Why can't an addict just stop using?

[Music] imbabura I've been working in the field of addiction for over 30 years now and what I want to do this afternoon is to try to help you answer a question that most of you have asked maybe you didn't speak it out loud maybe you did but most family members of the addicts most people who care about the alcoholic of the Attic at some point in the progression of the addiction and I'll remind you this several times addiction is always progressive it always gets worse at some point in that progression the family member of the friend will begin to say to themselves a very reasonable question and the question is simply this why doesn't he just stop it means a very reasonable question that asked the wife sees your husband drinking I mean there's no question in his drinking's affecting the marriage but maybe it's also affecting his job causing him job problems or legal problems or health problems I mean anybody could clearly see that his drinking is causing multiple problems not so much for her but for him and yet he keeps on drinking doesn't make any sense to her the husband comes home at lunchtime unexpectedly he has two daughters ages 2 & 4 who playing in the front yard at first these girls don't see him so he just sits in the car the front doors ajar he's waiting for his wife to come out for five minutes goes by she hasn't come out the door yet so he gets out of his car he walks for the house his girls see him come running and daddy daddy you hugs his little girls and he asked the four-year-old where is your mama and she shrugged her shoulders that's weird he puts him in the car and locks him in and goes in the house hollard sure his wife no answer goes upstairs yells for her upstairs still no response goes back downstairs in the backyard screams that is has lousy constrain no answer now he's getting really really worried he's rushing back through the house to go to his car to get his phone to call 911 one and as he crosses the front door threshold he happens to class behind the front door and there on the couch behind the front door his his wife asleep the next thing he sees is about the pills on the floor next to her he grabs her by her shirt Shh her as hard as he can her eyes pop open he screams in her you promised me you wouldn't do this anymore you gave me your word I'm not putting up with this I'm over this I you think he'd take that bottle of pills he shakes up in her face he says to her if you ever take another one of these stupid pills I'm leaving you I'm picking those two girls in the car with me and you will never see him again he takes the bottle storms out of the house gets in his car drives his little girls to his mother's house and goes back to work he leaves his wife there devastated she has never felt this humiliated in her life she's not crying she's sobbing sobbing sobbing sobbing forty-five minutes goes by she finally begins to pull it together and besides being in touch with the embarrassment and the shame that she feels she gets in touch with some anger he can't do that you know I'm their mother there's no way he can take my girl from me she gets up she goes upstairs she goes in and walk in closet she goes in dirty clothes hamper she throws up the dirty clothes gives it another hot air bottle of hydrocodone and takes two T minutes ago her husband said to her I will lead you and take the girls with me he made it and she knows he meant it if you take any more pills and she takes two that's illogical that's irrational and that's the kind of behavior that family members deal with day in and day out why doesn't he just stop doing that well it's normal when you're dealing with irrational behavior to try and rationalize it and family members do that you know maybe it's this job maybe it's this stress maybe it's all the housework and taking care of the kids they begin to look for reasons and as they as they continue to look for reasons and nothing's making any sense believe it or not more often than you might think the family member begins to think well maybe it's me maybe it's my fault I know that's true because in 1978 I was addicted to pain pills I've been addicted for about a year I just stopped taking them for a while and then they start taking again and stop taking it for a while and start taking this is a Saturday morning I've been on I've been taking him since Monday I was going to work and my wife stopped me at the door and she looked at me in my eyes and she said to me you're taking those pills again aren't you you know what I said no I am so disappointed in either you would even ask me that question I told you I wasn't gonna take those pills anymore so I store my house said surgery was half day I get home at 12:30 walking a sliding glass door she was in her chair at a little family room and the first thing I spotted was a bottle of pills in her hand that I had cleverly hidden and utility room behind the carport she'll never find him here where she's found there they were every time this has happened before she would ask me about taking pills accused me of taking pills I would lie to her I couldn't lie anymore every single other time it happened she would blast me you know she would scream at me and yell at me so when I saw the buy the pills that's what I was ready for but my eyes drifted from the pills up to her face instead of seeing that angry look that was prepared for my wall was up instead of seeing that look I saw tears coming down her face well her mother had been sick and my first thought was something happened I said well is your mom she said mama she says I just figure this out this morning let's do what are you talking about she said I know when you take these pills you know I can look at you and I know you lied to me but I can look at you and I know when you're taking these pills and I know you didn't take this before we got married tell me what I'm doing wrong I know you must be disappointed me this happened 1978 I know you must be disappointing to me tell me what you want me to do I will do anything this very bright young woman the only logical reasons that she could come up with that would take these pills and risk my job risk my license risk my life was it had to be her fault and that's a true story and she's not unique you know spouses oftentimes deal with this almost always parents do you know when we have a young person who comes in treatment for addiction invariably the parent will say what it would be wrong and I understand that I'm a parent I have three grown children and when one of our children starts having problems our first response are my precious bosses what are they wrong would you believe that sometimes kids think it's their fault we had this father in