Getting past the learned instincts to use drugs

[trocious]

Drugs are most rewarding to the brain. When it is hungry, lonely, tired, i.e. there is a need for a basic need, the brain stops consulting with its executive functioning and resorts to using the fight or flight circuit. Unfortunately as drug addicts, we have learned that drugs are most rewarding, and we begin looking for them. When we're hungry or angry or lonely or tired, our brain goes back to the primal brain to fulfill these needs with the behavior associated with those rewards. But drugs seem to be the most important thing to our brain, especially during times of stress or the aforementioned feelings.

How do you overcome that instant gratification part of your mind? Meditation maybe.. for me I notice if I breathe deep and relax and remind myself that searching desperately for drugs is not rewarding because the drugs are the only reward in and of themselves and compared to my actual needs is completely a waste of time.

 

[spork]

Meditation is an option. You should look into mindfulness. We have a thread about it here.

It takes practice, but I think after a while you might find that instead of having drugs as a reward being in the present is its own reward. This might be much more gratifying to you than worrying about where your next dose is going to come from and the effects of mindfulness seem to build up in me and last longer than drugs do.

 

[herbavore]

I second the use of mindfulness. When you have a craving you can stop and pay full attention to the feeling you are having (i.e. I am bored or I feel inadequate, etc.) Then you can recognize in the moment that in fact what needs to happen is not instant gratification, or feeling better, but fully exploring feeling bad. It may seem counter-intuitive but that constant distraction from what you are actually feeling robs you of your power to change. When you feel bored for instance, it can be a good time to look at your relationship with goals. Do you have any? Do you work towards them? Or do you just need to fill every moment as it comes and then feel empty and disconnected from your life in general?