Haha that was funny about how what sets us apart from chimps is that we will wait for the reward from St Peter at the gates of heaven!

The concept can be turned around when it comes to recovery - waiting for the reward. It takes a bit of time for the mind and body to heal and to get used to living without substances, but the reward is very real. No, we'll never get that mind blowing pleasure again, but I find my life today to be much more rewarding and authentic. I'm all around happier. When I was in active addiction I was depressed a lot of the time, it was hard and stressful. I'm way more relaxed and have a much sunnier outlook on life. My cognitive functions just keep getting better too, I didn't realize how pickled my brain was! Booze baths are not good for the brain....

It actually explains a lot, like why religion has been called the opium of the masses. As far as substance abuse goes, it's about anticipating that perfect high where you got to the Ohhhh Zone, the one that your body and brain never forget. I can think of a few Ohhh Zone's with various drugs. I was young when one of these experiences birthed my addiction Beast and my life got reorganized around doing that again and again and again..... Over time though I started needing more and more to get me there and often no matter how I tried I couldn't get there. And the more I took the worse the come downs got until the only time I felt good was if I was using. Like a dog chasing it's tail. But the anticipation never went away of that Ohhhhh God that feels soooooo good feeling. Interesting too how the dopamine spikes practically twice as high if you might get the reward, explains a lot of the risky behaviour I used to get off on.

It seems the subject suggests some 'backup' or evidence to the structural model, vis a vis neural pathway 'coding' and higher level anticipation. In a way like after experiencing the sensations of eating an orange one remembers what an orange tastes like, can anticipate and then be able to recognize the 'flavor' which can also be described as the precise chemical reaction and neural stimuli of the specific chemical reactions ect .

What may be unfortunate for the chimps would be if we observed behavior akin to the Pacific islanders and the Cargo Cults , their reactions to 'advanced' technology that brought literal manna from the skies.

I may be worried if we see chimps fashioning crude lever like devices in their natural enviros after being subject to pushing a manmade lever that delivered some 'contraband' :)