Sorry it really long but pretty damn informative about addiction.. also not proof read yet.. maybe in a little bit,
Hey Keepit chill, Congratulations on getting clean and staying clean for three years, that's an amazing accomplishment!! Also, it sounds as if you have put your life back together and you seem to be doing well. Well chill, I think its safe to say that for you the alcohol experiment failed. I myself, as well as countless numbers of my friends, who have had addictions ranging all over the spectrum have tried and failed at being able to drink alcohol. Having gotten clean off our drugs of choice and maintained sobriety for varying periods of time, many of us addicts, decided that, hey we have been clean for this long and have never had a problem with alcohol or maybe I used to get drunk once and a while but that was buy choice and now that I have learned my lesson from my DOC addiction I will just take it easy on the alcohol. There are two general ways in which returning to use alcohol usually fail.
The first way is the way they talk about in NA as well as rehab facilities... That you can't use drugs in any form without it eventually leading you back to your drug of choice. although the saying from the white book that states something like if we use drugs in any form we release our addiction all over again does not apply to everyone with regard to every drug, it seems to apply to allot of people with allot of drugs and certainly seems to apply to you with alcohol.
Unfortunately, addiction is permanent and that is real. As you stated DXM is a dissociative but it is also a euphoriant (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphoriant). Because it is a euphoriant, it must cause a dopamine release when taken. People may become addicted to any chemical or action that causes a dopamine release You have taken enough, to experience so many substantial releases, that the limbic system in your brain, a system that both releases dopamine and drives a person to do actions it has logged as causing a dopamine release, has logged you taking this cough syrup, as something it feels is so important because of some combination of the size and frequency of the releases you triggered with the DXM, that it now regards taking that chemical as something necessary for your life or for life to continue. As it does with all actions that achieve substantial dopamine releases it takes a sensory snap shot of what is happening when the release was achieved. it does this, so that it may instantly recognize that the possibility to achieve this important thing is near. Everything in this sensory snapshots is associated with your abuse of DXM and its resultant dopamine rushes is recorded, everything you see smell, hear, and touch, is remembered and these become your Triggers for relapse.. and when it recognizes one of them in the future it will attempt to manipulate you with any or all of its powers , including craving, emotions and stimulated memories, To perform the action associated with the trigger. I even believe that if there is a great enough trigger it will just take control right away from the frontal lobe and perform the actions necessary to accomplish the action it desires, in your case DMX use.
You may say this is a terrible system. You would have to take into account that, without artificial chemical stimulation, the limbic system would only release dopamine when activities it was born having been hard wired to reward with a dopamine release, because those activities are actually necessary for yours and the species lives to continue. The limbic system controls your drive to eat (hunger), your drive to drink water (thirst), your sex drive, as well as your emotions, mood, pain and pleasure, your sleep cycle, energy level or fatigue, and the visceral responses to emotions. I
http://its.sdsu.edu/multimedia/mathison/limbic/index.htm. A visceral response is an impulse. An impulse is when you limbic system takes over control or seriously compels you to do something.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impulse_(psychology) An example of you limbic system taking over contol of you from the frontal lobe of your ceribrial cortex for a decent amount of time(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontal_lobe) would be a reaction to a flight or fight incident. In a fight of flight incident, the limbic system fires of adrenalin a chemical that allows you to have super human strength and endurance for a short while, and then it takes control of your actions. This commonly referred to as SEEING RED.. I dont know the guy hit me and then I just saw red and the next thing i know I was running down the street three blocks away.. or the guy hit me and the next thing I know I came two and the guy was bloody at my feet, I had beaten the crap out of him. Basically the LS recognized that there was a critical situation, where your life could be at stake and it was not going to wait around and get damaged while the frontal lobe (part of the brain for primary motor cortex, which controls voluntary movements of specific body parts as well as planning, in other words a huge part of the conscious brain, the part we control what we can control about us with) while the prefrontal lobe takes its sweet time, assess the situation, plans a good solution, enacts that solution. No the LS takes over and and gets things done quick.. depending on what is chosen I flight or a fight the limbic system doesn't wait around to plan it just goes all out in one of those ways and hands control back over to the frontal lobe when it feels it is no longer in danger.
Lets look at some of the measures the limbic system uses to drive us to do things, in this case drugs, as we said the limbic system controls all those things and it will bring them all out to play to try and get you to use. Lets look at minor acute alcohol withdraw, aka the hang over.. you have a headache but nothing wrong with your head if you stayed hydrated (pain), often time people awake early even after a late night and cannot go back to sleep even thought they try (sleep wake cycle), often times when we have a hang over we are unable to get comfortable temperature wise as we are unusually hot in a cool room, sometimes so hot we are sweating (body temperature), vomit ,can be sometimes attributed to alc gastritis but most of the time when it goes away really y quick) (hunger or sensation in the stomach), having no energy or having to much ( energy level or fatigue), and we may feel agitated or depressed or cycle trough both sometimes experiencing emotions such as sadness (emotions and mood). So it is pretty clear that the Limbic system, when it wants something done will pull out all the stops in its bag of tricks.. for a long time I assumed that the hangover was the result of damages or inflammations caused directly buy the alcohol.. when in fact if you remain hydrated and don't drink often enough for the alcohol of that night to cause inflammation in the stomach then all your hangover symptoms are the result of the imbalanced altered brain chemistry due to the alcohol affect and the tools the limbic system employs to compel you to fix the problem and to drink more, withdraw is motivation to use.
