Responsible For Our Recovery

[justlikeyou]

The recognition that addiction is a brain disease does not mean that the addict is simply a hapless victim.  Addiction begins with the voluntary behavior of using drugs, and addict must participate in and take some significant responsibility for their recovery.


http://www.hopenetworks.org/addiction/addiction%20a%20brain%20disease.htm

[anotherfinemess]

This is a fascinating website!!!  Thanks for posting it.  There are 3 transcripts of Bill Moyers interviews on there with addiction scientists.  Here is an excerpt from one of them (with Koob, MD) regarding the pleasure centers stimulated by drugs, and how they are depleted after stopping the drug:


Koob: Basically, it means that we have so much money in the bank in terms of pleasure in our lives, and we can expend that money over the course of a single weekend's binge on cocaine or we can expend it over a two-week period in the normal pleasures of everyday life. If you spend these pleasure neurochemicals in one lump sum such as a crack binge, you use up your supply of pleasure for a certain period, and so you pay for it later. The system has to self-regulate.

[alexandra fox]

Thanks so much for this link - I have saved it, expresses my thoughts and beliefs beautifully. Very interested to read that non-complience is the major cause of relapse, how true! If a diabetic is told to avoid sugar, take medicines, do exercise to stay well - does these things and feels good - decides that he or she is well again and stops doing them - the result: the illness returns. Exactly what happened to me: clean and sober and happy - no taking of any codeine, active recovery work - felt better, decided to take a codeine for a headache because "i'm not an addict anymore, one little pill can't hurt" - the result: the illness returns.

Thank you,
Alex