treatment in the son who's not 17 years I was smart guy athletic came the family workshop and he said to me dr. brewer you think about being the starting quarterback my daddy would have come to my games instead of drinking with his friends do you think he was embarrassed of me because I was the backup quarterback what may surprise family members in this room because you probably never heard it I know I never seen it almost always at some point in the progression and remember addiction is progressive almost always at some point in that progression the alcoholic or the addict will arrive to the place that they will say to themselves why and stop I never said that I would say things like you think I'm a drug addict I'm a doctor doctors don't get addicted to drugs I've been through medical school have you been through medical school I take these pills when I had back pain I'm not a drug addict don't you remember you know last month when I stopped for two weeks drugged eyes can't stop taking drugs as those words were leaving my mouth deep down inside my soul I was asking the same thing that she was asking because I got to the point that I didn't want to take pills anymore I honestly didn't want to take him anymore but I just couldn't seem to stop anything else in my life that had set my mind to do I could do it I got it done it was I mean I decide I want to be a doctor and father was on disability had to work two jobs went in high school for two jobs in medical school but I really wanted to be a doctor I that's what I want to do I set my mind I really want to stop taking these pills and I couldn't seem to do it and I didn't understand why now to be fair when I first started taking pills I didn't want to stop our first time taking pills in 1978 I had back surgery when I was 19 and sometimes would have some pain in my back hello was having a particularly rough time and I went to the doctor who did the surgery back then they didn't do MRIs or CT scans all he did was examine me and he says I don't think you have any another ruptured disc I think he has a scar tissue so it gave me some exercises to do and then he wrote a prescription pad and it Patti wrote me some pain pills and he said the pain gets really bad you can take one of these pills well I got the prescription filled put up in Medscape you didn't think about it for a month didn't even think about I woke up with the money morning my back was killing me I was actually having trouble moving around it was hurting so much I had a busy day in the office that day there's no way I couldn't go oh I think a pain pill so I wouldn't take a pain pill guy ready for work doctor work 45 minutes later I discovered better living through chemistry when that pain pill hit my brain it made me feel like I had never felt before that made me feel really good I got you early you fork I was energetic you got relieve the pain but that wasn't yet it was you know I felt really good I was in a good mood all day I was nice to the patient even nice of the nurses that wasn't home I was nice to my wife this is great this is wonderful got up the next day and I was back down here but my back wasn't hurt didn't think about taking another pain pill it was another couple weeks maybe a month later same situation I got up in the morning on a Monday that's we had had a busy weekend back was already I'll take another pain pill you know what happened same thing relieve the pain but it also gave me this energy in this year for you that had never had before well over the course of the next several months some days I would get up and my back was hurting some so I would take a pain pill of course and some days I would get up and my back wouldn't really be hurting but guess what I would say to myself I can't afford my back to her today I'm too busy I got too much to do I'm a busy doctor so it would take a pain pills on the back wouldn't hurt but over time like I did you to take the pills they didn't seem to work quite as well as I took more and more and more and more and more till eventually six months later I was down here all the time what they weren't working they weren't making me feel good anymore I was in this dysphoric world all the time I was trying to get back up to normal how was it trying to get high I wasn't trying to feel good I just wanted to feel normal every morning I'd wake up the days of last day I'm taking these stupid pills I'm not taking anymore this is the last day but you know I had a couple left over in case my back tomorrow dog will take him next morning I get that pick those two pills and go to the drugstore every day was going to be the life I got to the point that I honestly didn't want to take it and I couldn't stop everybody's not like me I basically started taking drugs because I like the way they made me feel lots and lots of people who are treated over the years for addiction started out drinking or using drugs to relieve pain not the kind of pain I was having the physical pain that it would have all the time but maybe some severe physical pain like a cluster of migraine headaches or for spinal stenosis pain there in extreme excruciating pain all the time and they start using drugs including alcohol including alcohol to medicate that pain but more common than that is people who begin to use drugs to the emotional pain they don't start out drinking and using drugs to get high they start drinking and using drugs to try to keep from hurting so much an example would be you lose somebody that's important to you somebody dies if you've ever had that happen and most of you have you know a parent a grandparent a sibling and then somebody god forbid a child somebody who's a part of your life it's certainly taken from you you know what that feels like it feels like a part of you has been ripped out it honestly feels like you have a hole inside and that hole is the absence of that emotional connection with that person that's gone but you wake up in the morning and that hole is there and the aching is there and maybe some anger is there and maybe even some guilt is there and it's there all day long and go to bed at night and hopefully maybe in the morning I'll be feel better you woke up the next morning it's still there lots and lots of people began to use drugs begin to drink because they're in intense emotional pain and they discover the drug takes away that pain but you know what next day during the pain again it have to be loss of somebody you through death it could be loss of somebody through mental illness and let's say you have a parent that's depressed well you know so if you've ever been depressed before and I have when you're depressed you don't have any emotional energy I mean you can barely take care of yourself you