People with alcohol dependency lack important enzyme
Argonaut
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People with alcohol dependency lack important enzyme
Hi guys,
I found this very interesting article, hope this hasn't been posted here yet:
A research group (...) has identified an enzyme whose production is turned off in nerve cells of the frontal lobe when alcohol dependence develops. The deficiency in this enzyme leads to continued use of alcohol despite adverse consequences.
People with alcohol dependency lack important enzyme
I found this very interesting article, hope this hasn't been posted here yet:
A research group (...) has identified an enzyme whose production is turned off in nerve cells of the frontal lobe when alcohol dependence develops. The deficiency in this enzyme leads to continued use of alcohol despite adverse consequences.
People with alcohol dependency lack important enzyme
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which in turn leads to disruption of impulse control
12 Step Recovered Alcoholic
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Interesting about the lack of impulse control - No defence against the first drink? Loss of the power of choice? It would be nice to have a scientific explanation for that, even though it is only a part of the picture of alcoholism.
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weeellll...and then the questions arise: can the production of this enzyme be turned on again? if so, how? does it get produced again somehow by those who...get and stay sober happily? does it NOT get produced again by those who keep relapsing? how do some get impulse control back? does forming new habits override the lack of production of this enzyme? if you work in the AA paradigm, HP "takes the place" of this enzyme?
no end to the questions coming from this.
no end to the questions coming from this.
12 Step Recovered Alcoholic
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Originally Posted by fini 
weeellll...and then the questions arise: can the production of this enzyme be turned on again? if so, how? does it get produced again somehow by those who...get and stay sober happily? does it NOT get produced again by those who keep relapsing? how do some get impulse control back? does forming new habits override the lack of production of this enzyme? if you work in the AA paradigm, HP "takes the place" of this enzyme?
no end to the questions coming from this.
no end to the questions coming from this.
When the individual finds the substance, alcohol in my case, the production of beta endorphin permanently ceases. But there was no mention of how to replace the beta endorphin.
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Originally Posted by fini
weeellll...and then the questions arise: can the production of this enzyme be turned on again? if so, how? does it get produced again somehow by those who...get and stay sober happily? does it NOT get produced again by those who keep relapsing? how do some get impulse control back? does forming new habits override the lack of production of this enzyme? if you work in the AA paradigm, HP "takes the place" of this enzyme?
no end to the questions coming from this.
no end to the questions coming from this.
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That's not quite true, the medical community has gotten deeply involved - counselors, psychologists, specialists who are trained to help and often have successfully emerged from addiction themselves. There are drugs to help too, for craving control and to make it nearly impossible to drink at all. There are dozens of secular support organizations too, that didn't exist even 30 years ago. But it is still about abstinence, generally.
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Join Date: Apr 2012
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Originally Posted by Forward12
That is a good question and something I often wonder about myself is with so much advancement in medical science, alcoholism research is still barely touched on, and the treatment methods have been pretty much the same for over 60 years.
We have an active research department headed by Professor Doug Selman at the University of Otago in New Zealand, who started his career more than 30 years ago with a goal of proving AA does not work.
He gave an interesting talk a couple of years back now, explaining how the new definition alcohol use disorder works and explaining how much progress has been made overall. In the wider context there has been a good bit of progress.
But, he explained, there remains a small group at the extreme end of the alcohol use disorder scale for whom the only hope is a"conversion experience". With this group there has been no progress since about 1967 when they were messing about with LSD, which a recent study showed had some positive aspects. Essentially he said medical science still has no answer for this group.
He opened his talk with the statement "It turns out AA was right all along". I can't imagine the humility it must have taken for him to say that.
EndGame
Join Date: Jun 2013
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It's only very recently that medical schools have included the treatment of addictions in their curricula, and even then it's typically at the level of a few hours of education.
Since the Masters of the Universe within the medical field are very much aware that they have virtually nothing substantial to contribute to the treatment of alcoholism, they're less than eager to waste precious time and other resources teaching it. Besides, among the people who study medicine, there is virtually no one who wants to train in treating addictions. Yes, MDs can help with the medical consequences of drinking, maybe even make a referral for treatment if you need to see a psychiatrist, and they can tell you to stop drinking. They can even prescribe Antabuse and Naltrexone, neither of which is technically a treatment for addictions, but they can't do much else.
It became sexy to demand "evidence based treatment" for the treatment of addictions a couple of decades ago, or maybe longer, usually from people who didn't seem to know what evidence based treatment is. And ya know what? There's very little to nothing that meets the criteria of EBT in terms of addictions. It's not out there. No one's hiding it from you. And there aren't a whole lot of folks interested in doing research in an area that has historically proved to be a professional dead end or career killer for those who do the research. I should know. I'm one of them.
