‘drug addiction no worse than hunger pangs’

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Drug addiction is all in the mind – and withdrawal pains are no worse than hunger pangs, a leading British expert will tell a conference in Edinburgh this week.
Psychologist Joseph Griffin, who trains thousands of NHS workers in how to deal with addiction, believes he has developed a revolutionary new way of tackling the problem by changing the way addicts think.

His technique of planting negative images in an addict’s imagination while he or she is in a trance-like state resembles that used in Anthony Bur gess’s novel A Clockwork Orange.

“When somebody wants to take a drink or whatever, we make them associate it with something repulsive, like a cup of snot or sick,” Griffin told the Sunday Herald.

They will take a mother who smokes, Griffin explains, and focus her mind on her children; then explain to her that she will never see them grow up if she keeps on smoking.

“It’s easy to give up an addiction,” he said, “Ninety per cent of the discomfort is caused by our minds, and when you strip all that away, all you’re left with is a feeling no worse than a hunger pang.”

Griffin, who has co-authored three books on sleep, depression and addiction, disagrees with groups like Alcoholics Anonymous who see addiction as an incurable disease. “Every addict is curable if they are willing to work hard with us,” Griffin claims.

He believes addictions of all kinds, from heroin to shopping, are created by unfulfilled needs in our life which he calls “human givens”. Addictions are fool’s gold, he explained, a false way to meet natural human desires.

The number of human giv ens that must be met if an individual is to be content can vary, Griffin explained. Hunger is the strongest desire, but we also crave love and the praise of our peers, and want to be challenged by our work.

If these needs are not met, we are in danger of using ever-increasing amounts of the things we enjoy to fill the gap and are then in danger of becoming addicted. “That means we can be addicted to anything we enjoy, from shopping for shoes to heroin,” said Griffin.

Pamela Woodford, a counsellor who uses Griffin’s ideas to help young drug addicts, thinks his way of using the imagination has revolution ised the fight to get addicts off drugs. “A lot of places are still using the same kinds of courses I learned years ago,” she said. “Human givens is a new, evolving set of ideas.”

Woodford stressed the positive work she does with the imagination. She uses images and metaphors to allow add icts to follow what is happening to them in language they can understand. This means the decision to stay off drugs becomes their own.

“I have had enormous success with the ideas,” she said. “They allows me to develop a real emotional connection with the addict because they understand what’s going on, what is happening to them and how much better life would be without their addiction.”

Other agencies working with addicts are less enthusiastic. A spokesman for Alcoholics Anonymous said they view alcoholism like an allergy: it is something an addict is born with and which must be dealt with on a daily basis, using the group’s 12-step plan.

The spokesman said: “The AA works. I joined 25 years ago and I’ve not had to take a drink since. When I arrived I was in a terrible state. I’d lost my family, my job, everything, because of the amount I drank.”

The spokesman said five people who had walked out of Alcoholics Anonymous this year had already drunk themselves to death, and that the group had taught him his alcoholism was something modern medicine could not cure.

“It’s something I can only control through the focus the AA gives me,” he said.

Griffin’s ideas are based on Project Match, a study of the US marines who returned from Vietnam hooked on heroin. The American authorities were terrified the highly trained addicts would be unable to fit back into society, but most of them experienced few problems. Griffin argues that that was because their natural human needs were being met by girlfriends and jobs at home.

“Using these techniques we can repair post-traumatic stress disorder in one or two counselling sessions,” Griffin added.

The Scottish Training on Drugs and Alcohol Association is sending representatives to Griffin’s Edinburgh seminar. They think his ideas are close to their own view of drugs and drug addiction.

Spokeswoman Petra Max well said: “We think addictions cannot be separated from the social conditions an addict lives in. For most young people drugs are a form of escapism, and that implies they think there is something they believe they need to escape from.”

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Expert: ‘drug addiction no worse than hunger pangs’
By Peter John Meiklem
03 October 2004

Link
 
“It’s easy to give up an addiction,” he said, “Ninety per cent of the discomfort is caused by our minds, and when you strip all that away, all you’re left with is a feeling no worse than a hunger pang.”

I am a big proponent of personal willpower in the fight against addiction but the suggestion that the anxiety, muscle aches, diarrhea, flu like symptoms, dilated pupils, runny nose and abdominal pain associated with opiate withdrawal are mere figments of the mind and are not physiological is grossly incorrect.

Many patients have unknowingly become addicted to opiates while being hospitalized and wrongly assumed that they have caught the flu as they suffer from these classic symptoms - not realizing they were in fact caused by the absence of the opiates their bodies had become accustomed to.

As horrible as it sounds, I think the "expert" Joseph Griffin would find himself quickly changing his mind if subjected to daily doses of IV heroin for weeks on end, then abruptly ending them.

SG
 
So, cravings are no worse than hunger pangs.

You try and stop eating will a cupboard full of food......
 
it really depends on the drug. marijuana "withdrawals" if any are mental, whereas opiate withdrawals are certainly not. This is just dumb.
 
