The Psychology of Addiction

 There is no denying that the lethal hold of drugs and other addictions has stripped our society of its life and delayed the contribution of our young to form a healthy community. However, it is not the drugs, but it is the root cause of addiction; left uncared for, we set the course for behavioral disorders. The absence of tribal living and preference for an individualistic lifestyle is causing undue stress on new parents, and the parents are passing this stress to their children via multiple channels, thus creating the neural pathways for future addiction.

Addiction is not only to drugs but to gambling, work, sex, and overeating, among many other behaviors that are unnatural to our bodies as they hijack and trick our brain chemistry with false rewards. A preoccupation with compulsive engagement and impaired control over the behavior can persist regardless of the evidence of the harm it presents. One can feel an intense craving for the drug or activity that is usually accompanied by dissatisfaction when one is not satisfied immediately. Whether it is a drug-related addiction or a non-drug behavior, both share the same brain electro-chemistry. Addiction is not due to a specific brain chemistry or lack of it. It is a manifestation of human behavior and inter-relationships between people. Addiction is a psychological response to the environment people grow up in during their early childhood. It can create dangerous behavioral patterns that are hard to escape, yet not impossible if intervention is not delayed.

 Many people get addicted to drugs and unhealthy behaviors. Yet, by observing the 12-step meetings, for example, we notice that people with an addiction can recover from the worst of drugs and behaviors. What causes addiction is a more straightforward matter of heavy stress and illogical circumstances, job demands, or certain conditions to which we are subjected. During the Vietnam War, U.S. military personnel experienced something different from what they learned at home. The lack of meaning in their job and the detriment to human life they caused spiraled them into a whirlwind of mental breakdowns and abusive addictions. It was not the drugs that caused the addiction but the underlying vulnerability of the situation they were in. Some tend to fall prey to addiction, and some don’t. But the combination of this susceptibility, the availability of drugs, and massive stress is a hellish mix to avoid.

Addiction needs to be examined from many different angles. It is not just one trait over another, but a symphony of complex psychological behaviors and mis-interactions with our environment. It has the features of an illness, but it is not simply so. For example, the addictive “feel good” effect of drugs resonates in a different part of the brain than does dependence. Addiction-like behavior is activated when a drug like morphine is injected into the reward circuits of a rat’s brain, but there is no dependence and no withdrawal. Some people become addicted, and some do not when they use opiates, cocaine, or nicotine. A small minority of people are at risk when exposed to drugs, and they cannot break free easily. It is not the drug that causes this reaction, but the individual’s brain circuitry that was rewired during early childhood that made them susceptible to using drugs and the immediate stressful environment they are in that pushed the button into the abyss.

Bruce Alexander’s Rat Park experiment showed that rats did not go after the morphine-sweetened water when they had free access to the wild, but they did reach for it 20 times more when held in captivity and under stressful environments. The Vietnam veterans study showed similar results; because of heavy stress, the conditions became ripe for addiction to drugs.

Drugs do not make a person addicted, nor does food make one a compulsive eater. This is where several factors need to coincide to make one an addict: the physical and psychological traits of the person wired during childhood, the availability of the drugs, and the undue stressful environment.

There is a symbiotic relationship between drugs and the way the brain functions. When an individual uses cocaine, at first, he is elated; the dopamine receptors get loaded, and then they turn off. When the number of dopamine receptors is reduced, the user will need to use more of the drug to reach the same “good feeling.” When the user stops, there will be withdrawal as there are not enough receptors to regulate the person to a balanced and positive mental state. When tolerance is pushed to create the need for more of the substance, addiction sets in. In a few months after stopping the drugs, the receptors and the brain chemistry will adjust and return to normal during the process of recovery. A good diet, exercise, and proper sleep will help the person return to everyday life. It is only a matter of brain economics; the body regulates its functions and organs to conserve energy and balance resources and consumption. We sometimes tip the scales too far and cause harm in doing so.

To better understand how these neurotransmitters dance with the external stimulus, let us dive deeper into the brain. Dopamine works in the synaptic space, which is also called cleft. A synapse converges between two cells, allowing chemically transmitted messengers to hop from one neuron or nerve cell to another. Dopamine floats across the synaptic space to attach to receptors of one neuron to another. Once the message is carried out, the molecule returns to the synaptic cleft. This is where the reuptake happens. The more of the reuptake action, the less active the neurotransmitter remains between the neurons. While cocaine is a reuptake inhibitor, it is not a selective inhibitor; it ends up inhibiting other neurotransmitters like serotonin. The pharmaceutical drug Prozac is a serotonin-selective inhibitor that is used for the treatment of some depression cases. Nicotine directly releases dopamine from cells into the synaptic space. Crystal meth does both with intensity; it directly releases dopamine from the cells and blocks its reuptake, creating a pool of this neurotransmitter within our brain to process. While eating can boost the dopamine level up to 50%, sexual arousal pushes the 100%-mark, cocaine triples dopamine levels, and crystal meth goes for 1200%.