And if, as briefly described in the article below, if addiction is a chronic brain disease then, though we may or may not have identified the brain as the source of the problem, the problem itself is imposing in the extreme in terms of discovering an adequate treatment. Other chronic brain diseases include Cerebral Palsy, Schizophrenia (my designation as a CBD), Dementia, Cerebral Atrophy or Degeneration, Alzheimer's, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other CBDs do not respond well to treatment of any kind, particularly treatment delivered in the form of medication. We are only very early in our development in terms of understanding the vast complexity of how the brain works and what to do when things go wrong, and all of our accumulated knowledge only tells us that there is much more to learn.
And then there's this:
A Doctor?s Most Dreaded Patient: The Addict | Addiction Recovery
Since the Masters of the Universe within the medical field are very much aware that they have virtually nothing substantial to contribute to the treatment of alcoholism, they're less than eager to waste precious time and other resources teaching it. Besides, among the people who study medicine, there is virtually no one who wants to train in treating addictions. Yes, MDs can help with the medical consequences of drinking, maybe even make a referral for treatment if you need to see a psychiatrist, and they can tell you to stop drinking. They can even prescribe Antabuse and Naltrexone, neither of which is technically a treatment for addictions, but they can't do much else.
It became sexy to demand "evidence based treatment" for the treatment of addictions a couple of decades ago, or maybe longer, usually from people who didn't seem to know what evidence based treatment is. And ya know what? There's very little to nothing that meets the criteria of EBT in terms of addictions. It's not out there. No one's hiding it from you. And there aren't a whole lot of folks interested in doing research in an area that has historically proved to be a professional dead end or career killer for those who do the research. I should know. I'm one of them.
And if, as briefly described in the article below, if addiction is a chronic brain disease then, though we may or may not have identified the brain as the source of the problem, the problem itself is imposing in the extreme in terms of discovering an adequate treatment. Other chronic brain diseases include Cerebral Palsy, Schizophrenia (my designation as a CBD), Dementia, Cerebral Atrophy or Degeneration, Alzheimer's, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other CBDs do not respond well to treatment of any kind, particularly treatment delivered in the form of medication. We are only very early in our development in terms of understanding the vast complexity of how the brain works and what to do when things go wrong, and all of our accumulated knowledge only tells us that there is much more to learn.
And then there's this:
A Doctor?s Most Dreaded Patient: The Addict | Addiction Recovery
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Originally Posted by EndGameNYC
It's only very recently that medical schools have included the treatment of addictions in their curricula, and even then it's typically at the level of a few hours of education.
Since the Masters of the Universe within the medical field are very much aware that they have virtually nothing substantial to contribute to the treatment of alcoholism, they're less than eager to waste precious time and other resources teaching it. Besides, among the people who study medicine, there is virtually no one who wants to train in treating addictions. Yes, MDs can help with the medical consequences of drinking, maybe even make a referral for treatment if you need to see a psychiatrist, and they can tell you to stop drinking. They can even prescribe Antabuse and Naltrexone, neither of which is technically a treatment for addictions, but they can't do much else.
It became sexy to demand "evidence based treatment" for the treatment of addictions a couple of decades ago, or maybe longer, usually from people who didn't seem to know what evidence based treatment is. And ya know what? There's very little to nothing that meets the criteria of EBT in terms of addictions. It's not out there. No one's hiding it from you. And there aren't a whole lot of folks interested in doing research in an area that has historically proved to be a professional dead end or career killer for those who do the research. I should know. I'm one of them.
And if, as briefly described in the article below, if addiction is a chronic brain disease then, though we may or may not have identified the brain as the source of the problem, the problem itself is imposing in the extreme in terms of discovering an adequate treatment. Other chronic brain diseases include Cerebral Palsy, Schizophrenia (my designation as a CBD), Dementia, Cerebral Atrophy or Degeneration, Alzheimer's, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other CBDs do not respond well to treatment of any kind, particularly treatment delivered in the form of medication. We are only very early in our development in terms of understanding the vast complexity of how the brain works and what to do when things go wrong, and all of our accumulated knowledge only tells us that there is much more to learn.
And then there's this:
A Doctor?s Most Dreaded Patient: The Addict | Addiction Recovery
Since the Masters of the Universe within the medical field are very much aware that they have virtually nothing substantial to contribute to the treatment of alcoholism, they're less than eager to waste precious time and other resources teaching it. Besides, among the people who study medicine, there is virtually no one who wants to train in treating addictions. Yes, MDs can help with the medical consequences of drinking, maybe even make a referral for treatment if you need to see a psychiatrist, and they can tell you to stop drinking. They can even prescribe Antabuse and Naltrexone, neither of which is technically a treatment for addictions, but they can't do much else.
