Brain-Circuitry and Drug Addiction
The study of the day: long-term drug use rewires circuitry in the brain so that any and all positive rewards pale in comparison to more of the drug of choice. This explains why the man who has been told by his wife that he can only come home when he gets clean just can’t stay away from using. It explains why the woman who is under threat of losing her children still can’t leave the pills alone.
Rita Goldstein was a part of the study at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. She says, “This altered sensitivity to reward may help explain why some drug-addicted individuals are unable to modify their drug-taking behavior, even in the face of well-understood negative consequences and/or positive incentives for behavioral change.”
She also said, “Individuals with such blunted neural and behavioral sensitivity to rewards may have a particularly difficult time responding to abstract incentives designed to motivate behavioral changes — especially when outside of a structured treatment environment or when rewards are not readily available or clearly contingent on behavior.”
Huh?
Basically, unless there is an immediate gratification for staying clean with a big payoff that they can hold in their hot little hands, it’s hard to convince those who have been using drugs for the long-term to squash the impulse to get loaded.
The good news is that this is while someone is in the thick of addiction. No studies have been done to see how behavior changes once the person has detoxed off of their drug of choice, especially when there is a substitution in place. How much easier would it be to stay clean when you’re taking an opiate blocker that stays in your system for up to three days? One thing is sure: your chances of staying clean improve greatly when you’re taking Suboxone, an opiate replacement and blocker in one.
For more information on this study and others, check out DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory.
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