Positive expectation can turn on the molecules of emotion, the endorphins. The opioid receptors regulate when one is sad with grief or excited about a future event. They can be less or more active according to personal emotion and anticipation. Opiate receptors exist throughout the body, playing a different role in each organ. They can reduce secretions in the mouth, slow down muscle contractions in the gut, act as tranquilizers in the nervous system, and so on.

The neurotransmitters’ function in the body allows humans to feel, sense, and reflect more than animals, but certain drugs can take advantage of these functions. We noticed that narcotic drugs take a similar path of the emotional sensations to the brain chemistry and thus trigger the same receptors by over-activating and then diminishing them. The activation of opiate receptors contributes to marijuana use as it makes it pleasurable to use. This is the entry point for narcotic substances to our brains in a chemical sense. If our brain chemistry reflects happiness, we are less likely to use such drugs. Sometimes, brain chemistry is ideal for us to take pleasure from the use of drugs. The brain can create the hunger and cravings of all substance-dependent addicts. Then, the person with addiction finds a dark refuge when he first uses it until he is hooked, addicted, and depleted. Dopamine activity increases even before the drug is taken. Preparing it, even seeing the paraphernalia, can push the psychological rush to excitement.

The brain might not have had a chance to mature before it had already formed the neural connections and chemistry that lead one to the path of addiction later in life. The requirement of a child's parents far exceeds our current understanding. Maté elaborated in his book, In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts, that infants develop with the influence of their parents as they read their emotional signals and react to them. They are affected by the tone of voice, the tension in the arms, the joyful or angry face, and the size of the pupil! In essence, the parents program their children’s brains by how they feel when caring for them. Such programming becomes the basis of the child’s reaction and brain development. As per Donald Hebb, the cells that fire together wire together. Stressed-out or depressed parents can inadvertently encode negative emotional patterns in their children’s brains that prep them for an addiction neural pathway. An abnormal or impoverished rearing environment can considerably decrease the number of synapses, thus retarding brain growth. The brain regulates our mood, emotional self-control, and our social behavior. Brain growth deficits will reduce children's ability to be logical and reasonable. They tend to lose the ability to determine what is good for them and how to inhibit inappropriate and self-destructive behavior. This is easy to discern in hard-core addicts and others with behavioral disorders as a stamp of adversity on their development. Unaware to the parent or child, the predisposition to addiction was being programmed in the early years of development when stressful conditions accompanied nurturing.

An early article by the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University mentions that proliferation, pruning, and simple neural connections form first. More complex circuits follow this. Opposite to Maté, the article cites that the timing of forming circuits is genetic, yet it states that early experiences determine the strength of the circuits, strong or weak. This refers to synaptic growth. When children reach out for interaction through babbling or other gestures, they expect adults to respond. If the responses are unreliable or inappropriate, the baby’s brain architecture does not form as expected, leading to behavioral disorders. When children experience persistent stress from their parents or environment, they will have underdeveloped neural connections important for learning and behavior.

While neurons cannot be increased in number after the developmental stage, synaptic connections can be. A child in a stressful environment whose brain did not make a certain number of synaptic connections during the early years can increase the number of these connections by learning. Even though learning is negatively affected by the growth of the subject child, it becomes essential to help the child overcome these learning disabilities to grow more synapses and complete the brain maturity cycle. So, if the perfect environment was not possible during the early stage, it can be compensated for in later years by continuing learning.

When Maté mentions that people who became addicted to drugs had been influenced in early childhood, he does not believe this goes as far as our genetics might imprint. He quotes Jeffery Schwartz: “Our DNA is simply too paltry to spell out the wiring diagram for the human brain.” Furthermore, he quotes the biologist Bruce Lipton: “The cell’s operations are primarily molded by its interaction with the environment, not by its genetic code.” The growing science of epigenetics dictates that due to life events and interactions, chemical changes attach to DNA and then direct these gene activities. Gene expression from prenatal, postnatal, and adult interaction with the environment profoundly affects our behavior, sometimes manifested in desires and needs.

Professor Yvette Glover of Imperial College London reported that the stress hormone cortisol was present in the mother’s amnionic fluid. A British study reported by the BBC found a correlation between cortisol levels in mothers and the precedence of ADHD in children, which, when combined with anxiety, sets the foundation of addiction. In both humans and, as shown by animal experiments, when the babies are subjected to their mother’s stress, they may develop a stress-control disturbance that can yield to addiction behavior disorder in later years. We know that the scarcity of dopamine receptors elevates the addiction risk, and the density of the receptors is first determined in utero. If the fetus is exposed to a high level of cortisol through the placenta, it will have a reduced density of dopamine receptors and an inclination for addiction.

Children today are at a greater risk of becoming obese as they are starved of nurturing adult relationships and are indirectly affected by the sedentary time they spend with TVs, computers, and phones. These electronics not only demand a seated and passive behavior, but they also take the place and role of the nurturing parent. This also sets the hunger stages of dopamine in later years. A female sex addict is not addicted to sex but to the rewards of dopamine and endorphins. By moving from one partner to another, the person with an addiction seeks the dopamine that is accompanied by the novel and new partner. The rewards of love are now obtained by sex instead. Addictions cannot replace what we need; they only fulfill temporary false needs, and hence, we cannot ever be satisfied by these addictions. The stress from the parents and the absence of a complementary support group created these pathways for addictions. A self-regulated person infers good judgment, logic, and mature morals in their actions. In contrast, the one with poor judgment and weak self-regulation depends on people’s acceptance and other external factors to create brain chemistry balance instead of self-regulating.