certainly can't take care of care of anybody else so you have the kids who need that emotional connection then bonding with the parent and the parents not available emotionally because of her depression or his depression that leaves a hole in those kids I'm not placing blame the parent doesn't want to be depressed you know she doesn't choose to be depressed but the bottom line is her depression prevents her from me emotionally available to those kids and that leads to hone those kids do you have a situation where let's say parents decided to get divorced you know they live together will it be happier if we don't live together which is fine but the only problem is one of the parents leaves moves away not only divorces the wife with divorces the entire family he's gone if you're 16 years old and all of a sudden your dad has removed himself from your life do you know who you think who's thought do you think that is new you're 16 you know sixteen year olds are very narcissistic and that's normal in 16 years old something almost that 26 year olds but 16 year olds see themselves as being this in the universe so if something's wrong with the universe my father six-six-six Nero feels guilty and also angry and also empty I caused that parents gone situation of addiction you know let's say the father's alcoholic well if you're chemically dependent if you're addicted to alcohol the drugs you're not emotionally available you can't be actively addicted and be emotionally of at the same time so you have a parent as alcoholic you know they're not emotionally available that leaves a big hole in those kids another situation how about that's a granddad who's Appa holic not the bad guy Brenda the good dad doesn't drink that was my family my dad didn't drink you know what his dad did and his dad was one of these operatic so that when you drink I always drink too much got very abusive you know would would hit his wife and and hit his kids my father happened to be the O's with five children so he quit school when he was like 12 years old and sold newspapers to provide for the family because my granddad couldn't you don't keep good to keep a job and when my granddad would come home drunk he think his brothers and sisters and his mother and thinking about Nicole chat shed to hide him until his tell his dad went to sleep so he went through all that that abuse from that alcohol when he was growing up he never touched a drop of alcohol never did but because of his inability to bond with his father because of his bar father's high foul ism he didn't really know how to bond with me I'm not placing blame that wasn't his fault but the bottom line he didn't really know how to connect emotionally with me when I was growing up and that left a hole so lots of situations abuse you know physical abuse sexual abuse emotional abuse that always leaves a hole always without exception he's oh so lots of situation can happen that people discover when they drink or use drugs it relieves that pain but for many of them over time the drug to become less and less and less and less effective seventeen-year-old father's alcoholic he's felt empty and angry all the time you know he doesn't feel like he fits in he doesn't feel like he belongs in school every morning he wakes up and he's got this emptiness inside in this anger and this guilt inside and he's on his way home still is a junior and you kid that just moved to the school pulls out of joint this here father this this is a good stuff who this everything you're never a seven-year-olds never smoked pot before but you know he wants to fit in he wants it belongs oh yeah I do that all the time so it takes that joint and he starts smoking on a joint and as he does that there's a chemical called Delta 9 THC that gets into his bloodstream and goes up to his brain passes through his blood brain barrier when that drug hits the neurons of his brain yes what he discovers better living through chemistry that drug takes away that emptiness takes away that anger makes them feel normal I've had that said to me a dozen times in the last 30 years and if you can identify with this statement dr. brewer the first time I ever took a drink the first time I ever smoked a joint it made me feel normal if you can identify with that statement you didn't start out up here you started out down here for whatever reason so this kid discovers you know this joint makes them feel normal who becomes less and less effective 18 months later it's not really working anymore does he stop it no he still uses it all day long with just as effective what else do you think he does look for something else he's discovered better living through chemistry so when the pockets working but if you don't even drink alcohol or use cocaine or start taking the hydros he'll do use different drugs different combinations of drugs but invariably he'll get to the point that it doesn't work anymore don't matter what does most people think when alcoholics drinking well there are drug addicts using drugs they're having a good time they really enjoy true for many of us in the beginning but the bottom line is when people get to the point that they're saying to themselves walking out stop there not having any time anymore people come into treatment for addiction or not having a good time anymore when they use it people come into treatment for addiction the cause is just isn't working and you need to understand that you need to understand that people aren't having a good time when you're using drugs they're miserable but they can't seem to stop so the question is why why when you make up your mind that you're not going to do this anymore why can't I follow through that one of the reasons I'm sure will come as no surprise is something called physical addiction all of the drugs that we're talking about will cause a physical addiction physical addiction means you're taking a drug on a regular basis your body becomes accustomed to that drug and then when you take away the drug the body begins to experience withdrawal withdrawal symptoms are the symptoms that your body manifests when you're taking a drug on a regular basis and you stop taking the drug so if you're drinking on a regular basis let's say a daily basis you know you're drinking a six-pack a day or toothpicks exit six packs a day and you say well I just lost how much these are going to talk drunken you wake up and you start to get a little shaky little nauseated having some cramping maybe even some diarrhea and then each minute each hour the shakiness intensifies and maybe you know your blood pressure goes up you your pulse rate goes up and every hour gets worse I mean every hours was worse than the last hour so as you begin to experience that withdrawal