I find hunger pangs very fucking persuasive. :) And, yes, they're quite physical.

Yes, it's all in your head, but so is everything else.

ebola
 
Drug addiction is all in the mind – and withdrawal pains are no worse than hunger pangs, a leading British expert will tell a conference in Edinburgh this week.

Hmm... let me think, fasting for 72 hours or withdrawing from heroin for even 6 hours.

I'd rather fast for 72 hours. No question.

This guy is a moron. And if I ever meet him, I'm going to beat his fucking ass for insinuating all the times I've gone through withdrawal have been no worse than hunger pangs.
 
Uhm, I think you're dumb for getting addicted to heroin in the first place.

I was "addicted" to pot for a while, and yea, I think that was pretty goddamn dumb...

It's really not that hard to overcome. You just gotta change your state of mind.

But of course, that might not be so easy if you have no clue how to do it.
 
Uhm, I think you're dumb for getting addicted to heroin in the first place.

I won't contest that.

I was "addicted" to pot for a while, and yea, I think that was pretty goddamn dumb...

It's really not that hard to overcome. You just gotta change your state of mind.

Last time I checked pot addicts didn't go into withdrawal characterized by chills, aches, cold sweats, tremors, vomitting, and overall extreme pain and anxiety.

And either way, your state of mind cannot entirely compensate for a chemical imbalance in your brain that plays a role in triggering the compulsive desire to use drugs.

Yes, you can train yourself to consciously avoid certain activities, but you can't train yourself to consciously tell your brain to stop sending certain signals. That's what this guy and many others overlook or fail to understand.
 
I tend to agree with the guy; last year I noticed weed had a negative impact on my memory and my ability to concentrate, so I decided to stop 'till the summer. Since I already had some quite mild psychological cravings, I used some NLP-techniques similar to the ones described in the article. After that, seeing marihuana or just thinking about sickened me. After my last exam, I just reversed the technique and started smoking again. Since my study is rather demanding at the moment, I've decided to quit again.

So.. if these techniques could be used more widely for treating addiction, I guess it would be a lot more effective than normal treatments.

Just my 2c.
 
kalt_kalt said:
it really depends on the drug. marijuana "withdrawals" if any are mental,

There are physical withdrawl symptoms from cannabis. most notably is severe stomach pain (to the point of not being able to eat) and headaches. they are mild compared to opiate withdrawls but they are definitely physical.



hmm i think this article is trying to say going without drugs for an addict is as difficult as it is for a non addict to go without food, yes? =D
 
"No worse than hunger pangs..."

Immediately, yes... hunger pangs and opiate withdrawls are at no comparrison. A couple days without food cannot be compared. However, think back to the movie "Alive" where people went weeks without food and were so desperate to eat, they ate some of the humans who had passed away from the extream cold. Perhaps the author of this article should clarify "hunger pangs" to hunger pangs under extream conditions. Just a thought. :\
 
Obviously the "expert" author has never gone through physical withdrawal symptoms of more potent and additcive drugs. I bet he'd change his mind after having some of those.

8)
 
addiction is a PERSONALITY trait.

Its curable sure but its a whole mental process cos some people are just the kind to get addicdtd to anything in life. Thre sure is a way out f it but its not as ez as Dr Phil dude suggests
 
>>And either way, your state of mind cannot entirely compensate for a chemical imbalance in your brain that plays a role in triggering the compulsive desire to use drugs.>>

Are these different things?

ebola
 
mushman1 said:
do you have withdrawal symptons from hunger pains...

Actually, the hunger pangs ARE the withdrawal symptoms...withdrawal from food, that is.

I agree with this article completely, and I think some of you who are calling this guy a moron don't really get what he's saying.

I think the title of the article is unfortunate, however, because it makes it seem as if he is belitelling drug addiction by comparing it to hunger. I don't think that was his intention at all. People who have gone for food for days or weeks will do almost anything to get some, which isn't that much different from the behavior of a drug addict.

But the main point of the article has nothing to do with the title, it has to do with the fact that people use drugs in order to fulfill some perceived need, whether it be an emotional need (desire to feel happy, contented, etc), a social need (fitting in, reducing inhibitions) or a spiritual need. And if the drug use becomes problematic, an alternate means satisfying the need that motivated the drug use must be found, otherwise the addict will keep returning to drug use as the solution.

Many addicts relapse after the period of physical withdrawel is long over, plus many drugs which are considered to be highly addictive (ex. cocaine) don't even have any withdrawal symptoms. So drug addiction is far more complex than simply a set of withdrawal symptoms, and relate, as the author correctly suggested, to some unfulfilled need(s) on the part of the addict that drugs are being used to fill.
 
^ Word, The article is very selective in its use of quotes etc (are we surprised its in a paper) I agree he has broken rapport with the audience (or the journalist has intentionally done so to raise interest) but it sounds like he is using a NLP/hypnotherapy approach which is proven effective in the treatment of substance use.
 
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