Addiction

Addictions

Introduction

So, here is another one of those huge health issues that continue to plague modern society. Beyond a doubt, the addictive conditions remain an enduring, challenging area of ill health that deserves our ongoing attention, particularly primary and secondary prevention efforts. People have demonstrated a strong tendency to use addictive substances and to pursue other habituating experiences. Sigmund Freud used cocaine; the American Indians loved tobacco; let's not minimize tobacco addiction as is a killer that can be quite challenging to stop. Both of my parents died in their mid-70s from tobacco addiction (end stage emphysema). As I write this, American Society is a principal source of demand for the worldwide supply of addictive drugs; we are on a road to further legalizing and further normalizing the use of potent addictive drugs. The implications for society are many and include family disintegration, rising healthcare costs, lost productivity, and many moral issues.

As a substance abuse treatment professional for 2 1/2 decades I appreciate the extent of the problem and the challenges of treatment. How many different addictions are there? A lot! We have tobacco, food, sex, illicit drugs, prescribed drugs, alcohol, hoarding things, spending, shopping, television, gambling, video games , cell phones, texting, Facebook, money (many, many people are addicted to money and material wealth and have it as an idol in their lives) and etc. etc. etc. in this section we will discuss select dynamics and issues about addiction and I particularly want to advocate for a Christian approach to treatment, and will share some biblical verses about alcohol abuse. Treatment of many of the addictive disorders is very complex and at the same time utterly simple. The moral dimensions of addiction are important and involve issues like gluttony, violation of civil laws, self centeredness, harm to our bodies, toxic examples for our youth, and huge medical and other costs to society.

The 'party' mentality is a huge issue when it comes to addictions as it is most often synonymous with drug and alcohol abuse. Alcohol: In 2013 in the USA ~ 19,000 deaths were attributable to purposeful binge drinking! A deadly fad ...wz

Have we 'Gone To Pot?

So, here we go on another addictions issue that ends up being quite important to discuss, given the recent trend toward legalization. Should we be encouraging and legalizing another habituating/addicting substance? We have known at least since the 1960s and 70s that cannabis alters brain function, called the 'amotivational syndrome,' and that it damages lung tissue and compromises immunity. Should this not be enough to discourage its use? Why in the world would we want to add another addictive drug to a social milieu that is already out of control with tobacco, alcohol, and myriad other addictive substances? This whole argument that cannabis is less harmful than alcohol is an indictment of cannabis use because alcohol can be quite harmful. The Holy Bible discusses in some depth the risks of alcohol abuse. Is pot a gateway drug? It is for many people.There does appear to be some medical advantages for the use of cannabis in certain situations. I believe that only the medical profession needs to provide leadership in that area. Where is the leadership from our adult citizens on this issue? Where's the leadership from responsible politicians who are supposed to be acting on the behalf of our citizens? Is there an effort to legalize marijuana so that tax dollars can be raked in at the expense of our health and integrity as a nation? Where is the common sense? Can we not gain a consensus in this country on even a simple issue like legitimizing a harmful drug? Wow!

When we look at TV and see a group of people getting high on pot we see a classic picture of addiction, of people having a very pleasurable relationship with the drug that can easily end up being a lifelong hindrance in their lives. Promotion of cannabis use is an absolutely dangerous slippery slope; and, adults who participate in promoting this are surrendering their core adult responsibility to protect and advise our kids responsibly. Does developing a cannabis habit enhance a young person's life? There is one question that is certainly important: as Jesus looks down on this country of ours and sees what we are doing in terms of encouraging and legitimizing drug use and abuse, is He smiling? Or is He frowning? Where is our common sense? Where? Wake Up America so we do not become a more 'stoned America.' How does cannabis use enhance anyone's health, longevity, or daily functioning? Medical benefits aside. Finally, this recent effort to normalize and legalize cannabis use is an indication that the historic 'War on Drugs' is an utter failure and, for some very complex reasons, has resulted in additional (legal) drug use in this country.

Holidays, Sugar, Disease and Addiction

Here is some interesting information about sugar addiction, one of the most prominent food addictions, and the near-term sugar binge that is likely to take place on the many upcoming holidays. Many medical practitioners have written extensively about this topic of adverse health effects of dietary sugar. Let us take this topic seriously. It is well documented that eating candy has multiple adverse effects on children: lowered IQ, a smaller hippocampus on MRI resulting in compromised learning and performance, and may increase risk of multiple conditions as adults such as cancer, ADHD, increased aggressiveness and etc.

