What's Your Pleasure or Addiction

Gary_C · April 30, 2012, 03:33:46 PM

Hooked: Why bad habits are hard to break

In case you missed it, that was a segment on 60 Minutes last night. It's a very interesting piece on addictions of all sorts from coffee and food to alcohol and drugs. Well worth reading or watching.

Here is one quote:

Nora Volkow: You know how many prescriptions there were for opiate medications last year in this country? 210 million prescriptions for opiate medications. 210 million prescriptions in one year.

That's enough pain pills to keep every adult in the country medicated 24 hours a day for a month. There's been a huge spike in hospital emergency cases, and overdoses from pain pills killed nearly 15,000 people in a year's time.

Nora Volkow: Either we're a nation in severe pain or we're overprescribing.

tyb525 · April 30, 2012, 07:37:03 PM

I really dislike 60 minutes :

Patty · May 02, 2012, 02:17:19 PM

Me too, Ty. They always have an agenda.... >:(

mooleycow · May 02, 2012, 03:39:32 PM

the only thing i am addicted to is debt. can't stay away, got to have it. git plum eat up with it sometime. it just gives me a fit. git rid of it and here it comes again. i don't know if i am pitiful or sorry.

Texas Ranger · May 02, 2012, 04:36:09 PM

single malt

SwampDonkey · May 02, 2012, 05:20:37 PM

I've always liked 60 minutes if it has something of interest. Last Sunday however I saw the preview and was watching something else. ;D That and the weather for the next 3 days is about all I watch on CBS. If I watch any amount of TV it is PBS mainly, besides all the DVD's I watch. After about 7 or 8 pm I'm in snooze land anyway.

Gary_C · May 03, 2012, 04:45:04 AM

I just heard there are more deaths from prescription drugs than from cocaine and heroin combined.

I sure hope that research on addiction pays off as we are losing the war on drugs. Or perhaps I should say the drug companies do not want us to win that war.

Don't care who presented that story, a good message is still good regardless of the source.

SwampDonkey · May 03, 2012, 05:54:29 AM

It'll pay for the researchers and report writers as well as a drug company making the pill to cure it. ;D

Norm · May 03, 2012, 08:38:47 AM

Addiction is nothing new and will never be "cured". As long as there's more money to be made keeping these substances illegal they will continue to do so.

doctorb · May 03, 2012, 11:45:06 AM

I've said this on another thread long ago but, there is little attempt by the medical community to admit to the magnitude of this problem and to try to remove addictive substances from the lives of our patients. Methadone clinics never "cure" anybody. These people make their living continuing other people's addictions, IMO. I do all the addiction perscribing for my office, with a contract that the patient signs concerning his/her conduct, and a definitive plan to remove narcotics from their life. If they choose not to follow the plan, they're gone. As many of my patients have had long-standing orthopaedic problems that have required chronic narcotic use, I see a lot of this. You would be surprised how many people get off this stuff, once they get help with the cause for their pain. They are, for the most part, eternally grateful.

Magicman · May 04, 2012, 09:43:19 AM

With prescription drugs, nothing ever seems to be removed, something else is added. I just questioned this situation with my meds. I was given a "good" answer, but I still wonder. ???

I wore a Holter monitor for 24 hours a couple of weeks ago, and was given a pill.

SwampDonkey · May 04, 2012, 12:41:26 PM

I know that there are some Dr's pushing meds for stuff that patients have no need to be on. My mother says her Dr wants her on heart meds, but there isn't anything wrong. If I recall, mom was asked if she was taking any kinds of medications and the DR said well we'll have to get you on a prescription. What!? :

>:(

Patty · May 06, 2012, 03:51:39 PM

I am shocked at the number of medications people take on a regular basis.

When I go to the doctor or dentist, they ask for my list of prescription drugs, and I say that I take zero, they look at me with disbelief! This reaction leads me to think that I am in the minority on this one.

sprucebunny · May 06, 2012, 08:07:22 PM

I'm the same as Patty. They ask "Are you sure ?" :

Magicman · May 06, 2012, 09:06:22 PM

Nothing wrong with having nothing wrong, just unusual.

fuzzybear · May 06, 2012, 10:48:38 PM

One certain "one size fits all" heart medication currently boasts over 6 million prescriptions in North America. There were no generic versions available for 10 years. At $5 per pill per day.....you see where I'm going. To make it worse they prescribe other drugs to go along with this "one size fits all" cocktail, Bringing the total to just around $8 per day. So I ask......Who are the real drug dealers????
FB

Norm · May 07, 2012, 07:33:55 AM

Pfizer, Roche, Merck.....

I take a pill a day for high blood pressure. Even then I resisted taking that until I got really bad headaches which of course had nothing to do with them but it made the doc happy. I went to the dentist to have my teeth cleaned and was asked for a list of scrips I was taking. She got a funny look when I told her none of your business. :D

Raphael · May 28, 2012, 01:56:56 PM

Quote from: Texas Ranger on May 02, 2012, 04:36:09 PM
single malt

Amen!

lumberjack48 · May 30, 2012, 12:23:29 PM

Before i got hurt my addiction was work, i loved to work.

