Book Report #55: The Traumatic Roots of Addiction.
Begin: 10/20/2024
Finish: 1/18/2025
Title: The Traumatic Roots of Addiction
Author: Maia Szalavitz
Why I closed to read this book:
To learn more about the underlying cause of addiction and trauma. The available treatments for addiction and trauma. Knowledge from this book will help me avoid addiction and better manage trauma.
What I learned from this book:
Trauma has a thread woven into most addiction, many suffered horrific neglect or maltreatment including sexual abuse, they had experienced as children. Few seem to realize how traumatizing events in childhood often lead to addiction in adulthood. A new generation of treatments addresses the trauma that often underlies addiction.
Existing Rehabilitation Programs:
Most rehab are based on the 12-Step program for Alcohol Anonymous (AA) Founded in 1935 by a stockbroker and a doctor who believe their own addiction to alcohol had derived from “Defects of Character,” such as being selfish and avoiding responsibility. The main active ingredient of the 12-Step program, which now exist for every type of addiction – from cocaine to overeating to gambling.
Addiction and Trauma:
In recent decades a body of research has established that adverse childhood experiences are critical in the development of substance addiction. This awareness of how addiction and trauma are intimately intertwined has birthed a new generation of treatment strategies that simultaneously address both the issues. Another possible consequences of early – life adversity is Anhedonia, an inability to experience pleasure, which in turn can suppress motivation. A common characteristic of depression and makes people vulnerable to misusing substances that promise relief. Overall, severe early stress can create a general sense of dread and pleasurelessness so if traumatized kids are exposed to drugs that amplify Dopamine or activate the brain’s own Opioid system, they offer the excitement and comfort they lack. Traumatic stress is most often what tips these traits and tendencies into pathologies or disabilities. Addiction often results from attempts to self-medicate the symptoms – which is way treating the underlying trauma can be essential to a cure.
Concurrent Treatment of PTSD and Substance Use Disorders Using Prolonged Expose (COPE):
COPE involves 12 weekly 90 minutes sessions led by a trained therapist. Because drug craving are often driven by stress, COPE teaches better emotional regulation and thereby address PTSD and addiction simultaneously. At the heart of the trauma and trauma related issues is avoidance. By replacing avoidance with approach, exposure therapy retrains the brain to recognize safety. Overtime this strategy increases both the ability to tolerate stress and the capacity to stay calm in situations that evoke fear, grief or anger. Because alcohol and other drugs are often craved during and used to cope with strong emotions, COPE teaches alternative ways to manage stress like breathing technique and seeking support from others.
Other Addiction Treatment Program:
Many programs view questions about process as resistance to recovery. Newcomers to 12-Step program are often told to “shut up and listen” because “your best thinking got you here.” This dismissive approach can generate mistrust, when patients perceive that counselors are being punitive rather than helpful when pushing them to confront their fears. The therapeutic process of COPE can transform the patient’ recollection of past traumas from fully reexperiencing them into simply telling a story of what happened. COPE program reduces PTSD symptoms and that in turn cuts drug craving and use. Simply stopping the drugs doesn’t help the underlying issues and can infact exacerbate symptoms. Another commonality between addiction and PTSD is that maintaining strong social connections is essential to lasting recovery.
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT):
Another approach can be combined with addiction treatment it focuses on minimizing patient’s distorted thoughts and self concept rather than exposing and taming the traumatic memories themselves. The treatment targeted” false beliefs or core ideas that you’ve had about the world and other people due to the trauma. CPT helps patients reality-test these ideas and reject overgeneralization and catastrophic thoughts are expressed in the safety of therapy, their powers is diminished, and healthier ways of seeing can start to replace them.
Neuroplasticity:
Treatments that alter plasticity are likely to be helpful, if they are used under conditions where people can safely learn healthier strategies for organizing the way they think and act. Antidepressant effects from medications such as Fluoxetine (Prozac) to exercise -increase plasticity might augment therapies for PTSD and addiction. Drugs like LSD, Psilocybin mushrooms, MDMA (Estasy) and Oxytocin have also help restoring plasticity but they have not been approved by FDA.
Making addiction treatment more trauma-informed and compassionate is not only the right thing to do, it’s the easiest way to rapidly improve outcomes and to get people to welcome much needed care.
How will this book contribute to my success upon release:
Knowledge of trauma and addiction improves my analytical and critical thinking skills. The knowledge will allow me to emphatize with people suffering from trauma and addiction problems.
