I've come to the conclusion that you can't really help someone addicted to heroin. They must first want to help themselves...and rarely will they do that...However, if if you can get them to take seboxone for 3 months continuously they will begin to see things differently. The key is continuously-everyday for 3 months. The seboxone will give the brain time to heal...and eventually they will start to feel good about themselves...During this time period they will say ....hey I'm good...I'm not an addict anymore...and I don't need to take the seboxone anymore...Whatever you do don't let them stop...Their brain will tell them they don't need it...so they can use again...it's the wierdest thing but I think the brain knows what it's doing...Remember to tell them that this happens all the time and that its a "Brain Trick"...It happened several times to my daughter...I just told her not to fall for that-don't be tricked by your own brain. She continued taking the seboxone and later told me she thinks I was right. She said she's sure her brain was trying to make her stop using the seboxone. She's been clean from using heroin for 5 months now. I'm very happy with her progress...using the seboxone. Not so happy about the other drugs she occasionally uses such as [mushrooms, aderal, or weed] But I'll take what I can get at this point.
The prozac is causing her to think of suicide. She has an appointment with her psychiatrist to see if the dose needs to be increased or decreased. Since she started taking the prozac she doesn't know what's going on inside her head. She says she can't control those thoughts...They just appear out of no where...and for no reason. She said it was just strange...and she feels strange.
Showing posts with label Addicts brain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Addicts brain. Show all posts
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Addiction: A Faulty Switch in the Brain
HBO.com has an interesting site dealing with addiction. An article I found to be quite interesting called Stop! Go! A Rogue System in the Brain gave me a better understanding of actually what addiction is and why it happens.
To summarize, healthy people have a Stop! Go! system located in the front part of the brain. When this system is working correctly the Stop! Go! send messages to each other letting us know when to Stop! or Go!... This system considers the risks before taking action, otherwise we would all just step out into traffic without looking.
A leading addiction researcher says that an addicts system operates in the Go mode! The Go! just stops talking to the Stop!...and the Go! runs wild along with the consequences of their actions. That must be why an addict always thinks their okay and why they keep taking the drug even though the drugs are dangerous-they're in the Go! mode. The front part of the brain in adolescents is still developing connections to the rest of the brain. They too are operating in the Go! mode. That's why some teens take risky actions because their Stop! Go! system is not completely developed.
Even for addicts in recovery, anything that reminds them of where and when they used, a parking lot where they used drugs, a song, a person they use to buy drugs from, even a scent can [trigger] the Go! and the Stop! is disconnected again. A trigger disconnects the system...and the Go! goes wild again.
The seboxone helps with this...because once my daughter had been on seboxone for a couple of months she began to realize the consequences of her actions. But, triggers are still something she struggles with...and I guess this will be something that she will have to learn to deal with by staying away from the triggers...and how do you do that if the brain switches to the Go! mode?
If there was a way to hard-wire the Stop!Go! system in our brains we could solve a very large problem ...addiction.
To summarize, healthy people have a Stop! Go! system located in the front part of the brain. When this system is working correctly the Stop! Go! send messages to each other letting us know when to Stop! or Go!... This system considers the risks before taking action, otherwise we would all just step out into traffic without looking.
A leading addiction researcher says that an addicts system operates in the Go mode! The Go! just stops talking to the Stop!...and the Go! runs wild along with the consequences of their actions. That must be why an addict always thinks their okay and why they keep taking the drug even though the drugs are dangerous-they're in the Go! mode. The front part of the brain in adolescents is still developing connections to the rest of the brain. They too are operating in the Go! mode. That's why some teens take risky actions because their Stop! Go! system is not completely developed.
Even for addicts in recovery, anything that reminds them of where and when they used, a parking lot where they used drugs, a song, a person they use to buy drugs from, even a scent can [trigger] the Go! and the Stop! is disconnected again. A trigger disconnects the system...and the Go! goes wild again.
The seboxone helps with this...because once my daughter had been on seboxone for a couple of months she began to realize the consequences of her actions. But, triggers are still something she struggles with...and I guess this will be something that she will have to learn to deal with by staying away from the triggers...and how do you do that if the brain switches to the Go! mode?
If there was a way to hard-wire the Stop!Go! system in our brains we could solve a very large problem ...addiction.
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