and the symptoms are worsening you basically get to the point and I've been to this point many times ah going to die that's what feels like coming off our colleagues you start sweating all over your muscles start kicking and kick out of habit your skin takes on the goose flesh like appearing even going cold turkey you use egg all over all over all the colleges that severe insomnia you came to leave and coming off narcotics every hour the symptoms intensify and there's this in it is feeling I want to die and the reality is you bite there's three things that will stop withdrawal one thing is more drug so if you start into withdrawal intuitively you know if you use more drugs it's not gonna make you feel good anymore something you're not gonna have a good time but it's gonna release some of you withdraw symptoms the second thing is time you know give it enough time if you don't dive in the third thing the third thing is death and you can die and withdrawal lots and lots and lots of people do you know you just stop you start you drinking to 6x a day for the last couple of years and you stop drinking you can die lots of people die in withdrawal but if you don't die eventually your body will readjust and the withdrawal symptoms will go away eventually it's just curious how many of these people many of you in this room are chemically dependent you know y'all thank you okay how many of you they just raise your hand got off the drug somehow I mean you went cold turkey you went to the hospital you went to the treatment you went to jail I mean somehow you were off and let's say you were off at least two weeks and you start taking drugs again does that make any sense you know if this is only had to do with physical addiction who I in the world after we got off and the physical edition was over with withdrawal was over with why wouldn't we ever do it again do you know how can addictive everybody here drugs everybody without exception I'll take this group and you know stripe you down and put an NG tube down your nose and high-ups in a you whiskey I start titrating in some whiskey and your stomach this group I'd set you down put an IV in your arm start getting a little doses of heroin in this grip I'd strap you down put an IV in your arm and start giving little doses of the cocaine every day I would increase the dose in four weeks all of you would be severely heavily addicted ology without exception so I take out the ng tubes and I take out the IVs but I leave you stripe down all of you would go through the draw you all would get really shaky you know your but you would be like this some of you might even have a seizure you might hallucinate you sweat your blood pressure would go up I'm gonna TV you might stroke out because your blood pressure would be so high if we didn't intervene one of you two of you might even die you see you couldn't sleep absolutely this group you would start sweating all over you feel like you have the flu a hundred times over if you've ever had the flu nor conic withdrawal is a hundred times worse than the flu you couldn't sleep you lose ten pounds sweating your legs would be jerking your bones would be hurting severe diarrhea severe cramping this group would get so profoundly depressed coming off cocaine it's a hopeless depression you would beg me to let you up so you could kill yourself that's the primary withdrawal symptoms of cocaine withdraw has that profound depression then the next day you won't let me have begged me to let you up so you kill me because you get really angry and then you get really depressed again that'd be that roller coaster thing but I leave you strapped down for another seven days and then I'll let you up group coming off of alcohol that shakes would be pretty much gone you still couldn't sleep your blood pressure pretty much be normal you know hallucinations all that's the thing in the past you'd still have trouble sleeping but you'd be getting pretty much back to normal there's groups coming off of the narcotics you would have trouble sleeping too you still have be having some diarrhea and you still would you know feel not the best but the worst parts over in this group would still be pretty angry at me but you would be leveling out something so you know you wouldn't be suicidal homicidal team or all he would be better and I say you will go home take two weeks off you know enjoy yourself you know come back in two weeks and I want to do this all over again how many volunteers addicts do that all the time you know they get throwing out their get addicted they get awesome how they stay off hold two weeks or a month or six months and then they start doing it again why is that that's not physical addiction that's called chemical dependency that's what we're talking about we're talking about the disease of chemical dependency the physical addiction is a symptom of chemical dependency it's a late symptom if you become physically addicted to a drug it means you've been chemically dependent for a long long time but there's seven symptoms physical addiction is only one of those symptoms it's a symptom it's not the disease this is the disease it's chronic meaning that once you have it you always have it there's no such thing as a cured alcoholic there's no such thing as a cure diabetic diabetes is a chronic disease once you have the disease you always have the disease now you can be recovering alcoholic you don't drink today and you go to the 12-step meetings you can be in recovery but you're not cured in six months of now you say well I think I'll drink again the disease will rapidly progress and you can be treated for your diabetes and your diabetes won't be cured but it can be in remission and that your blood sugars can remain normal and be if he's ever said well I'm not taking those stupid shots anymore and you stopped taking your medicine you die your diabetes will quickly be get out of control it's progressive we already talked about that it always gets worse diabetes especially if I treated always gets worse and eventually we'll end your life addiction always gets worse without treatment and eventually we'll end your life and it's biogenetic you know not everybody who drinks becomes an alcoholic not everybody that uses cocaine or smokes that pot or takes pain field becomes chemically dependent most people who drink most people don't become alcoholics if you looked at every five people who abused alcohol or views other drugs out of every five people who abuse drugs out of every five people only one of the five will cross the wall to become chemically dependent only 20% of people who abused alcohol or abuse drugs becomes chemically dependence about 95 percent of these people who become dependent have a father mother