Now lets look at addiction after the acute withdraws are done or Post-acute-withdrawal syndrome (PAWS)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-acute-withdrawal_syndrome. Symptoms of PAWS include mood swings resembling an effective disorder, anhedonia (the inability to feel pleasure from anything beyond use of the drug), insomnia, extreme drug craving and obsession, anxiety and panic attacks, depression, suicidal ideation and suicide and general cognitive impairment. ALL of the symptoms of this syndrome, also what an drug addict is driven to use buy once they have gotten over the hump of the acute withdraws are things that are directly controlled buy the unconsiouse limbic system of the brain. Mood swings makes sense because we know it regulates mood.. insomnia (we know it control's sleep and waking, and can also send us using dreams in witch NONE OF US EVER GETS TO USE OR IF WE DO IT TURNS OUT TO BE BUNK AND WE NEVER GET HIGH
), anhedonia (since it controls pleasure why not just stop that all together), cravings (it drives us to eat and drink with cravings so why not use as well) Obsession with drugs (yes it can even manipulate our thoughts.. another name for this is the monkey on my back, or the constant argument going on in an addicts head, or the chipmunks running around in an addicts head, or that we as addicts killed all but two brain cells and they are always arguing).. Yep you guessed it it is your brain arguing with your brain. It is Your unconscious limbic system sending thoughts that are pro drug use as well as ideas that it feels will get it that much closer to using (ever realize that you had taken three turns on your way home from work with out thinking about it and suddenly found yourself driving rite buy a place where you used to get your DOC.. Yep. damn limbic system. there you have the explanation for mr Chill#1 and Chill#2, that i'm sure you have listened to their nonsense, it probably being really loud when you had only been clean for a bit. As you progressed it probably got softer and softer until after these years you probably didn't even here it anymore. You probably said man I did it I pulled myself out of the trows of addiction pieced my life back together.. I GOT THIS, GLAD THAT'S OVER, THANK HEAVEN THAT'S OVER.. And maybe even, like so many of us have done, Now that that's over I NEED A BEER
..
Unfortunately, like so many of us have found, that was told to us all but we all had to find out for ourselves, that if we touch drugs in any form we CERTAINLY RISK releasing our addiction all over again.. and in this case you did. from personal experience as well as watching and talking to hundreds of others that developed a cocaine addiction and also tended to consume alcohol, for a long long long time it was for me and for almost everyone else that mixed the two drugs, utterly impossible to have any alcohol and not immediately fiend for cocaine even though it had been years since any cocaine was used. In other word like the cocaine was a very powerful trigger for us, triggering and awakening the limbic system witch immediately, in some cases starts up it nonsense, having not uttered it in years, starts it up and drives it full tilt with in a half of a beer... so anyway you walk into a bar after being three years clean off your drug of choice, feeling perfect.. happy, content, pleased with yourself... drink a ha;lf of a beer, and in the flash of a second, that beer triggers the limbic system (we can call the old lim syst my addiction) who had crawled into its cave and ceased to even whisper any more, in fact it had been so quiet that you may probably have assumed that it died, you killed it, or that it ran off and gave up.. that you had done so well that you were cured or maybe even never had anything in the first place.. I'm going to try drinking this isn't my DOC and look at me now, I cant even remember where I was I did so well.
You are absolutely right.. You against all odds made it and you will again. Unfortunately, since the addiction lives and is triggered buy you memory, It will be safely looked away in there once again once you get the limbic system to crawl back into it whole... But you will never again be able to use alcohol without triggering your addiction. I'm sorry but booze is no longer an option for you. If you are able to arrest this relapse you are in right now.. remember you relapse a long time before you ever use.. then you should have a pretty easy time of putting that damn life long addiction back into its cave and getting it to stop whispering once again.. at least until the next time something triggers it and it comes out in whatever mood it chooses.. sometimes chill sometimes crazy like you are feeling.. But I understand now that no matter what i try I cant kill it, I can beet it to a pile of dust that i used to think was dead but no matter what it puts itself back together and can even materialize in a fraction of a second and come out all guns firing if I see one of its red flags, one of those triggers it payed attention to and memorized in order of importance so many years ago.. like the red flag your addiction has right next to alcohol.
Relapses (even if you haven't used need to be arrested or you will spiral down into active addiction and they are not making the FACT up that you get so much worse than you ever were in no time at all. since you were so close to death before if you use again you will probably be knocking at that door in days or weeks. You have done wonderful, I would recommend that you use whatever technique you used to get and stay clean when you accomplished the initial miracle. If you don't arrest this you will use!!! They say that relapse is a process because it is.. The drive to use will get worse and worse, when they say that relapse is a spiral, it is but the spiral down starts and starts becoming bad way before you use.. think of how your mood, emotion, anxiety, and cravings are now.. It wont let up until you make it.. and if you use you tolerance will be right were it was ore worse, and the LS once it gets that first taste of DMX will go insane, that little bit of DMX, just a taste would so enpower your addiction or excite your limbic system that you would be really lucky if someone saved you before you died, as if you use at all you will loose all control in no time at all.. because the limbic system wants that dopamine, but it wont be able to get it because the phenomenon of increased tolerance will not give it to it.. but it doesn't care, as with it answering every question and questioning every answer with the simple demand USE NOW.. when a little taste doesn't do it for it anymore, it will say USE MORE.. but we may die.. USE MORE.. but we will die.. USE EVEN MORE.
addiction is incurable, above is how it works to the best of my knowledge, arrest your relapse, be aware that you can be triggered at any time, I would abstain from alcohol from now on.. use of another drug that was consumed with your drug of choice is not always a trigger but it is very common.. If I were you I would hang up the drugs, all of them, for good, and enjoy your life..
MY VERY BEST WISHES
