Introduction to Addictive Behaviors | Addiction and Mental Health Recovery Counseling Activities

You hello everybody and welcome back to the Addiction and Co Occurring Disorders treatment manual unit one, part one introduction to addiction. I'm your host, Dr. Donnellice Snipes. In this part, we're going to define addiction and explore how it may interact with your mood and physical health. So let's start at the beginning. Addiction is the continued use of a substance, person or activity to eliminate or escape from discomfort despite experiencing negative consequences from use. This can be seen in people when they have tried unsuccessfully to cut down or quit. They've spent more time or money than intended obsessing about getting, using and recovering from the substance or behavior, reduced involvement in important social activities or other activities and or they've experienced repeated health, mental health, relationship, financial, employment or legal issues as the result of use. It's important to remember that addictions are a creative process solution to a problem when all else has failed. Yes, it is a problem, however, it shows that you wanted to survive and it's important to explore with curiosity what functions this behavior is now serving for you so you can address them in alternate ways. It is important to address all addictive behaviors in order to prevent substitute addictions. They've actually done some research that has has found that things as seemingly benign as smoking, for example, can be a relapse trap for a lot of people because when they get stressed, instead of coping with that stress, they go out and smoke or dip or however they get their nicotine. So it is important to make sure that you're addressing all different forms of addictive behavior. Spend about 20 minutes right now thinking about how the following applies to you and the following Alcohol Use have you tried unsuccessfully to quit? Have you spent more time or money than intended obsessing about getting, using and recovering from alcohol? Has alcohol caused reduced involvement in important personal activities or has it caused you repeated health, mental health, relationship, financial, employment or legal issues? Go through and ask yourself the same questions about relationships, gambling, gaming, including online gaming, as well as casino gaming or going to the racetracks, sex or pornography, food. Now this is not an extensive or exhaustive list of all addicted addictions or addictive behaviors, but it may give you some idea about your primary addiction if you have one, and substitute addictions. Research has indicated that somewhere along the lines of about 70% of people will struggle with addiction, even if it's to tobacco, will struggle with addiction at some point in their life. So it is important to be aware of these things. Even if you don't think you have an addiction right now. It's important to explore whether you Ever have. And be on the lookout so you don't develop one if you've never had one. Addictions, even behavioral ones, change the balance of neurotransmitters in the body, which can impact your mood, your pain tolerance, your, your motivation, your libido, your hunger, your sleep, and a whole bunch of other things. Neurotransmitters are really important, but addiction causes surges of dopamine and surges of endorphins, which throw all of the other neurotransmitters out of balance. And then when you're not using, you don't feel like you've got enough dopamine and endorphins and those sorts of things. So it contributes to all of these other problems, and you're going to learn more about that in later units. Addictions also contribute to increased inflammation and changes in your immune system. When people engage in addictive behaviors, it is stressful on the body. It activates what we call the HPA axis, or the stress response system. And when that system is regularly activated, it contributes to systemic inflammation or inflammation throughout your whole body. And we know that when inflammation goes up, sleep quality goes down, mood goes down, and sometimes anxiety, anger, and irritability go up. So spend about 20 more minutes thinking about how addictive behaviors may have impacted your life. How have addictive behaviors impacted your immune system? When you're engaging in them, do you get sick more often? Do you have more pain or inflammation? How has it impacted your pain tolerance? Yeah, pain tolerance when you have. When you're engaging in addictive behaviors, that rush of dopamine and endorphins is great. But remember, endorphins are your natural painkiller. So if you throw that system out of whack, then when you're not using, you may actually feel more pain. Your pain tolerance might actually be a lot lower. How have addictive behaviors impacted your energy? Not only your feeling like you can get through the day and get things done, but your ability to sleep well and get rested. How have addictive behaviors impacted your mood, your motivation, and your ability to just think clearly versus having a foggy head and. Or obsessing about the addictive behavior, thinking about, oh, I can't wait until I can get out of work and do this or get home and do this, or wherever you're at. Obsessing about the addiction and not being able to think clearly about the things that you need to focus on. Finally, it's important to remember that you are a person with an addiction or maybe a mental health issue or physical health issue or all three, when you no longer have symptoms of these problems, you are still going to be a person. Therefore, what kind of person do you want to be? What does recovery look like for you? How are you different now? How are you not the person now that you want to be?