Warbird · May 30, 2012, 05:01:52 PM

Quote from: Patty on May 06, 2012, 03:51:39 PM
I am shocked at the number of medications people take on a regular basis. When I go to the doctor or dentist, they ask for my list of prescription drugs, and I say that I take zero, they look at me with disbelief! This reaction leads me to think that I am in the minority on this one.

Same here. They are always shocked. On top of that, I had some dentistry work done a couple of years ago and they wanted to prescribe me powerful pain killers. I declined and they looked at me like I was an alien. Sad thing is, the "severe pain" I was supposed to feel never did hit bad. 2 Advil and a good night of sleep, then it was what I would call 'mild discomfort' for a couple more days.

Today's society is all about popping a pill for the quick fix.

doctorb · May 30, 2012, 06:39:40 PM

Swamp, I would not disregard that look they gave you at the dentist's office. You may well be an alien! :D

sawguy21 · May 30, 2012, 08:58:40 PM

:D

Warbird · June 01, 2012, 10:53:03 AM

Quote from: doctorb on May 30, 2012, 06:39:40 PM
Swamp, I would not disregard that look they gave you at the dentist's office. You may well be an alien! :D

The fact you called me 'swamp' means you must know that my spaceship landed and is hidden in the swamp.

doctorb · June 01, 2012, 11:22:03 AM

I hope that's the smallest mistake I make today!! "Sorry about that" to you and SwampDonkey! I am sure that neither of you wants to be the other! Ah, yes. Signs of the approach of my 61st B-day.

Gary_C · June 01, 2012, 11:50:04 AM

Quote from: Norm on May 03, 2012, 08:38:47 AM
Addiction is nothing new and will never be "cured". As long as there's more money to be made keeping these substances illegal they will continue to do so.

Norm, you can't be so sure of that. The lady has already discovered the mechanism of addiction.

At the most basic level, dopamine has saved us from extinction by making the key elements for survival of the species - food and sex - pleasurable. Dopamine sends signals to receptors in the brain saying: this feels good.

Morley Safer: What is it, a hamburger?

Nora Volkow: It's a hamburger...

Show a hungry person a hamburger and their brain scan shows: a dopamine rush.

Nora Volkow: It just basically stimulates release of dopamine. And the more they release, the more they want the food. We always say, "Well, why do we have a problem with obesity in our society?" And I said, "My God, we're surrounded by stimuli with which we're conditioned. If you like hamburgers you may see that McDonald's yellow arches and then dopamine goes inside your brain and you want it. And you don't know why you want it.

And, Volkow has found images of alcohol and drugs produce similar signals, which the addict can't resist.

Nora Volkow: When a person is addicted, they get conditioned just like Pavlovian dogs.

During a brain scan, a cocaine addict was shown a nature scene. The image created no change in dopamine levels. The same test with a picture of someone using cocaine. Result: a marked rise in dopamine.

Nora Volkow: Here, in an addictive person, you're starting to get the conditions stimulated -

Morley Safer: Just from a photograph.

Nora Volkow: From observing. And that's why drugs are so malignant. You see a stimuli, dopamine goes up in your brain, and that in turn drives the behavior of the person to try to get the drug. And that's an unconscious thing. It's not even conscious.

Nora Volkow: We're seeing consistently a reduction in the levels of these dopamine receptors, in this case heroin, alcohol, methamphetamine, cocaine, but also marijuana and cigarette smokers.

Problem is the brain just isn't wired to handle the intense high that drugs give. A kind of shutoff valve kicks in: reducing the number of receptors in the brain that receive dopamine's feel good message.

Nora Volkow: What happens with repeated administration of these drugs is that the ability of them to generate a sense of pleasure decreases and decreases and decreases. And there's a point where the person starts to take them, not to feel good. But to feel normal.

The road from the house of ghosts in Mexico has taken Nora Volkow to a place of influence in Washington. She starts each day with a seven-mile run, getting a healthy dose of dopamine. And looking forward down the road, she sees a day when science might banish the curse of addiction.

Nora Volkow: A cure would be fantastic. And that means you get a medication like an antibiotic. I cure you.

Volkow's labs and others around the country are working to develop vaccines to block drugs from entering the brain. The complexities are enormous, and progress is slow.

Nora Volkow: We're not there yet. But perhaps one day we may be. And in my brain, if you don't dare to think very ambitious things, you'll never be there.

Edit: If you haven't read the link I originally posted, there is an interesting side story involved. The researcher, Nora Volkow has an interesting family history. Here is a bit of it.

And here our story takes a turn. To the house where Nora Volkow grew up in Mexico City - and the most harrowing chapter in her family's grim history.

Nora Volkow: This house is extraordinary to live in. But there was of course a dark element to it. I was always very conscious of the fact that my great-grandfather had been killed here.

Her great grandfather still stalks world history. He was Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary leader forced into exile after a power struggle with Dictator Joseph Stalin.

Nora Volkow: I remember very clearly being extraordinarily scared to go into the room where Trotsky was killed. I would not be able to do it in the darkness. Something remains there.

Morley Safer: Sort of ghosts, in a way.

Nora Volkow: Ghosts in our brain. Through the memory.