and uncle or grandparent with addiction about 20 to 25 percent of these people have a family history for addiction there is no question today that you don't make people addicts you go make people alcoholic some people are born predisposed to addiction you can be born predisposed to high blood pressure to colon cancer to you know to high cholesterol you know there's a lot in breast cancer there's lots and lots of illnesses that carry a genetic predisposition chemical dependency here is has a genetic predisposition so if this person who is predisposed begins to use drugs or to drink for whatever reason to have a good time like I did to feel good like I did or to relieve pain like a lot of people do and they use drugs long enough for the addiction potential of the drug different drugs have different addictions potentials for adults it usually takes a decade or longer of drinking to activate alcoholism smoking pot may take 10 to 20 years of smoking pot for adults don't you grab lessons have as much more quickly music requires years of using pot pain pills can take weeks and months IV narcotics IV cocaine can take days or weeks the reality is most people don't start shooting drugs until they're already dependent and they don't start out shooting cocaine they start out storing cocaine they cross the wall they become dependent they look for other ways of using the drug so different drugs have different addiction potentials bottom line is if you're genetically susceptible and you begin to use a drug and use the drug long enough for the genetic for the addiction potential of the drug then you across the wall and become dependent there's no going back once you're across the wall you're always chemically dependent now what if you don't drink boys do use drugs my daddy didn't you know my daddy taught me several things and one thing he taught me that I didn't understand till just a few years ago was kinfoke or trouble you ever hear that Ken poke or trouble and that weird you know what you believe that you know why cause he was the daddy of his family he had two younger brothers who younger sisters at his mother who always always depended on him for everything you know that is their you know there's faucet got a leak they call him you know they were always pulling him to help him talk a couple I learned that I mean I understood that about 10 years ago and they really can't be you know so let's say you don't you abused a drug you don't become dependent but what if your son begins to take pain pills then he has a higher risk of becoming addicted there are two factors responsible for addiction the first factor is this genetic factor the second factor is abuse you have to have the genetic factor and you have to abuse the drug and you have the genetic factor and you use the drug long enough you cross that wall and become dependent so what happens when you cross the wall what happens in you what's the primary symptom of this disease you met you remember I mentioned that physical addiction is a symptom of this disease but it's a late symptom of the disease the very first symptom that begins to occur when people first cross that wall is compulsivity compulsion to drink compulsion to take pills if you know addict you know what I'm talking about that compulsion that's the primary symptom of this disease now remember we talked about this disease being progressive there's early stage addiction there's middle stage addiction and there's late stage addiction in early stage addiction when you first cross the wall you have to use the drug the trigger the compulsion they don't have it all the time you just have it you use the drug guy calls his wife and says honey this the bills last day work he's my mentor when I first joined this company he told me everything you know he's retiring today we wanna throw him a little party would you mind if I'm a little bit late to that we were gonna stop at the pub and have a couple of beers and tell the stories I'll be home at 7:30 is that okay well she actually hesitates and there's a good reason she's hesitating because he called her about a month ago he'd be home at 7:30 edges done after work he didn't show up to 8:45 he'd been drinking she could tell her she could look and she'd be she knew he's been drinking and she got really mad she'd been worried about it man he hadn't called and so she went off on him and at first he got really defensive and then he realized how much she's been worried about him so you know what he did he apologized to her says honey I'm so sorry I didn't mean to worry you you know I think my drinking bothers you a little bit I know you daddy used to drink a lot and I think my drinking just bothers you I just won't drink I don't care that much about no I won't drink anymore do you know for the last month he's not touched a drop she knows he hasn't because he's been with him every day and she can tell when he drinks so for the last month he's not touched a drop so why should she mind if he stops it has a few beer with it well it gets to the bar for 30s early causes or been charged Knorr ago beer it really has been a month since anything drink so he drinks that cold beer tastes really good you know hits the spot any [ __ ] no well he's only second beer and some other guys from work start showing up so of course he buys him a beer you know this plot thing you do but before long you know he's finished with his beer and then somebody wants to buy him a beer well it's you know it's rude to say no we just bought him a beer so he lets somebody buy him a beer and they that's somebody that's mama beer he looks at his watch you know it's 6:30 he's gonna have to be leave in a few minutes and you know or say oh he won't be ladies we'll be home at 7:30 so so but so he you know orders you know one for the road next thing he knows he's they've been having a good time he happens glanced at his watch and it's 7:45 he told his wife he'd be home 7:30 7:45 he's gonna be like hey me anyway does he oh why he does he gets another beer why is he getting on the beer because he's already late you know she's gonna be bad I mean yeah this is the last time when we drinking for a while so I'll have one more next thing he knows is 1 o'clock in the morning and they're calling him a taxi he didn't intend to have 16 beers they're not his intention was to have a couple of beers be homeless 7:30 but was he consume those first she beers something triggered in his brain you caused him to have a compulsion for another beer and another beer and he couldn't seem to stop till they cut off the supply now he also has a high tolerance that's another symptom 7 symptoms a high tolerance most of you in this room had 17 beers you know in six hours you be in a coma