Traumas can lead to drug use and addictions. Without exception, all drug use is a result of some sort of trauma. A person might say, “I don’t like the way I am feeling.” or “I don’t like what I am experiencing,” try drugs or alcohol and discover that it relieves the pain or makes them feel good. Often, I hear, “I want to forget …” or “I want to relax.” These people try squelching their memories: there is something they are trying to forget. Drugs and alcohol activate chemicals in the brain such as dopamine. This is part of the pleasure network. The drugs, like trauma, also rewire the brain by dulling the responses of established brain cells while growing and rerouting other brain cells in other directions. Since it feels good for a while, a victim of trauma will repeat this self-medication.
With a sports or work related injury, a drug habit can begin as a result of a doctor’s prescription. There was a trauma. That trauma led to a pain management treatment. The treatment becomes an addiction. Habits are both chemical and psychological. For this reason they are hard to break.
Sometime in the 70’s, Alcoholism was classified as a disease by the AMA. The result of this controversial action was to allow payments of various treatments to help people recover. Alcoholism is a progressive disease. Interestingly, if an alcoholic stops drinking for a while, when he starts drinking again, he does not pick up where he left off, rather he picks up where he would have been had he never stopped. This is why alcoholics who resume drinking after years of sobriety, drink themselves to death when they do take that next drink. It is where they would have been had they not stopped drinking.
Addictions feed each other. Even if one quits drinking but continues using marijuana, the likelihood this usage will recall the old drinking addiction is great. The brain needs to rewire itself completely in order to be healthy. Abstaining from one addiction while maintaining another prevents this from happening.
Pain Medicine
Pornography
Masturbation
Sexual Addictions
Grooming
AntiChrist
Boundaries