Imagine that you are driving a car. Normally, your brain tells you when to go and when to stop. If you see a green light quickly change to yellow as you approach an intersection, your brain tells you, Hurry up, hit the brakes! There’s danger here! and almost instantly, without thinking, your foot is thrusting downward. The light turns red. You wait. The light turns green again. Your brain says, Okay, go! It’s safe now.
There’s a reason that your addiction is controlling you and your life, and not vice versa. You may know when to go and when to stop when you’re driving a car, but research has shown very clearly that when you become addicted to alcohol or drugs, the part of the brain that tells you when to stop drinking or using drugs becomes impaired. It malfunctions—chronically. Terrible things can happen in your life as the result of your alcohol or drug use, but your brain becomes stuck in go mode. The brakes just stop working.
There are a range of circumstances that bring people into treatment for their addictions or to seek out a source of self-help, like this book. Maybe you’ve gotten into legal trouble; perhaps you’ve been arrested for driving under the influence. Yet even in the face of these hardships, your addicted brain says, Go. Drinking will make you feel better. Perhaps your alcohol or drug use has created conflict in one or more of your important relationships, whether with parents, a partner, your children, or others with whom you are close. Despite the hurt that your addiction has caused you and your family, your addicted brain says, Go. Take a few pills; it will take the edge off. They just don’t get it. You can control it if you really want to.
Maybe your school or work performance has suffered, or you’ve even lost your job or dropped out of school or classes because of your alcohol or drug use. Your addicted brain says, Go. You need to use to cope. If you don’t use, you’ll fall apart. Another trigger point for seeking help is when your use of alcohol or drugs creates or worsens another condition. Maybe it used to make you feel better when you were depressed. But now drinking or using takes you to darker places than you ever could have imagined before this whole vicious cycle started. Your addicted brain says, Go. Have a drink. You need it.
There is a lot to learn about the addicted brain, and you will be an expert on your own addiction once you’ve read this book. But first, take a moment to congratulate yourself for overpowering the go response. If you’re reading this book, that means that something inside of you is telling you to fight your addicted neurobiology. You had the intention to put on the brakes and find a way to reengage your brain’s ability to say stop, and you acted on it. That intention usually comes from the recognition that the pain and suffering that your addiction has caused you and your loved ones now outweighs the good things that drinking or using once did for you.
As strong as that intention and recognition might be at this moment, the urge to return to drinking or using can be equally, if not more, powerful. You already know this, because you have tried to control your use before, but failed. Perhaps you have even quit before, but somewhere along the way, the urge to drink or use took you over and flipped the go switch back into place. It’s that constant battle between the addicted part of the brain and the rational part of the brain that leaves those who suffer from addiction vulnerable to repeated episodes of destructive alcohol and drug use. These relapse episodes, while well understood as part of the illness, are often interpreted as a sign that recovery is not really possible to achieve. Some addicts reject the experience of an urge itself, feeling that urges are a sign that something is wrong or that they are not recovering.
Contrary to these ideas, scientific studies on the psychology of addiction have established that urges to drink or use drugs can persist well into recovery, and are not a sign of failure. As you learn more about the science behind addiction in this book, and as you practice three of the most effective therapeutic techniques for promoting recovery, you will develop an understanding of what an urge is and why it’s happening to you, and you will be better equipped to cope with it without drinking or using.
Research shows that urges will become less frequent and intense with time. But even if they don’t go away completely, with the right skills under your belt, you can manage them effectively over the long term. While you would ideally quit using drugs and alcohol after a single try and never turn back, you have probably learned through your own experience that managing urges to drink or use is not something that you can learn overnight. That is why you need a range of skills and tools to enable you to preserve your recovery anytime a situation, person, stressor, or state of mind places your recovery in jeopardy.