What Causes A Cocaine Addiction?
Is it because there are chemical hooks within the cocaine that get us? I think there is a lot more to it than that.
The belief about chemical hooks may have originated from experiments done on rats in the early part of the 20th century. In cages, rats were given access to 2 water sources, one laced with heroin or cocaine and the other just water.
In all cases rats would prefer the drug water and would often, quickly get to the stage of overdosing and killing themselves. This has led to the belief of substances becoming highly addictive.
But later experiments show if you change a few things then the results alter dramatically.
No Chemical Hooks Here; Rat Experiment Part Two
Canadian Professor of psychology Bruce Alexander carried out some interesting experiments with rats. He re visited the data on earlier experiments and realised that they were in an empty cage with nothing to do except explore the drug water which had some interesting pleasurable effects.
He did a new experiment, which he called Rat Park where there was lots to do, from nice food, toys to play with and environments to explore and lots of other rats to socialise and mate with.
They also had two water bottles as previously but most didn’t like the drug water and chose to partake in other more interesting things. Those that did use it didn’t use it compulsively or to the point of overdose.
Compare that to nearly 100% overdose rate when they are isolated with no friends, nothing to do, bored, lonely perhaps frustrated etc. etc.
We Develop Habitual Routines
If all your friends are doing cocaine then peer pressure can take hold, after all they look like they are enjoying it, what’s the harm, you ask yourself, then you go ahead and start using coke now and then and then maybe regularly at weekends.
This pattern becomes laid down in our neurology just like Pavlov’s dogs, where Pavlov would ring a bell whilst giving the dogs meat and they would salivate, as they knew food was coming. Now all he needed to do was ring a bell and a conditioned response of salivation occurred.
Plus, innately we all want to belong; so being part of the ‘gang’ feels safe, as we are one of them.
Is It Just A Habit Then?
Doing this regularly our brain learns to link the good feelings to the cocaine, so anytime we feel down, bored, end of the week I need a reward feeling and a host of other reasons, it triggers the desire for cocaine.
When we try to stop our brain says “No’ you like this, I want you to carry on getting this as it’s enjoyable. The problem is that the brain is only focusing on the good part initially and it doesn’t run the movie of how it will feel over time.
This Will Break The Hold Cocaine Has Over You
Connecting the dots at a conscious and unconscious level of how it feels overtime will help you make the decision to stop for good.
I use a specific strategy developed over the last 20 years to make this happen easily for the cocaine addict to break free.
We Don’t Plan To Fail…
We often fail to plan….
One client realised that when he planned to out for a meal mid week with his family, he no longer had the Wednesday craving.
Another client said the weekends he had his daughter he wouldn’t go out Friday night, choosing instead to get a few beers in so that he would be fine the next day ready for her visit.
Working together we come up with alternative things to do on those times where cocaine used to take over.
If you want help to stop please call us now 0121 241 0728 or go online to pay your £50 deposit to book a stop cocaine addiction session here.
