The word "addiction" is derived from a Latin term for "enslaved by"
It can be as innocent looking as a craving for sugar (society neuters that with 'sweet tooth')
to pills to pacify you (in the 60s it was Valium) or cigarettes, (as John Lennon intoned
'Curse Sir Walter Raleigh for discovering tobacco') Cocaine, Marihuana, can also be addictive as they offer that momentary escape from REALITY and of course Society's
staple ALCOHOL.
hOW MANY MILLIONS HAS ALCOHOL AND CIGARETTES PREMATURELY TAKEN OFF THE PLANET?
TODAY, IN OUR technologicAL age, there is a growing addiction to PORN
There are organisations like AA and NA that are enormously successful in dealing with ADDICTION, however they are in essence 'spiritually' driven, and for many such spiritually driven programmes are 'nonsense'....(You are morally flawed or lacking in willpower and you need GOD a HIGHER POWER) . although one accepts this is very useful nonsense that has saved many, but one has to be credulous to go along with such nonsense.
But if one is SCIENCE led when looking at ADDICTION one has to move away from the cultural diktats, 'have a drink it will relax you' what is wrong with a little SMOKE now and again or a SNORT as if you were a horse etc and look to what happens to the BRAIN
in the process of ADDICTION
Just as cardiovascular disease damages the heart and diabetes impairs the pancreas, addiction steals like some intruder slowly steals your brain away from you
To understand this one has to begin to understand the working of your brain and Neuroimaging technologies and more recent research are aiding us in this endeavour
According to the latest government statistics, nearly 23 million Americans — almost one in 10 — are addicted....so you are not alone.
It can be as innocent looking as a craving for sugar (society neuters that with 'sweet tooth')
to pills to pacify you (in the 60s it was Valium) or cigarettes, (as John Lennon intoned
'Curse Sir Walter Raleigh for discovering tobacco') Cocaine, Marihuana, can also be addictive as they offer that momentary escape from REALITY and of course Society's
staple ALCOHOL.
hOW MANY MILLIONS HAS ALCOHOL AND CIGARETTES PREMATURELY TAKEN OFF THE PLANET?
TODAY, IN OUR technologicAL age, there is a growing addiction to PORN
There are organisations like AA and NA that are enormously successful in dealing with ADDICTION, however they are in essence 'spiritually' driven, and for many such spiritually driven programmes are 'nonsense'....(You are morally flawed or lacking in willpower and you need GOD a HIGHER POWER) . although one accepts this is very useful nonsense that has saved many, but one has to be credulous to go along with such nonsense.
But if one is SCIENCE led when looking at ADDICTION one has to move away from the cultural diktats, 'have a drink it will relax you' what is wrong with a little SMOKE now and again or a SNORT as if you were a horse etc and look to what happens to the BRAIN
in the process of ADDICTION
Just as cardiovascular disease damages the heart and diabetes impairs the pancreas, addiction steals like some intruder slowly steals your brain away from you
To understand this one has to begin to understand the working of your brain and Neuroimaging technologies and more recent research are aiding us in this endeavour
According to the latest government statistics, nearly 23 million Americans — almost one in 10 — are addicted....so you are not alone.
The brain registers all pleasures in the same way, whether they originate with a psychoactive drug, a monetary reward, a sexual encounter, or a satisfying meal. In the brain, pleasure has a distinct signature: the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the nucleus accumbens, a cluster of nerve cells lying underneath the cerebral cortex (see illustration). Dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens is so consistently tied with pleasure that neuroscientists refer to the region as the brain's pleasure center.
The brain's reward center
Addictive drugs provide a shortcut to the brain's reward system by flooding the nucleus accumbens with dopamine. The hippocampus lays down memories of this rapid sense of satisfaction, and the amygdala creates a conditioned response to certain stimuli
so in plain speak even before one consciously craves the BRAIN is there before you
How the brain learns recent research suggests that Dopamine not only contributes to the experience of pleasure, but also plays a role in learning and memory — two key elements in the transition from liking something to becoming addicted to it.
according to the current theory about addiction, dopamine interacts with another neurotransmitter, glutamate, to take over the brain's system of reward-related learning
repeated exposure to an addictive behaviour whether it be pill popping, or Porn,
causes nerve cells in the nucleus accumbens and the prefrontal cortex to communicate in a way that couples liking something with wanting it, in turn driving us to go after it. That is, this physiological process motivates us to take action to seek out the source of pleasure.
ergo you are not free you are enslaved by your brain which you unknowingly have manacled to enslavement, so you no longer have choice as you are being led by your conditioned brain. So in 'car speak' your brain needs a service (reconditioning)
what leads to compulsion. Over time, the brain adapts in a way that actually makes the sought-after substance or activity less pleasurable so it wants more
and more,
At this point, compulsion takes over. The pleasure associated with an addictive behaviour subsides — and yet the memory of the desired effect and the need to recreate it (the wanting) persists. It's as though the normal machinery of motivation is no longer functioning. In plain speak, you are enslaved by your brain.
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