The child’s perception of being loved, seen, and understood is more important than how his parents nurture his upbringing. Parents cannot satisfy all their child’s needs. The absence of a tribal support system deprives the child of a balanced and wholesome brain. Furthermore, in most cases, relatives and grandparents are unavailable or nearby to provide the extra warmth of love and instill confidence in the parents and their children. The child’s perception of his world is only complete by the involvement of his wider circle of relatives and community. The breakdown of a tribal living system degraded raising children in the US to an individualistic effort that focuses on a higher level of privacy and a bit of self-centeredness, not only on the parents' side but on everyone around them who could be involved.

As people moved to cities and spread across the globe, they tried to stay together and bring their family members to live with them. Yet, this effort is being diluted, as people are now more occupied by their successes and less towards the next generation. A wholesome family, community, and environment are vital to caring for the parents and their infants. Few are as prepared for parenthood as they are for their careers. It is not only the parent’s job to care for their young. The circle of support is needed to continue the parents’ livelihood, care for themselves, help raise and educate their children, maintain their health, and create a loving environment from which all community members can benefit. In their middle age, the parents are also tasked with caring for their own parents as they age and become more dependent on additional support. What are we setting ourselves up for when we fall in love and start a family yet desire privacy and time for ourselves? Without the proper support, the stress level of parents will mount beyond a standard threshold, pushing the limits of their cortisol levels and hence preparing their offspring for the pathway of drugs and behavioral addictions.

 Since we now know that the child is programmed by even his mother’s gaze and pupil size, it is essential to care for the mother and the father by creating a safety net of love, support, and attention from immediate family, neighbors, friends, and the community. The parents are not to blame for their rising cortisol if they are not collectively supported. No amount of meditation or careful planning will change that, but the support and help of others can play an essential part in raising our beloved next generation. It is known from the lives of the prophets that they were cared for by people other than their immediate parents. A few hundred years ago, generations collectively relied on each other and cared for the young people. The absence of parents did not negatively affect the child as it was cared for by others. This satisfied the elderly and gave them purpose and meaning in their lives as they played a vital part in the upbringing of the young. In some communities, wet nurses took part in feeding babies while royalty or not, went about their business. They breastfeed the child until it is of a certain age when the mother takes over, and then at another age, the father takes on different responsibilities towards enriching the child. Cox mentioned in her Psychology Today article that “for couples preparing for a family, I can’t stress enough that finding a good, solid, dependable group of people to gather around you will help you in the parenting jungle.” Humphries mentions that: “In Kenya, mothers carry their babies everywhere, and in traditional Chinese culture, the nurturing of the mother post-partum is seen as essential to the future health of both mother and child. Ingrained in Chinese culture, strict ‘rules’ are imposed for a month following childbirth, including an abundance of family assistance, nourishing meals, and more.”

 Just as the pathway to falling in love and creating a relationship is not recommended for recovering people with addiction as the process mimics the path to drug addiction, the clash of parents' responsibilities of work and everyday life with raising a newborn remains a complex undertaking that should not be handled alone. Cortisol in the parents wears their adrenals down and eventually compromises their thyroid function. It also influences and compromises the child’s brain chemistry and wires it for addiction. Then, drugs or behavioral disorders desperately push the dopamine receptors, resulting in the receptors' shrinking. In turn, this pushes the addiction traits to maintain the dopaminergic high.

In conclusion, it is essential to pair scientific and psychological research with the wisdom of past cultures when raising children. Creating guidelines for new parents, parents' families, and their communities is vital to help improve the outcomes of raising the next generation. Suppose we want to coexist safely and raise a new generation that does not seek satisfaction from drugs, sex, and overeating. In this case, we need to connect as a large family of immediate caring relatives, neighbors, and community members and participate in the children's life development. If missed, this can be corrected by making education and lifelong learning more accessible to adults, as this helps our brain to grow more synapses and thus repair damage from earlier years. Once we create an improved system for our life cycle of upbringing and learning, it will become easier for future generations to follow and avert insatiable desires and cravings in children from harmful substances and behavioral disorders.

References:

Cox, Stephanie. “It Takes a Village to Raise a Child.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 23 Nov. 2021, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/family-prep/202111/it-takes-village-raise-child.

Humphries, Jessica. “It Takes a Tribe to Raise a Child, so Why Are We so Isolated? Famlio - Helping Families Thrive.” Famlio, famlio - helping families thrive, 7 Oct. 2019, famlio.co/parenting/it-takes-a-tribe-to-raise-a-child-so-why-are-we-so-isolated/.

Inbrief: The Science of Early Childhood Development (2020) Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. Available at: https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/inbrief-science-of-ecd/ (Accessed: 21 April 2024).

Maté, Gabor. In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Vermilion London, 2018