Stimulant RC researchers, join forces with me on this...?

[MDPVagrant]

(Adrenochrome) + further notes on approach

I actually agree with you, Adrenochrome... It would be nice to see some innovative medical approaches to addiction (and I don't mean another "cocaine vaccine"... please).

The main problem in this instance is that I want to be able to actually apply this stuff personally, not just discuss it theoretically. Unfortunately, the former would require collaboration in a laboratory or research hospital setting... Bluelight.ru just won't cut the mustard.

P.S. For what it's worth, although the approach I chose for the moment is not medical, it is as utterly untraditional as a non-medical approach could possibly get. If I brought my current thoughts (and written work I'm in the process of developing) to an NA meeting, I believe I'd be stoned to death immediately, and my dead body tossed into a ditch somewhere nearby the meeting hall.

If I ever release my material, it's going to make NA world services consider hiring Jack Trimpey as a defense consultant . Fortunately, his methodology is primitive, still insists on abstinence (yawn) and IMO is ultimately inapplicable to the majority of addicts, who are too lazy, unmotivated (me, too!), not "rational" about addiction (is anyone?) and will end up choosing NA or just continuing to binge until they die.

My goal is to ENABLE stimulant addicts to use as much and as often as they like, should they choose to do so. The trouble is, an addict can neither choose to do so, nor choose to refrain; their choices are being made for them by the drug and its psychobiological* demands. Or so my philosophy goes... the devil's in the methodology.

*Note I didn't use the term "Biopsychosocial." Does anyone REALLY believe (except maybe sociologists looking for work in the addiction field) that taking away the "Biopsycho" part would leave anything there worth mentioning?

 

[hussness]

Wait...So NA will feel threatened because your method of beating addiction doesn't work in the majority of cases?

 

[MDPVagrant]

My goals vs. NA's goals

Wait...So NA will feel threatened because your method of beating addiction doesn't work in the majority of cases?

No, because my main goal is almost diametrically opposed to theirs.

* My goal is to take control from the drug and return it to the user, so they can decide what to do. Whether to use or to stop, it would be up to them. My (methods will) freely allows the user to keep using if they wish, as long as it's them controlling things and not the drug.

* Theirs is to tell the user to surrender all hope they could ever have any control over drugs {just dandy if someone happens to relapse, eh?} , have them admit total powerlessness/helplessness, and then decide they're going to turn control of their life to an imaginary higher power. Just ask them... "you can even use a doorknob for your HP!". Then they get to pray to this doorknob, and ask the doorknob for help in staying clean. 8(

The only 'advantage' ATM is that they have a methodology (the 12 steps & various writings/experience reports), while I'm still working on one. At least mine wasn't written by a couple of end-stage skid-road drunks back in the 30s who had just got religion from a cultish group*.

Oh yeah, and NA's got a social support system, which most people have anyway somewhere else... if not, mine's not gonna offer one, but will probably make some suggestions if people are looking.

P.S. Pretty sure mine would work at least as well as theirs* ("if you work it") because theirs has less than 2% success rate, possibly a lifetime success rate of 0%. Not hard to beat, no problem at all to at least equal...

*Refers to AA

Tentative/Codename of my program: Regain
Project name: The Regain Project

 

[bluecloudsky4]

The scientific world has long considered dopamine to be the 'reward' chemical of the brain, and assumed dopamine was the end all and be all of any pleasure derived from behaviour with hedonic benefits. This opinion is changing however, and dopamine is now coming to recognition as a neurotransmitter involved in the attainment of pleasure, and not simply the end product of pleasure. Dopamine is coming to light as more of the 'vehicle' for pleasure and 'meaning" than the destination per se.

For example, an overflow of excess dopamine into the frontal lobes/regions of the human brain (broadly speaking) will often result in the emergence of compulsive, repititious behaviours ("punding'). Whether drug induced or related to an OCD-spectrum disorder, such behaviours are identical in behavioral symptomology and represent an exaggerated image of dopamine's influence in this area of the brain. The same degree of dopamine flooding the nucleus accumbens may not have any behavioral manifestations, and is instead an experience of pure, objective pleasure. Unless this system has been over-ridden with psychoactives, pleasure resulting from stimulation of the nucleus accumbens will only be experienced when the flow of dopamine to the frontal regions of the brain have adequately motivated behavior satisfying an individual need. (Operating under the assumption of an average, adult brain free from major dysfuntion.) This is why 'dirty' drugs (and clean alike) will certainly cause pleasure, but cause other behavior seemingly unrelated. The brain is complex, and dopamine is one of the great drivers of the human species. That is why, one must be careful to remember that neurotransmitters have activities that as humans we may never fully understand, and that just because a neurotransmitters serves a particular function/achieves an objective function (the subjective feeling of "pleasure" or "motivation" in dopamines case, broadly speaking) in one part of the brain, its role in the numerous other areas is not neccisarily the same. Dopamine is perhaps the most studied (serotonin likes to compete, and was in vogue in the 90's and turn of the millennium) neurotransmitter and certainly is fascinating. As far as I know, it's the one I just can't get enough of....but then again, isn't that it's purpose?