Status Updates From Unbroken Brain: A Revolutio...

I really appreciate the depth and vulnerability this book offers while also educating on psychological theory.

I really love this book so far. It’s assigned for my Substance Use Counseling course, and it provides both crucial points of psychology education as well as heartbreaking truths from the author’s personal experience.

Posits that addiction is a learning and developmental disorder and that time of onset can help inform and predict recovery based on her own experiences. However, doesn't really acknowledge that she didn't lose everything in her addiction journey and still had a home, strong family support, and other protective factors that helped her in her recovery.

Even when I don’t have homework, I still give myself homework. 😅

我以为是科普书，没想到还挺像一本回忆录的。

We all tend to learn best when we feel safe and curious and want to connect and win our teachers’ respect.

Working on a holiday = watching webinars & reading all day! So weird not having programming to run, but just to be a body in case of crisis.

The chapter on set and setting made so much sense and connected lots of concepts for me. Wow.

It’s hard to tell when one starts losing control over a certain behaviour, when the line between what you feel like you “want” and what you think you “need” becomes blurred.

“These drugs made me see why being kind really mattered - and that who you are is not simply a result of inborn predispositions unfolding but a function of what you do and choose.”

“Good decisions aren’t always made for healthy reasons.”

Very interesting concept that addiction is a learning disorder. Plain language that is easy to understand as well.

Wow forgot about this on my desk! Gonna maybe take it home this weekend 🙂

Chapter 2 now. Interesting reading the author’s experience as a substance user and the moment it all changed.

“But that approach would have required them to see me as a fellow human being who was ill, not as just another junkie - and it would have required genuinely individualized therapy, not just bureaucratic rules.”

Wonderful introduction, excited to read her experience as a substance user and professional.

The finish line is in sight

Pretty decent but doesn’t keep me up all night wanting more! Scheduling bath time a few nights a week to get some of it done

Good

If you haven’t learned that a drug “fixes” you, you cannot be addicted to it, even if your body is dependent on it. The mind/body distinction is a false one: psychological needs and desires drive addiction and these change with learning and development. Physical dependence does make quitting drugs harder—but if it were the real problem, addiction could be cured simply by being forced to wait out withdrawal.

Rather than making things better, it starts to make them worse. Unfortunately, by this time, habitual responses are already deeply engrained and well learned; and even if you know the ritual you perform to try to make you less anxious will actually make you more so, you don’t believe it. You feel compelled to repeat it, even when you are utterly sure that it will not help.

These changes affect the structures around the DNA that determine how it will be read. Some of these “reading instructions” can be passed down along with the genes—although these changes only seem to affect two generations and then disappear. What this means, trauma your parents or even grandparents experienced—and even their diets and their chemical exposures—may potentially affect your brain development

Substance use is just one of many ways that people learn to cope. If you learn that the world is not a safe and stable place—and that others are unreliable—when you are young, it can shape the trajectory of your emotional learning and the way you cope for the rest of your life.

while impulsiveness involves too little behavioral inhibition and a failure to prevent reckless behavior, obsession and compulsiveness is a problem with too much inhibition, a difficulty with getting out of a rut, rather than with preventing actions from being initiated. Further, inability to modulate fear and other emotions also involves a reduced capacity to self-regulate.

Our social environment and our reactions to it teach us how to be, and whether the world around us suits our personalities and inclinations or clashes with them helps determine our direction. In the context of addiction, the learning that occurs during preadolescence either enhances or diminishes the emotional pain we feel and our sense of either connection or isolation.

the meaning of pain profoundly affects how it is felt, and the more worry and fear involved, the worse the suffering. Pain that is viewed as life threatening literally feels more intense and agonizing than pain with a known, nondangerous origin or time frame;

Really interesting so far!

I like her points and challenges regarding AA and 12-step programs

Szalavitz continues to impress.