The Global Conversation

Tag: addiciton

  • a QWERTY kind of life

    Change is difficult.  Unwanted change can be painful and challenging.  Recovery from addictions, hard or soft, is no exception.  Anyone who has consciously made the effort to rid their lives of a behavior they deem destructive or no longer useful can attest to this.  So why is it that when we come to the realization that we desire change it then becomes difficult to follow through?

    Personally, I have chosen recently to stop drinking coffee or any other caffeinated beverages.  It has been 18 days of complete abstinence for me, yet I know this territory very well.  I have quit before for longer periods of time.  The difference this time is, I have been seeking the support of others and remaining aware of my tendencies.

    Thoughts create our urges and cravings.  Sometimes the triggers are subtle, other times they are very predictable.  I have just about every Starbucks in the greater Orlando area mapped out in my head.  When I am driving, occasionally I will have the thought “hey, there is a Starbucks right around the corner.”  This is the moment of choice.  Do I react or do I create?  Do I give in and damage my self-esteem or do I acknowledge my own power and move on?   I have found the best way to choose the latter is to enroll others in my journey.

    The frontal lobe of the brain is the cognitive center, and its function is to separate out thoughts and filter them in the way we direct.  The midbrain is the impulsive, reactive center in the brain.  The midbrain sends its messages 7 times faster than the cognitive brain operates.  This is because the midbrain’s function is to preserve life.  When we practice cognitive behavior, we are much better prepared to handle the impulsiveness of the midbrain.  Increasing our awareness is a slow process that takes practice and willingness.

    So how do we direct the frontal lobe to make choices that support us in where we say we want to go?  This is the great challenge all of us face in life.  What are the voices in my head? How many of them are there? And which ones do I listen to?

    Life can be a lot like typing.  We can hunt and peck our way through, hoping we create a document worth reading before we die.  Or we can blindly stroke keys and end up with a mess of letters on a page that do not form any meaning at all.  Or, lastly, we can train ourselves to memorize where the keys are and which fingers to use to hit the keys and really create a work of art in a much shorter period of time, allowing for greater amounts of creation during our lifetime.

    The “qwerty” way of living life takes a little more upfront  work in the form of practicing healthy patterns of living so that we can start to direct our life with more focus and determination.  Have you noticed that the things in life you pay most attention to are the things that manifest in your reality?  Positive and negative, this is how life works.  God provides us with exactly what we place the majority of our intention on.

    This is why it is so important to make sure you are sending out the message that you want to experience and not place your energy on what you do not wish to experience.  Many of us tend to fall prey to the thinking that life is not on our side and that we are somehow at a disadvantage to others.  So long as we play out that belief, it will appear true.

    “The Universe is like a big Xerox machine.
    It simply produces multiple copies of your thoughts”
    Conversations with God, Book  1

    When we decide to make a change in our life, circumstances will present in the form of “are you sure?”  I have had many “are you sure” moments over the last 18 days of abstinence from caffeine.  From the wonderful smell of the coffee tray coming down the aisle of the airplane I was on and mercilessly stopping right next to me for what seemed like 5 minutes.  God, it smelled good!  But I had support, people who knew what I had called forth in my life.  And whether or not I didn’t take the coffee because I would have been embarrassed to admit I didn’t succeed or I simply chose not to, doesn’t matter.  I remained resolved in my quest.  One day at a time.  One craving at a time.  One “are you sure?” moment after the other.

    The moments when a craving hits or an opportunity presents itself to relapse into past behaviors and we choose to rise above and recreate ourselves in a new way, we reinforce our new pattern.  After doing this repeatedly, the new pattern becomes the norm and the “are you sure?” moments become less frequent.

    So I choose to embrace these “are you sure?” moments and recognize them for what they are.  They are the spiritual barbells of the universe, making us more powerful in our ability to create our lives in a more conscious way.

    What are your experiences with “are you sure?” moments?

    (Kevin McCormack, C.A.d ,is a certified addictions professional. He is a recovering addict with 26 years of sobriety. Kevin is a practicing auriculotherapist, life coach, and interventionist specializing in individual and family recovery and also co-facilitates spiritual recovery retreats for the CWG foundation with JR Westen.  The next retreat will be September 19 – 22nd in San Jose, California.  More information on retreats can be found here. You can visit his website for more information at www.Kevin-Spiritualmentor.com  To connect with Kevin, please email him at Kevin@TheGlobalConversation.com) 

  • Using the body to heal the mind
    in addiction treatment

    (This article was contributed by Guest Author Herby Bell, DC)

    Substance and behavior abuse have reached epidemic proportions in our country. This, coupled with the emotional repression and stress associated with living in our outside-in consumer culture, has produced America’s number 1 health challenge: Addiction.