he's had 17 beers and most people couldn't even tell you've been drinkin he'll he's walking around functioning yeah he seems fine but the bartender knows exactly how much he's had to drink he's not leaving that car that bar in his car finally the taxi gets there at 1:45 it's a 30 minute cab ride home do you know what he's praying in a cab ride all the way home she'll be asleep you know maybe she'll be asleep do you think she's asleep he walked in the door he sees his wife across the room she's in her easy chair her eyes almost swollen shut this happened no 37 years ago 32 years of his her eyes are almost rolling shut she had mascara all over her face do you know what this woman has been visualizing for the last six hours five hours he had been in an accident he was pinned on his truck his truck is on fire and he's calling her name to help him so she said it was like going on a Betamax tapes we had those back then and it was like a never-ending spool I couldn't get out that's all she could think about he's dying begging for my help she can't leave because water the police department cause of the hospital cause he's already called him up a dozen times what does somebody call so she stuck there knowing he's going he's dying asking for her to help him he walked in the door and she can tell he's been drinking do you think she's mad I have never been that angry in all my life why did he lie to me why did he lie to me she didn't understand compulsive drinking she her belief was that he intended to do what he did hold on she didn't understand that after a few beers she couldn't seem to stop he didn't understand why he did what he did they had to come to Jesus meeting that night he stopped drinking for a year some people stopped using an early stage addiction did you know that when people first crossed the wall and the only have the compulsion when they use sometimes they stopped maybe they have a blackout they don't remember how they got home last night and it scares them to death and they or maybe something other truth I have an accident something happens for them to make the decision well I'm not gonna do that anymore well they don't do that anymore they don't have that compulsion and some people do stop in early-stage addiction they stop from a year finally convinces waffle in New Year's Eve it's been a year you know we need to celebrate I mean I deserve were just one night don't know you know we've everything's been fine you know and so they finally agreed well they can celebrate New Year's even you know she has a glass of wine he has the rest of the bottle and she gets really mad again well this particular couple stuck together so it took another ten years of drinking before his drinking to progress sometimes spouses I've had it and they're out and when that happens the addiction progresses much more rapidly but she stuck around but what happened with him was his episodes of drinking got closer and closer and closer together until eventually he woke up in the morning with a commotion right he didn't drink in the morning there's no way if the job he had no way he could drink in the morning but all he thought about was drinking all day long and when can I get my first drink when people are having the compulsion to use all the time that's chemical dependency and that's what causes the physical addiction compulsivity when you don't use the drug means you're in late stage disease compulsivity only when you use a drug is early chase disease and it can progress over a period of months you can prepare it's over a period of years but when you're having a compulsion every day you're using every day your drugs every day that's what causes either become physically addicted so what causes compulsivity you know if you can really understand that if we can understand that we might be able to get a better handle on addiction as a disease process well if you think about it one organ system controls everything that we do I mean everything your breathing your no thinking your what basically the central control system is the brain and there's different sections of the brain the cortex you know controls your ability to think to reason the process it also controls your move your moment your emotions there's a visual center of the controls your your vision you don't actually see with your eye you see with your brain there's an auditory Center there's a hypothalamus that controls lots and lots of things you can toast which produces lots and lots of hormones other's memories area there's the cerebellum that controls your balances ranged in the Crone's drugs your breathing there's lots and lots of different sub structures in the brain but basically your brain controls everything that you do the way the brain works is it's a it's a made up of cells called neurons now this is a oversimplification of what a neuron looks like now basically a neuron has a cell body it has the intention Connor axon it has a receptor plate every organ system in the human body has unique cell structures one of the things you learn in medical school is to look under a microscope as a tissue and diagnose or what part of the body they come from because you know heart cells don't look like liver cells liver cells they look like brain cells you know each organ system has unique cells and this is what a neuron a brain cell looks like now the way the brain works is when you stimulate a brain cell it causes an electrical charge in the giving example I'm talking with you right now my mouth my tongue my larynx that my vocal cords I'm creating sound waves those sound waves are traveling through the air your ear is catching those sound waves the air funnels those sound waves down into your your external ear and then those they vibrate your eardrum you hear drum vibrates those three little bones in the middle ear and those three little bones in the middle ear vibrates your inner ear drum standing on the other side of the inner ear drum is the acoustic nerve it's the hearing nerve the inner ear drum changes that sound wave energy into electrical energy and it calls the electrical impulse to travel up to the neurons in the brain they receive sound their sensory cells they don't understand sound they just receive this so they release chemicals and these chemicals are called neuro transmitters and these neurotransmitters are released and they activate the next neuron which stimulates an electrical charge they go up to activate the cell bodies in the processing cells auditory processing cells those are cells that interpret sound but they don't remember anything so they were these neurotransmitters that go over and activate the memory cells and this is instantaneous right now my brain is telling me what to say your