It became sexy to demand "evidence based treatment" for the treatment of addictions a couple of decades ago, or maybe longer, usually from people who didn't seem to know what evidence based treatment is. And ya know what? There's very little to nothing that meets the criteria of EBT in terms of addictions. It's not out there. No one's hiding it from you. And there aren't a whole lot of folks interested in doing research in an area that has historically proved to be a professional dead end or career killer for those who do the research. I should know. I'm one of them.
And if, as briefly described in the article below, if addiction is a chronic brain disease then, though we may or may not have identified the brain as the source of the problem, the problem itself is imposing in the extreme in terms of discovering an adequate treatment. Other chronic brain diseases include Cerebral Palsy, Schizophrenia (my designation as a CBD), Dementia, Cerebral Atrophy or Degeneration, Alzheimer's, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other CBDs do not respond well to treatment of any kind, particularly treatment delivered in the form of medication. We are only very early in our development in terms of understanding the vast complexity of how the brain works and what to do when things go wrong, and all of our accumulated knowledge only tells us that there is much more to learn.
And then there's this:
A Doctor?s Most Dreaded Patient: The Addict | Addiction Recovery
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Good food for thought on why even after sobering up, alcoholics have low impulse control. I wonder what other things affect the production of this enzyme.
I'm sure it is one of many factors.
I think your title is a bit misleading. It makes it sound like people start out lacking this enzyme, though the content of the news is that people lose production of the enzyme when they start drinking too often.
I'm sure it is one of many factors.
I think your title is a bit misleading. It makes it sound like people start out lacking this enzyme, though the content of the news is that people lose production of the enzyme when they start drinking too often.
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Originally Posted by Delizadee
Great article, and if you read in the comments section there is a lengthy reply by Jason Wittman that I think is so spot on.
I also wholeheartedly agree with him that "perception of reality changes with the belief filters the observer is looking through". I think he serves as an example of this himself when he states his understanding of what is meant by "that empty hole inside" (described by many alcoholics and addicts). His own "perception of reality" might change somewhat if he were to read Carl Jung's January 1961 letter to Bill Wilson (a co-founder of AA). A.A. History -- Dr. Carl Jung's Letter To Bill Wilson, Jan 30, 1961
Then again it might not (depending on his belief filters
).
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//In my neck of the woods, the doctors training on alcoholism and addiction is about a four hour segment made up mainly by speakers from AA and NA.//
That is atrocious. I hear neurochemistry is a thing. Doctors need to know how alcohol interacts with brain chemistry because medication that is commonly prescribed for mental health can have a cross tolerance with alcohol. In fact, that's exactly how withdrawal medication works... it interacts with neurotransmitter systems the same way alcohol does. If taken for an extended period of time or in the incorrect dosage, or if the wrong drug is prescribed, the result is often benzodiazepine withdrawal. If no medication is given, the result can be death.
AA isn't neuroscience. It's a spiritual, semi-religious self help group.
That is atrocious. I hear neurochemistry is a thing. Doctors need to know how alcohol interacts with brain chemistry because medication that is commonly prescribed for mental health can have a cross tolerance with alcohol. In fact, that's exactly how withdrawal medication works... it interacts with neurotransmitter systems the same way alcohol does. If taken for an extended period of time or in the incorrect dosage, or if the wrong drug is prescribed, the result is often benzodiazepine withdrawal. If no medication is given, the result can be death.
AA isn't neuroscience. It's a spiritual, semi-religious self help group.
EndGame
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Originally Posted by fini
But what I wouldn't do to get my drink on.
what do you mean by that, EG?
what do you mean by that, EG?
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Originally Posted by Gottalife
In my neck of the woods, the doctors training on alcoholism and addiction is about a four hour segment made up mainly by speakers from AA and NA.
Originally Posted by EndGameNYC
It's only very recently that medical schools have included the treatment of addictions in their curricula, and even then it's typically at the level of a few hours of education
I can recall a couple interactions where I told my doctor about my alcohol use, as well as an ER visit where both basically shook it off with a "drink less" attitude, though when I mentioned I occasionally smoked cigarettes, got read the riot act.
I was told about numerous OTC products and prescribed medications they could give me to stop smoking, offerer a bag full of products etc,.. My outpatient forums were a few pages on alcoholism, but nearly a phonebook on smoking.
Hopefully one day this amount of professional education will go to the medical industry on alcohol.
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