Our theme this week is brain vs. brain; the struggle of the brain with its own base programming, especially when that programming is hijacked by addiction.
Here’s an interesting post about a redrawing of battle lines in the maintenance-versus-abstinence debate. Of course, we here at BACA come down pretty hard on the ‘maintenance’ side, but the links in this post give a good overview of the field as it stands now.
Further evidence that anti-drug messages through education and advertising — which appeal to the logical, consequence-sensitive frontal lobe of the brain — don’t have a large impact on those under the sway of addictive substances.
This study paints a picture in which adults can exercise self-control in drinking through basic habit formation — which, ordinarily, they can. Whether the subjects in the study were ‘heavy’ or ‘addicted’ drinkers is not addressed, and my money is that they weren’t. Because, as mentioned above, addiction short-circuits precisely those part of the brain in charge of exercising restraint.
Continuing on the theme, “Shame is what gets people into the rooms of AA — it defines the alcoholic “bottom” — but it’s a lousy motivator for staying in recovery.” Shame is the forebrain trying to exercise control over the hindbrain, and — say it with me — it doesn’t work.