brain is hearing understanding and remembering some of what I say and that's all calls controlled by the neurotransmitters in my brain and the neurotransmitters in your brain Dero transmitters control everything we do so my angry that's neurotransmitters yeah well I'm so hungry I gotta have somebody that's in your old transmitters when you recall a memory that's neurotransmitters emotions or neurotransmitters there were dozens of different neurotransmitters and some neurotransmitters serve multiple purposes neurotransmitters involved in memory are also involved in long-term memory and in emotional control your long-term memory so neurotransmitters involved in emotion are also involved in long-term memory I doubt there's anybody here old enough to remember but when when Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas Texas anybody over there let me know well I was in the ninth grade you know the ninth grade and I remember my science teacher name was mr. long and he announced that the president was dead I remember that day I mean I remember white war I remember his name I remember where I sat in his room I remember you know where his room was in the cot in the school I don't remember any other nice great teachers but I remember him we call the emotions that I experience the neurotransmitters being released with that announcement semen in those memories how many of you remember what you're doing when you heard war trade center that collapse everybody have you remember what you had for breakfast last Thursday and there's usually one or two you see when when you are engaged in activity that that causes strong emotion you will always remember that it doesn't have to be grief if you have children you remember when you first heard you held your child and you made eye contact with your child you will take that memory here grave intense emotional response cement those memories and it's all controlled by neurotransmitters neurotransmitters control compulsivity we know that to be the case primarily because of some research done by God the insolvent side you know what he was trying to do he was trying to find out why morphine was a pain in the 1960s 1960s he was trying to find out why walk from his leaf pain doctors started using morphine in the 1860s for a hundred years doctors prescribed morphine and darvon and Demerol and how did all these drugs were prescribed for pain relief but nobody knew how they worked you believe that what dr. Snyder discovered well as this arcturus neurons in the brain and control emotions and appetites there's neurons in the brain to control pain really and we give somebody a shot of morphine it goes and activates those neurons he called these neurons opiate receptors so there's neurons in the brain they control pain relief well you got to thinking what did that making sense I mean when God created man that he put neurons there that wouldn't be used for you know thousands of years the man discovers you know the poppy plant well that's possible but why he concluded was there must be a chemical in the brain that resembles morphing he discovered the neurotransmitter in Kathleen and Kathleen is the neurotransmitter present in the opiate receptors it's produced in the pituitary gland that sits at the base of the brain so when you undergo pain these cells release in Kaplan and they activate the LP receptor and the only reason that morphine works is because it's similar in structure to in carefully that's why narcotics work they mimic the body's own natural neural chemical that's how they work and that's a godsend you know can you imagine if we didn't have morphine you relieve pain what if we didn't have any anesthetics you know anesthetics were called neurotransmitters in the brain the doctor says Bob you got three vessels blocked around your heart we need to do murder emergency surgery today it's got we can't wait until tomorrow it's got to be done today you could die of a massive heart attack tonight and there's nothing we can do about it Bob I wanna take your surgery now the bad news is the truck hadn't come in today so we really don't have anything to put you to sleep with but that's okay because we got some leather straps you know and we could you just drive you down that's right try be there yeah I'm gonna take a sharp knife and cut on your chest if I'm just gonna hurt a little bit but you know we can't have a choice then we're going to take an electric saw we don't use those hands anymore probably get these electric saws now well zip right through your blood spray breast plate because the sting is still spreading among spread out good and why talking see you know guys see good take another scalpel and when cutting your leg movies and veins from your leg on so around your heart cussing stainless steel wire it's cooling so you have good and tight is we'll take eight or ten hours but you'll be good as new Bob Bob I can't lie to you gonna be pain but y'all have a heart attack yeah that's one year can you imagine that anybody gonna let them do the open-heart surgery on you unless they put you to sleep and you know give you someone you wake up for pain you know it's time to go it's my time to go you know that's okay doc you know 24 hours is fine you know narcotics anesthetics allows you to do things we couldn't imagine hundred years ago two years ago but also what we discovered the last hundred years is not for everybody not even for most people well for some people when they begin to use a narcotic to feel good like I do did or leave pain like lots and lots of people do when they begin to use a narcotic over time not the first toast the second dose maybe not even the hundredth those but we repeated doses a narcotic their brain learns a new pathway guess what the brain does it begins to produce less carefully this brain basically says well you get it from someplace else so I don't have to produce his budge this has to happen immediately there were the repeated doses over time for some people not everybody but for some people repeated doses of dark conical events that cause the brain to blues lesson Kaplan the brain says you need more narcotic listen carefully you need more narcotic gas pill pulsate with you dad's compulsive it you take a pill your brain say another pill another pill your brain says you need another pill same thing happens with other drugs alcohol is a lot more complicated when people drink alcohol what the body does is it converts it into ch3 ch2 OHS alcohol your body converts it into liver converts it into acetaldehyde and then that's converted to a steel coil a and there's more steps involved and it's eventually converted into carbon dioxide and water so when anybody consumes alcohol the way your body gets rid of