The food colorants and other chemicals found in candy may also be carcinogenic and may promote hyperactivity in children. Fortunately, adults always have the option of not including these foods as part of their children's diet; but why is it that most adults do not do this? Are these adults also addicted to sugar? Are they in toxic denial about the harmful effects of sugar? Why do so many adults make excuses and rationalize reasons to give their children these foods, and even to consume these foods themselves? Addiction is a powerful condition that has a physical basis and strong psychosocial grounding. Perhaps many adults are not educated about the health risks of sugary products. At any rate, it is not normal or healthy to binge on sweets and other junk food. Our bodies are not equipped to deal with these high concentrations of sugar and foreign chemicals. These foods and associated substances lead to food cravings, potent addiction, and disease.

Surgary Beverages, including fruit flavored drinks, sports drinks, energy drinks, soda and sweetened iced teas are consumed in huge quantities in our society. The American Heart Association estimates that these products account for about 180,000 deaths worldwide each year and 25,000 annual deaths in the US.

The average American consumes 22.2 teaspoons of added sugar daily, equating to 355 calories. Teens consume even more — 34.3 teaspoons or 549 calories/day, and half of the added sugars in the typical American diet come from sweetened drinks, mostly soda. These products create obesity, excess blood glucose and insulin resistance, and are linked to diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer; they are a huge threat to our health. We need to drink water instead of soda and these other sugary drinks; and each of us needs to pursue a whole foodplant-based eating plan! wz

Here are some ideas about sweeteners that can be used in baking. The primary whole plant food sweetener that we use in baking products is dates; they are highly nutritious, full of fiber, and quite sweet. Date sugar, which is dried ground dates, is one of the few nutritious sweeteners. Also, shredded coconut, bananas, agave nectar, Maple syrup, and raisins provide sweetness to baked products. Many fruits like pineapple, some apples, bananas, prunes, ripe peaches and etc. provide highly nutritious natural sweetening to baked goods. Vanilla extract can provide a wonderful addition to many baked goods also. Various types of nuts can provide richness, dramatic flavor and even a sweet note to some baked goods. Optimal, whole food plant-based baking avoids traditional sugar products in order to avoid the nutritional/health pitfalls of excessive sugar.

Let us be reminded that the goal here is to purposefully avoid excessive sweetness in our diet, so that we may counter the rampant sweet addiction that many of us have. It is important that baked goods not taste exactly like those in the standard American diet, because we need to altar our food preferences to align with much healthier food choices. It is interesting that a slice of cheesecake in Germany is delightful and has a fraction of the sugar in it and tastes dramatically different than a slice of American cheese cake which is highly sweetened. wz

Addiction Treatment

There is certainly no consensus about what constitutes optimal treatment for the addiction disorders, but most would agree that treatment tends to be challenging, at times frustrating, but nonetheless vitally important for most of those who are harmfully involved with any addictive drug. Traditional 12 step programs appear to be viable for some people and I have known many who have gotten clean (how spiritually clean I do not know) and sober in such programs. One of the important questions here is whether it is possible to get 'clean and sober' without a core spiritual change in one's life . I do question the adequacy of the spiritual aspect of traditional 12 step programs because they refer to 'God as we understood him.' In the Holy Bible we learn that 'you shall have no other gods before me' (Exodus 20:3); therefore, this commandment requires the worship of one God alone, Jehovah, and it implies, in point of fact, that there is no other God.

Given that, I wanted to discuss briefly what is the premier Christian substance abuse program known as The Most Excellent Way (MEW). In first Corinthians 12:31 we learn that "Now eagerly desire the greater gifts. Love Is Indispensable And yet I will show you the most excellent way." (NIV). This ministry focuses on becoming 'God dependent' in order to negate the influence of chemical dependency. This Christian solution for chemical dependency and other life controlling issues is Jesus! This powerful ministry focuses on surrender, the condition of your heart, renewal of our minds, and adhering to several core principles of the Bible in daily life. The ministry provides Bible studies and support groups and a supportive, God- focused environment for change.

Vaping/ECigs: Is It Harmful To Your Health?

