Albert Einstein said, “A human brain that causes the problem cannot solve the problems.” An addictive person’s brain develops brain changes due to abuse of the drug. The addicted person’s brain could not return to normal during the period of using drugs. Most of the changes in the brain take months and even years to reverse the brain’s functioning to normal. Some disrupted functions never change. Disrupted brain functioning and decision-making abilities in addiction are best elaborated and managed at the treatment center of addiction in Rawalpindi.
Anyone closely related to an addictive person is repeatedly enabled by seems to be disc regard for personal responsibility. The family of an addicted person states “They don’t know what he is doing to himself. Why is he repeatedly losing self-control?” Families of addictive persons face tremendous difficulty in understanding that drug-abusing disorders damage their loved one’s ability to become responsible. When we compare it with other disease symptoms we found some common symptoms. Such as loss of control and behaviour issues are common among these disorders. A schizophrenic person cannot control their hallucinations and believe that the desires and thoughts in their mind are real. Parkinson’s patients lose control over their bodies and cannot stop shaking. People who are suffering from depression cannot control their modes. Traumatic brain injury causes of wide variety of symptoms such as excessive sleepiness, irritability, disturbed thought patterns, maladaptive behaviors, lack of judgement, impulsiveness and mood outbursts.
Given the above, we can conclude that if a person is suffering from any traumatic brain injury can lead to financial loss, inability to maintain employment, Family problems, loss of status in the community, and difficulty to maintain interpersonal relationships. However, addiction is also one of the most important disorders that disturb the life of the target individual, their families and society. According to Dr. Antonie Bechara, decision-making impairment in an addictive person’s brain is similar to a person’s with prefrontal cortex injuries in decision making i.e. addictive person makes decisions based on immediate gratification rather than based on future consequences.
When an addicted person enters the treatment facility usually faces extraordinary negative circumstances i.e. ignorance and intervention by their family. Families of an addicted person asked him/her: why you are not learning from past mistakes. The answer to this question is that the brain of an addicted person does not recognize when things are going wrong that’s why an addicted person does not change their behaviours in an attempt to get different results. That does not conclude that an addicted person is not intelligent because most of them are extraordinarily smart. It means their judgement and decision-making abilities have been severely impaired due to their addiction. Researches also show that cocaine and methamphetamine can inhibit the brain cells from growing stronger and building more complex communication networks. Both of these drugs may diminish the ability to learn new things and also affect cognition and thought patterns, as well as behavioural disadvantages. That is also a reason behind not learning from their previous experiences with an addicted person.
As we know, the human brain is not fully developed until the age of twenty-five years as the prefrontal cortex is not fully operational, which means teenagers do not have good judgement, impulse control and the ability to make responsible decisions. They also face difficulty in determining the future consequences of their actions. Mostly we observed that parents asked their children “Think before you act” but a teenager’s brain is not capable of doing so yet. On the other hand, parents want to treat their kids like adults but their brains are not ready to make responsible decisions about anything. Some researchers investigating that addicted person brains are more damaging to young brains than to the adult brain. Teens who drink more in a day can have memory loss and the ability to make decisions than an adult-addicted person. Such as performing elementary tasks i.e. simple math problems and recalling the location of items. Addiction damages the hippocampus which is responsible for storing memories, drugs mostly block the receptors in the brain responsible for making new memories.
Moreover, addiction is a complex disease that is often difficult to understand. Brain imaging technology helps us to look into the addicted person. Imaging studies have shown that impaired decision-making in addiction is associated with abnormal functioning of a distributed neural network necessary for processing emotional information, including the ventromedial cortex, amygdala, striatum, and anterior cingulate cortex. When children use mood-altering drugs, it means they change what happens to their developing parts of the brain. Researchers examine that some neurological impairments may persist for a lifetime due to the overuse of drugs, and could have substantial side effects lifelong. As we know, the brain is affected by the drugs and the soul is affected too, which concludes the fact that addiction causes a spiritual sickness in addition to physical disability, and treating such cases heals both physical, mental and spiritual disability and helps the addictive person to spend quality time with their loved ones later on.
Conclusion
Recovery is not by simple abstinence, it’s about healing the brain and its functioning, remembering how to feel, learning how to make good decisions, becoming the kind person who engages in healthy relationships, daring to be honest and doing things differently with the help of a counsellor and using his/her insights.
- Clinical psychologist
- MS. Iqra Shahbaz
- Willing ways Lahore