    The cost of treatment, the repercussions on society and our family structures are devastating, not to mention the high number of ancillary deaths that are directly associated with the disease of addiction – from auto accidents to heart failure.

    It is a well-known statistic that only 25% of those who seek addiction treatment have successful results. In other words, 75%, or 3 out of 4, of the individuals who do seek treatment for addiction fail and fall back into the seemingly endless revolving door of relapse-remission-relapse from this destructive brain disorder. The strongest implication is that the culture that fosters addiction, begets addiction.

    In lieu of reinventing our culture, but in the spirit of re-visioning addiction treatment, it is time to try different approaches and combinations of approaches when it comes to addiction recovery.

    Addiction is a mind-body-spirit disorder, as spelled out by the mainstream, American Medical Association’s, American Society of Addiction Medicine (http://www.asam.org/for-the-public/definition-of-addiction). It stands to reason that its treatment should include mind, body and spiritual modalities as an integrated, comprehensive approach.

    The “target organ” for addiction is the brain (just as the pancreas is the target organ for diabetes) and specifically the meso-limbic or mid-brain. Historically, addiction treatment has focused upon healing the mind with brain treatment modalities like psychotherapy and drug therapy.

    Since 1935, and while there are many other approaches, Alcoholics Anonymous has been the mainstay for the “spiritual” piece in the equation.

    But in keeping with a more comprehensive approach, what about an integral modality that focuses attention on the physical body – mind-body-spirit? – equally, and as important as the mind and the spirit? Can the body contribute to healing the mind and the spirit?

    After all, the body is truly an extension of the mind–an actual projected map of the brain–with remarkable knowledge, wisdom and inherent healing and recuperative capabilities from head to toe. Our bodies are veritable learning domains. Ever had a “gut feeling?” In fact, most of the receptor sites for many neurotransmitters–the “well-being” brain chemicals–are in the gut and not in the brain proper.

    No wonder then, and who has not felt remarkably inspired and well, after exercising the body as it releases all of these inherent, feel-good chemicals? A neverending feedback loop from the brain to the body, and vice-versa, inform every fiber of our beings every moment we live.

    Intervening at the level of the body through techniques that deliberately remove interference from this pristine system is unfortunately just what the present-day addiction doctor is not ordering. Chiropractic care is just such an indicated and effective approach and often a missing link in the addiction treatment community. Chiropractic helps ensure that a clear, uninterrupted signal is getting from the brain to all of the body parts and back to the brain again. And people who undergo chiropractic care are taught that without good lifestyle habits, including flexibility, strength and cardiovascular exercise, good nutrition and a psychological/spiritual practice–chiropractic care is incomplete and will be less effective.

    Similarly, the same “missing piece” dynamic holds true for what’s missing in addiction treatment, and chiropractic care addresses the “body” piece of the mind-body-spirit equation effectively and seamlessly. Chiropractic is not a panacea but a time and cost-efficient, conservative, minimally invasive way to bridge this gap in addiction treatment.

    The idea of wedding mind and body approaches to healing is not a new one. For centuries and long before the first traces of modern science, healing arts practitioners from the mainstream to the esoteric alike have acknowledged that the way people felt in their minds could influence the way they responded in their bodies–and vice-versa.

    There is no separation of body and mind, and we are just coming to understand how profoundly and inextricably entwined these two parts of our being, along with spirit, interact in communion for our well-being.

    Including chiropractic care in a comprehensive addiction treatment protocol, especially in the first 90 days of treatment, is important for the following reasons:

    Providing human touch/compassion fostering neuroplasticity to help “re-write” dysfunctional brain circuitry

    Removes interference from normal nerve function

    Reduces anxiety and depression

    Better sleep patterns

    Decreases use of chemical pain relievers and psychiatric drugs

    Greater sense of well-being

    Increases energy levels

    Decreases stress levels

    Decreases joint and muscle pain

    A mind-body-spirit approach to addiction is synergistic in action.  In other words, the sum total is greater than its parts. As our health systems and institutions move from the compartmentalized, mechanistic approach of yesterday to the integrated, vitalistic, and holistic framework of today, let the mind-body-spirit approach of addiction medicine and treatment help blaze this new trail by incorporating in this endeavor the largest, drugless, hands-on healing profession in the world: chiropractic.

    (Dr. Herby Bell is owner and director of Recovery Health Care, an integrated approach to addiction treatment in Redwood City, California. For more information, please email: herbybell@me.com)