Vaping is an electronic cigarette (or e-cigarette), personal vaporizer (PV), or electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS), an electronic inhaler meant to simulate and substitute for tobacco smoking. ENDS generally utilizes a heating element that vaporizes a liquid solution. ...

So, here is another health issue that has evolved, apparently to replace tobacco addiction and smoking cessation; leave it to money hungry entrepreneurs to find another way to make another unhealthy product. Let the buyer beware! We need to open up a conversation about the relatively new trend of 'Vaping' , the potential negative health effects, and the impetus for this relatively new product.

At least four categories of people are Vaping:1) former users of traditional tobacco products who were looking for an escape from high nicotine containing products; 2) users of traditional tobacco products who begin vaping in addition to their traditional tobacco habit; 3) those who have never used tobacco or have previously discontinued tobacco use and who take up vaping as a new, novel experience; 4) those who were habituated to or addicted mood-altering drugs, who start vaping in addition to their other drug use. So, we know that the human body is designed to use air which is composed primarily of nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide. Deviations from this in the form of inhaling tobacco products, industrial pollution, cocaine, marijuana, vaping, and other foreign substances, presents the body with significant insults to our state of health.

Hazards: The health effects of inhaling nicotine vapor (hence th term 'Vaping') are largely undocumented by reliable research. More research is clearly needed. U.S. consumers will spend $1 billion on battery-powered smokes this year, 10 times more than they did four years ago. Are e-cigarettes, which come in such flavors as chocolate and butter rum, a benign device to help people stop smoking? Or are they just a new way to feed an old addiction? How safe, compared with tobacco smoke, is the vapor they create? The small studies that have been done so far hint at both pros and cons; one found that smokers cut back on real cigarettes after trying the electronic kind, while another found particles of metal and silicates in e-cigarette vapor that could cause breathing problems. That there are more than 200 brands containing varying levels of nicotine and other substances only makes it harder to assess their safety. E-cigarette makers should be required to report and label all ingredients in the nicotine solutions they use. Even though these deliver fewer poisons than are found in traditional cigarettes, they nevertheless have been found to contain carcinogenic nitrosamines and other harmful impurities derived from the tobacco, as well as the additive diethylene glycol, an ingredient in antifreeze.

Manufacturers should also disclose the amount of nicotine that can be inhaled from their e-cigarettes. Today's models haven't been found to

give users as large a hit of nicotine as regular cigarettes do, but that may not always be the case. (Some bottles of solution meant to refill e-cigarette cartridges have been found to contain enough nicotine to kill an adult if ingested.) Once more is known about the potential hazards of e-cigarette vapors, the FDA may need to restrict certain substances or place limits on nicotine levels.

Vaping Notes:

1.Vaping makes smoking cessation more complicated by presenting an unhealthy option as an interim step to total absence from tobacco

2. E Cigs may contain nicotine, thereby compromising total absence from tobacco and nicotine

3. Vaping products contain harmful substances

4. Using vaping products (obviously) supports this evolving new industry and prompts its growth

5. In a society with so many unhealthy habits (e.g. high-fat foods, marijuana, smoking, sedentary lifestyles, over-prescription of medications, compulsive spending and etc.), we do not need an additional health challenge

6. Our citizens can bring this emerging industry to its knees by refusing to purchase their products

7. Habits like vaping tend to get normalized quickly and our youth do not need this as another unhealthy example of adult behavior. Our behavior does affect others!

8. My concern is that as we gain more experience with vaping , it may well turn out to be a significant health risk in a country with epidemic chronic disease already in place ... Already, some doctors believe that vaping poses a more significant health risk than traditional smoking.

Current Research:'Are Sugary and Fatty Foods Addictive?'

The Problem: The science on food addiction has now determined that low-nutrient, high-calorie, intensely sweet, salty, and/or fatty foods - those that make up the majority of the Standard American Diet produce the exact biochemical effects in the brain that are characteristic of substance abuse. Junk food is available everywhere, is legal, cheap, and socially accepted; therefore, it becomes the drug of choice for many of us. Obese humans are known to have fewer dopamine receptors (called D2 receptors) compared to lean individuals –their reward response from food is not as sensitive and it is thought that they compensate by overeating. Yes, our psychological state and our individual genetics affect how susceptible we are to addictive behaviors. But also it is true that sugary and high-fat foods have physiologically addictive characteristics that may prompt almost anyone to lose control of their consumption. "Just one bite" doesn't work because that single bite activates the dopamine reward system, causing the brain to demand more. Willpower, logic, and common sense are no match for addictive drives. The intense sweetness of sugar may surpass the addictive characteristics of cocaine. People don't tend to binge on bananas; it is perhaps the reason we are more likely to supersize soda than sweet potatoes. And we are less likely to overeat yellow corn than we are to overeat candy corn. The over consumption of sugar sweetened diets has often been compared to drug addiction, though this parallel was based, until very recently, more on anecdotal evidence than on solid scientific grounds.

