It’s our brain’s job to help us cope with stress gracefully. To do that, it needs to be fed optimally. An addicted brain is a starving brain! Starving brains cause us to feel depressed, suicidal, anxious, irritable, tired, hopeless and craving!
1/3
Reduce Relapse- Feed the Brain First!
thesoberworld.com/2018/08/01/reduce-relapse-feed-brain-first
It’s our brain’s job to help us cope with stress gracefully. To do that, it needs to be fed
optimally. An addicted brain is a starving brain! Starving brains cause us to feel
depressed, suicidal, anxious, irritable, tired, hopeless and craving! Starving brains won’t
let us go to sleep, and wake us up too early. Starving brains have trouble learning recovery
skills, trying new things and being social. A starving brain is a relapsing brain!
What do I mean by “a starving brain”? First of all, we know that the addictive process is
driven by depleted neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are brain chemicals which
mediate all our emotions, physical sensations, perceptions and skills. If our brain
chemicals are in balance, and our blood sugar is in balance, we are much more likely to be
in balance as well, and able to cope effectively with whatever stressors life brings our way.
However, if our neurotransmitters are depleted or out of balance with each other, and our
blood sugar is low because we missed a meal, we have grave difficulty accessing our
internal resources and mobilizing our coping strategies.
Some people are born with neurotransmitter imbalance, discussed by the article on the
GARS test in the March issue of The Sober World.
https://www.thesoberworld.com/2018/03/01/2083/ Reward Deficiency Syndrome,
which is accepted as the primary biochemical cause of addiction, claims that differences in
the genes in the pathway that create feelings of reward, enthusiasm, joy and vitality lead
to a variety of mood and behavioral disorders that make us susceptible to addictive
disorders. These are the genes that manage the optimal functioning of our
neurotransmitters. If they are impaired, our neurotransmitters will not function
optimally, and neither will we. Furthermore, ongoing substance use and other addictive
behaviors further deplete our neurotransmitters, causing the build-up of tolerance, and
2/3
the experience of w