Addiction
I have had the opportunity this summer to teach a class on addiction at two Education Conferences, and I'd like to share with you a brief nutshell of what I taught.
When does substance abuse become addiction? When it causes bio-psycho-social damage, and the person continues to use despite increasing negative consequences. In short, a person would rather risk death than give up their substance use or behavior. Their "drug of choice" has become the number one survival need, and all other meaning in life disappears in pursuit of the drug or behavior that makes them feel, no longer euphoric, but as close to normal as they can get.
This is because of the limbic system and the dopamine pleasure system. The limbic system, or mid brain, has a simple job: keep you alive and avoid pain/seek pleasure. Its not the mid brain's job to be rational or help reach long term goals, its job is to eat, defend, reproduce, and avoid pain. In a person who has an over reactive limbic system, meaning they have a hard time regulating or controlling their emotions and live in fear, stress, sadness, or anger most of every day, drugs and behaviors that create a euphoric feeling will go straight to the mid brain, and dopamine will be released in huge amounts to say "remember this for survival, its important!" (even though alcohol, pornography, and even sugar do not deserve that assignment of survival value). The brain becomes hijacked, and no amount of prefrontal cortex power will stop the person's midbrain from doing its job to keep you alive.
So addiction is a disease of choice, and the more the person uses drugs or addictive behaviors to cope, the more bio-psycho-social damage occurs, and the harder to recover. But recover they can! The brain can change, and the spirit or others can tell it what to do even if your mid brain is hijacked, it just takes external help, admission of the problem, and acceptance of pain to overcome it. No simple task. So lets avoid addiction in the first place, right?
Food Addiction
So when does eating become addiction instead of sustenance? A problem well stated is a problem half solved! And I'm afraid most people in the USA today are food addicts without even realizing it. The hallmark of addiction--the addict simply can't see there is a problem because their brains are just trying to survive. One thing I have tried to caution my readers on is sugar intake, and Dr. Lustig does a great job of explaining why it is addictive and harmful.
What is sugar? Sugar is a combination of three molecules. These three molecules are essential to feeding animals, they are not essential to feeding us. These 3 molecules are glucose, fructose, and galactose. They will appear in food as combinations of anyone of one of those three put together.
The combination of glucose and fructose is called sucrose, that's cane sugar beet sugar, the [white] stuff you put in coffee. When you combine glucose with galactose you get lactose or milk sugar and that is of course what you find in dairy products. Now fructose is the sweet molecule, High Fructose Corn Syrup, agave, maple syrup, or honey, [also called "fruit sugar"]. These are our caloric sweeteners and they all have one molecule of glucose and one molecule of fructose.
So different kinds of sugar will be found in different kinds of food. The question is what detriments could any of these do? Glucose is the energy of life. Every living cell burns glucose for energy. Glucose is so important if you don't consume it your body makes it. Fructose is the molecule we seek, it's the molecule that makes sugar pleasurable and addictive. Turns out there is no biochemical reaction in the body that requires it, it is completely vestigial, and when consumed in excess it causes cellular metabolic human damage and death. In fact, fructose is metabolized in the liver exactly the same way as alcohol, and that is why children today are getting the diseases of alcohol without the alcohol because we just gave them a substitute.
Robert M Lustig explaining "What is Sugar" on the Tech Insider Website April 12 2017
When does substance abuse become addiction? When it causes bio-psycho-social damage, and the person continues to use despite increasing negative consequences. In short, a person would rather risk death than give up their substance use or behavior. Their "drug of choice" has become the number one survival need, and all other meaning in life disappears in pursuit of the drug or behavior that makes them feel, no longer euphoric, but as close to normal as they can get.
This is because of the limbic system and the dopamine pleasure system. The limbic system, or mid brain, has a simple job: keep you alive and avoid pain/seek pleasure. Its not the mid brain's job to be rational or help reach long term goals, its job is to eat, defend, reproduce, and avoid pain. In a person who has an over reactive limbic system, meaning they have a hard time regulating or controlling their emotions and live in fear, stress, sadness, or anger most of every day, drugs and behaviors that create a euphoric feeling will go straight to the mid brain, and dopamine will be released in huge amounts to say "remember this for survival, its important!" (even though alcohol, pornography, and even sugar do not deserve that assignment of survival value). The brain becomes hijacked, and no amount of prefrontal cortex power will stop the person's midbrain from doing its job to keep you alive.
So addiction is a disease of choice, and the more the person uses drugs or addictive behaviors to cope, the more bio-psycho-social damage occurs, and the harder to recover. But recover they can! The brain can change, and the spirit or others can tell it what to do even if your mid brain is hijacked, it just takes external help, admission of the problem, and acceptance of pain to overcome it. No simple task. So lets avoid addiction in the first place, right?
Food Addiction
So when does eating become addiction instead of sustenance? A problem well stated is a problem half solved! And I'm afraid most people in the USA today are food addicts without even realizing it. The hallmark of addiction--the addict simply can't see there is a problem because their brains are just trying to survive. One thing I have tried to caution my readers on is sugar intake, and Dr. Lustig does a great job of explaining why it is addictive and harmful.
What is sugar? Sugar is a combination of three molecules. These three molecules are essential to feeding animals, they are not essential to feeding us. These 3 molecules are glucose, fructose, and galactose. They will appear in food as combinations of anyone of one of those three put together.
The combination of glucose and fructose is called sucrose, that's cane sugar beet sugar, the [white] stuff you put in coffee. When you combine glucose with galactose you get lactose or milk sugar and that is of course what you find in dairy products. Now fructose is the sweet molecule, High Fructose Corn Syrup, agave, maple syrup, or honey, [also called "fruit sugar"]. These are our caloric sweeteners and they all have one molecule of glucose and one molecule of fructose.
So different kinds of sugar will be found in different kinds of food. The question is what detriments could any of these do? Glucose is the energy of life. Every living cell burns glucose for energy. Glucose is so important if you don't consume it your body makes it. Fructose is the molecule we seek, it's the molecule that makes sugar pleasurable and addictive. Turns out there is no biochemical reaction in the body that requires it, it is completely vestigial, and when consumed in excess it causes cellular metabolic human damage and death. In fact, fructose is metabolized in the liver exactly the same way as alcohol, and that is why children today are getting the diseases of alcohol without the alcohol because we just gave them a substitute.
Robert M Lustig explaining "What is Sugar" on the Tech Insider Website April 12 2017
So if you have a hard time staying away from anything with fructose in it, you eat/drink compulsively despite negative consequences (overweight, feel sick/tired/constipated) its time to look in the mirror. You may be a food addict!