But now we have Positron emission tomography (PET) scans, imaging technology that can measure the brain activity. The imaging showed decreased dopamine sensitivity in obese individuals. And, the heavier they were, the less responsive they appeared to become.

Dopamine is considered the neurotransmitter primarily involved in the pleasure and reward center of the brain. It helps to motivate our drive for things like food, water, and sex, all necessary for perpetuation of our species.

We see the same thing in cocaine addicts and alcoholics. This would suggest that a reduction in dopamine receptors is associated with addictive behavior irrespective of whether it is due to food, as in this study, or to addictive drugs as seen in substance abusers. When considering food and drug reward, there appear to be overlapping circuits in human obesity and addiction.

The food industry, like the tobacco companies and the drug lords, have sought to come up with products that tap Into that same dopamine reward system. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2012. Now we know that fat has similar effects in the brain as well. Fat intake modulates cerebral blood flow in homeostatic and gustatory brain areas in humans. Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, 2011. You feed people some yogurt packed with butterfat and within 30 min. you can start to see the same changes in brain activity that you get when you drink sugar water. People who regularly eat ice cream, sugar and fat, have the deadening dopamine response in their brains. In this study 151 healthy weight adolescents underwent MRI during receipt of a milkshake. Frequent ice cream consumption, independent of body fat, was related to a reduction in activity in the reward- region (the pleasure center of the brain).

Once we have so dulled our dopamine response, deadened our responsivity of reward circuitry, this may promote subsequent overconsumption in an effort to achieve the degree of satisfaction experienced previously, which contributes to unhealthy weight gain.

So now, there has been interest in calling obesity an official mental disorder in the Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM V. After all, both obesity and addiction share the inability to restrain behavior in spite of an awareness of detrimental health and social consequences. The substance use is continued despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent physical or psychological problem that is likely to have been caused or exacerbated by the substance. Redefining obesity as an addiction, a psychiatric disease, would be a boon to drug companies that are already working on many substances that alter our brain chemistry such as opiate blockers like Naltrexone which may be used for opiate addiction to block the effects of the drug. When taking naltrexone people eat significantly less cheese as the opiate receptors are blocked by the drug.

Comments: Natural plant foods are not as intensely sweet, salty, or fatty as the processed junk foods that are purposely engineered to excite our reward systems. Eating whole, natural foods provides enjoyment of taste without activating addictive drives. Rather than taking drugs though, we can prevent the deadening of our pleasure center in the first place by sticking to foods that are naturally calorie dilute, like whole plant foods. This can help to bring back our dopamine sensitivities such that we can again derive the same pleasure from the simplest of foods like strawberries. This is not just for people who are obese. Yes, when we regularly eat calorie dense animal and junk foods like ice cream, we can blunt our pleasure center, and overeat to compensate; but when our brain down regulates dopamine receptors to deal with all these jolts of fat and sugar, we may experience less enjoyment from other activities as well. That is why cocaine addicts may have an impaired neurological capacity to enjoy sex. This may also be why smokers also have impaired ability to respond to positive stimuli. Since these all involve the same dopamine pathways, what we eat can affect how we experience all of life's pleasures. So, to live life to the fullest what is the solution? Some addiction experts say that the food industry should be given incentives to develop low-calorie foods that are more attractive, palatable, and affordable so that people can adhere to diet programs for a long time. But there is no need for this because mother nature beat them all to it, with the wide array of wonderful whole plant foods. So, there is no doubt that excess sugar and fat in our eating plan is injurious to our health and is physically and psychologically addictive. Try a whole food plan based (WFPB) eating plan to correct this.

REF: Zahler, William, Have we 'Gone To Pot?, Online, April 27, 2014.

William Zahler, 2016

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