nurofen plus

Valmont wrote: »

How can you explain somebody who simply quits cold-turkey, never looking back? I would also point out that the biological theory of addiction you are referring to is only one of many competing theories: researchers are not entirely sure of the exact role of the brain.

How can you explain someone taking a nurophen plus and not becoming a codeine addict?

A lot of addicts are fundamentally traumatised people. The alcohol and drugs are a response to the trauma. The responses are the four Fs. Fight, Flight, Fawn, and Freeze. Flight is drink or drugs. I have seen the brain scans where the cognitive function (frontal lobe activity) has nearly completely shut down, and the only activity is the limbic system. When cognitive function is impaired, the persons ability to make good choices is also seriously impaired.

If someone has a physical dependency on a drug, but there isn't an underlying trauma, then it might be relatively easy for them to stop. However, if someone is using a drug to combat high anxiety, removing the drug may allow the anxiety to rush in, knocking out their cognitive function, and letting the limbic system have what it demands; which is the drug.

I can't remember the exact statistic. But the majority of cigarettes sold in the US are sold to people with mental illnesses. It's probably the same here.

JuliusCaesar wrote: »

Brain scan are wildly overestimated. Tell it to the dead salmon.

"neuroscience" has more than it's fair share of charlatans.

Now, neuroscientist Craig Bennett and his dead salmon. He's either dishonest or stupid, but more likely he is both. I could repeat the experiment with a cold dead JuliusCaesar and the fMRI machine and I would also see activity in the brain, like Bennett did with his salmon. However, if I did my electroencephalogram with electro sensors on the heads of Julius, and the salmon, they would both appear to be quite dead with no activity registering. What's going on? It's simple, but maybe not simple enough for Bennett. The electro sensors are a passive form of measurement, whereas fMRI is an active form. The powerful magnetic field of the fMRI machine will rotate molecules in the dead brains. This will cause thermal noise. It's not brain activity registering, it's brain cooking.

There does seem to be a degree of correlation and some sort of relationship
between addiction and trauma, but what it suggests is that early intervention is surely the answer, not waiting until addiction has become a problem.

Yes, well, if you don't abuse a person as a child, they won't grow up to suffer from trauma related to childhood abuse. That would be the perfect intervention.

The substance abuse issue may be the most apparent problem, but it could be masking trauma. And deleterious effects that you might assume are the
result of the substances are in fact the result of the trauma.

Research that concluded methamphetamine use to cause frontal lobe damage was based on testing the cognitive function of recovering meth addicts. The assumption was that their poor cognitive function was the result of their meth use, and not that their meth use was a result of poor cognitive function, as a result of trauma. Typically addicts experience abuse and exclusion before they become problematic substance users. Blaming it all on the meth let's society off the hook.


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drugs prescribed for mental disorders create almost as many problems as they
solve,

What drugs do you mean, in particular?

and that we really need to move mental health treatment to an labour
intensive psychosocial model as soon as possible. This isn't going to happen without massive investment though and there is no political will to do this.

First you have to know what you're doing. Arresting addicts, imprisoning them, and policing them out of wealthy suburbs onto my doorstep is labour intensive and expensive, but it is how society, or at least the powerful in society believe how resources should be used. Currently, the homeless population in Dublin are being treated like medieval lepers. Just being given enough crusts of bread, so society in general doesn't feel guilt for letting them die on the street. And the drugs are society's cop out.
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Many mental health professionals do not even want to engage with people who are using any substance, let alone being under the influence of a substance. Who do they want to treat? People with very mild conditions? people who do not really have mental health problems.

We have garda cars spinning around day and night. But do we have mental health specialists, trying to track and do anything for the homeless addicts. And I don't mean trying to teach them mindfulness techniques.

With the whole drug issue I get very annoyed. There are people making very good livings, doing nothing more than wagging their fingers from a position of complete ignorance, and that depends on the continued ignorance and demonization of drugs.

And will spending more money just result in social predators, like refugees from Anglo Irish swooping in to feed.