICK HERE to Order!

Mindful Happiness | Anthony Quintiliani

Filed Under: Featured, Self Medication Tagged With: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, DEPRESSION, MINDFUL HAPPINESS, SELF MEDICATION

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