the alcohol is it changing it into carbon dioxide which we breathe off the water with your day off that's how your body ridges if I would have is it everybody some people not most people but some people after usually years of drinking the body begins to develop a new pathway he's a silicon essence with a neurotransmitter called dopamine therefore my chemical called tetra Hydra perp ever-rolling we'll call it th P for short not easy but eh P so what I'm saying is in the genetic alcoholic usually a few years of ranking adolescents it could be months even elderly people in their 70s and 80s it could happen in six months or a year but for most adults after years of drinking you the body learns a new pathway so when they consume alcohol some of the alcohol goes to form CHP why is that important because if you look at the milk or structure of T's P you'll find it's almost ridiculous identical to morphine what I'm saying you is when the alcoholic drinks alcohol their body produces opiate like substance from the hopper Hall so after a month of no drinking he says I'm just going to have one drink once the body learns a youth pathway it never forgets it never forgets it the liver produces THP and brain produces blessing Kaplan the brain says you know the drink do you speak nice and kids we need another drink that's compulsivity it's controlled by the neural chemistry of the brain with cocaine I mentioned the neurotransmitter dopamine when talking about our holism it's a especially involved in cocaine and methamphetamine addiction when people will use cocaine over time they have a decreased production of dopamine dopamine is the reward neural trends you know if you get an a on the test that makes you feel good it makes you feel good because your brain releases dopamine to reward you for getting an A so you're suddenly hard you get a raise on the job you've makes you feel good maybe the college your body releases dopamine to reward you for getting your race or you work hard it's a neurotransmitter involved in your reward the neurotransmitter involved in cocaine addiction the euphoria from people using cocaine initially is coming from a drastic increase in the amount of dopamine in the brain that's what that euphoria comes from but for some people over time what happens is the use of cocaine causes less of being which causes more cocaine which causes less dopamine the neurotransmitter disease the good news is when people get into recovery when they get so when they get clean without exception for every one of them over time the body's chemistry normalizes itself it always has the ability to do that so when people get sober the chemistry of the brain begins to return to normal and as that happens sometimes it takes weeks sometimes it takes months even six months but over time as the chemistry of the brain normalizes you know what happens the compulsion to use the drug goes away he doesn't stay there all the time you know I wouldn't a treatment on July the 23rd 1979 the day after my 30th birthday one needs to take a pill every second of every day can you imagine living the rest of your life want you to do something every second every day you can't do anymore 25% of people who interfere for addiction have attended suicide or thought about suicide and I know one of the reasons is the financial and family problems but I could invent for me one of the reasons was I can't live like this I can't live the rest of my life want you to do something every day I can't do anymore and I was about to leave treatment the guy named motorcycle age stopped me he had a long ponytail like he had a leather vest naked chest more hairy chest I've ever seen hairy chest like that tattoos always bodies t79 he had gotten off heroin moved to Atlanta got involved DNA he said you won't believe us I just can't take this he says you know it goes white he says yeah I got to the point I know what tell me when I got off drugs I wanna use all the time baby it goes away now I've wanted to use drugs in two years I've seen some remember the people come and go they come in they get clean they get happy they go out and they try it again they don't make it back he says I know if I go out and try it again I'm gonna make it back most heartily I didn't know anything about neural chemistry motorcycle aired you as long as I don't do it anymore I'm not going to do it but I do it one more time I'm gonna stop he knew that dr. Bob and Bill Debbie didn't know anything about neural chemistry you know they came up with the the slogan for that colic one drink is too many and a thousand and never enough that's the reason in recovery guaranteed for everybody the brain chemistry normalizes and you lose your desire to use drugs but six months later a year later that got one got twenty years one time 20 years later you say to yourself well you know I can drink now it's been a whole year you know I'm not Hawking you I don't shake with I can have a drink yeah if you convince yourself that you can do it one more time that's what happens no addict uses again to get strung out again nobody ever does that they used again to do it one more time that's what he can't do appreciate y'all being here you know I know it's it's a lot to ask for the family we come for three days and make other arrangements for your family and you know for your job and stuff but I think it's very very important for not only addicts but for the family members to understand this disease and most people think about addiction is a lack of willpower as a lack of morality you know addicts do bad things when they only use drugs they steal they lie you know but they're not bad people you know the disease causes addicts to do things that they wouldn't otherwise do whether it's the disease Addie's are not stupid they don't lack in willpower they're not evil they have a disease and I think it's important for everybody to begin to try to grass all of that so it you can make sense of what behavior is it I'll give observed in the past you why did he do that this is what it's all about thanks for being here [Music] you

Channel: Cornerstone Of Recovery

Views: 350,781

Rating: 4.7360258 out of 5

Keywords: addict, addiction treatment, drug rehab, alcohol rehab, chemical dependecy, why an addict cant stop, addiction disease

Id: l1mjGLqLvxA

Length: 63min 3sec (3783 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 05 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/TomJCharles]

Very good lecture on how addiction actually works in the brain.

It's not a moral failing, it's a brain condition that can be very difficult to manage.

Portraying typical addict behavior realistically in fiction can be difficult because of all the tropes and cliches.

This should help.