ayjay
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jul 9, 2003
- Messages
- 1,724
no definitive answers
It's a bit risky to talk about "definitive" answers to understanding and changing behaviour. If it was that simple - noone would be 'addicted' to anything. Using behaviourist theory is worth a try, but it's no magic bullet. Using negative imagery to break a habit is OK - but it is also lying to yourself to some extent. If the behaviour was purely negative, you wouldn't have become habituated in the first place.
I saw a presentation by a UK researcher (Leeds Uni - can't remember his name right now... *grrr* damn memory!!!) at the Harm Reduction conference in Melbourne a coupla years ago about needle fixation. Basically, his thesis was that injection was chosen for 3 main reasons - efficiency, rush, ritual - with fixation being a real but probably minor component. He described fixation as being characterised by injection of inert substances (like water), excessive jacking/flushing, sexual associations (either associating injecting with having sex, or perceiving the act of injecting as inherently sexual), and scoring high on tools for measuring obsessive/compulsive behaviour. Or to put it another way - there are good reasons for injecting without there being a "fixation" per se.
You could apply all the above to smoking meth, compared to snorting or bombing. Smoking is more efficient, with a more intense come-on, and may definitely involve some ritual!! These factors alone are sufficient to reinforce smoking as the preferred route of administration of meth. But of course there is also the possibility of fixation as well...
So yeah - ciggies, heroin, crystal - the way you take your drugs is an important part of the behaviour. This is why nicotine patches/gum are useless for SLM, why some people on methadone or bupe choose to inject it, why some people would rather not take drugs if they can't take them in their preferred way.
Getting back to the original question - what makes smoking meth (or ciggies for that matter) even more reinforcing (more likely to be repeated) is the shear amount of repetition. If one bowl put you right for the night, it would be a lot less habit forming...
Anyway - I could go on all day - prolly should get back to work
It's a bit risky to talk about "definitive" answers to understanding and changing behaviour. If it was that simple - noone would be 'addicted' to anything. Using behaviourist theory is worth a try, but it's no magic bullet. Using negative imagery to break a habit is OK - but it is also lying to yourself to some extent. If the behaviour was purely negative, you wouldn't have become habituated in the first place.
I saw a presentation by a UK researcher (Leeds Uni - can't remember his name right now... *grrr* damn memory!!!) at the Harm Reduction conference in Melbourne a coupla years ago about needle fixation. Basically, his thesis was that injection was chosen for 3 main reasons - efficiency, rush, ritual - with fixation being a real but probably minor component. He described fixation as being characterised by injection of inert substances (like water), excessive jacking/flushing, sexual associations (either associating injecting with having sex, or perceiving the act of injecting as inherently sexual), and scoring high on tools for measuring obsessive/compulsive behaviour. Or to put it another way - there are good reasons for injecting without there being a "fixation" per se.
You could apply all the above to smoking meth, compared to snorting or bombing. Smoking is more efficient, with a more intense come-on, and may definitely involve some ritual!! These factors alone are sufficient to reinforce smoking as the preferred route of administration of meth. But of course there is also the possibility of fixation as well...
So yeah - ciggies, heroin, crystal - the way you take your drugs is an important part of the behaviour. This is why nicotine patches/gum are useless for SLM, why some people on methadone or bupe choose to inject it, why some people would rather not take drugs if they can't take them in their preferred way.
Getting back to the original question - what makes smoking meth (or ciggies for that matter) even more reinforcing (more likely to be repeated) is the shear amount of repetition. If one bowl put you right for the night, it would be a lot less habit forming...
Anyway - I could go on all day - prolly should get back to work