This chapter is about journey thinking. The final yet longest layer of recovery is rooted in the time needed to move beyond the influence of use related memories, thoughts, and beliefs. This chapter's objective is to accelerate conscious recovery.
But how? Relationships don't exist in isolation, especially controlling ones. They're built upon foundational memories. So, let's shine light upon both.
We'll do so by focusing on the truth about that pile of old wanting satisfaction memories, the anxiety generating seeds that for years made us fear coming home.
To summarize, why invite torment by the lie that each memory tells, that use is the solution to wanting? Also, why continue to be teased by a biological need to feed that no longer exists within 2-3 weeks of ending use?
Next, we'll reflect upon existing use-beliefs that our lack of dependency understanding may have forced us to invent.
In summary, why allow use explanations created inside a mind that knew almost nothing about chemical dependency to combine with thousands of old wanting satisfaction memories, so as to fuel and drive irrational fears, anxieties, or even panic?
Imagine the serenity if able to totally let go. Imagine a quiet mind comfortably and confidently moving on.
Why not give truth a chance?
While freedom begins the moment we say "no" to more, truth offers the potential to accelerate transforming "no" into calm.
Although I have no idea where you are in recovery, or if you've even started yet, let's assume for a moment that you're almost home.
You adopted a do-able "one day at a time" or "one challenge at a time" recovery outlook that's kept you rooted and grounded in here and now. You mastered patience during a less than 5 minute crave episode clamoring for compliance. You stuck with it for the up to 72 hours needed to rid your body of nicotine. At last, you were clean!
Your healing and glory continued for the two to three weeks needed to re-sensitize and down-regulate receptor counts, allowing your brain to fully adjust to functioning without nicotine.
You confronted and extinguished all but isolated, infrequent, holiday, or seasonal subconscious use cues. You're now less than a week away from that first full day of total and complete mental quiet and calm, where you never once think about wanting to use.
Still, there are moments each day where your mind is occupied with thoughts of using. The waning tease of years of old "aaah" wanting satisfaction memories continue to call, each proclaiming the falsehood that the way to end wanting is to use.
It normally goes something like this. Your eyes, nose, or ears detect some aspect of use, or a fleeting thought turns your attention to the subject of using.
Before you know it, old use memories begin suggesting that use calms desire. An internal debate begins as an old use justification enters your mind and bumps heads with the reality that you've already stopped.
Before examining the use rationalizations that may surface, let's reflect on a few truths about the pile of old use memories that will awaken it. Why? Because while we can't erase them, honest light can diminish or possibly even eliminate their pester and tease.
Recall the 1990 Brandon study reviewed in Chapter 2. It followed and examined lapse and relapse in smokers who'd successfully completed a two-week cessation program.[1] It also documented the primary emotion they felt immediately following lapse.
Assume that many of them were close to where I've asked you to pretend you are now, a week away from your first full day without wanting.
You've already succeeded in fully navigating physical withdrawal. There's no chemical missing and nothing needs replenishment. Your brain has fully re-sensitized and down-regulated.
The biological need for nicotine in order to maintain the addict's sense of "nicotine normal" no longer exists. Your brain's sense of normal (homeostasis) has been restored. Background dopamine levels (tonic levels) are elevated, and their decline no longer induces wanting for nicotine.
So, with nothing missing, what would be the primary emotion you'd expect to experience if you lapsed and used nicotine? According to the Brandon study, the vast majority had a negative reaction.
Among them, lapse left 13% feeling depressed and hopeless, 33% experienced anxiety and tension, 16% were angry and irritated, and 12% felt boredom or fatigue. Only 3.6% reported what most of us would have expected following normal replenishment, which was "feeling relaxed."
If we visit online recovery forums and dig back through messages describing relapses that occurred beyond the first couple of weeks, those describing the sensations experienced have a common ring.
They read like this, "I had a mouth full of smoke, I was dizzy and I coughed, but I didn't get the sense of satisfaction I expected. It just didn't come!"
Lizzy was a member of WhyQuit's Freedom support site when she wrote:
"The first cigarette after four years tasted like Luther's Boot. It was horrible. I smoked the whole thing wondering why I was smoking it (answer: tequila and complacency). I woke up the next morning feeling worse than any hangover could possibly feel, because I wasn't hungover."
"I'd inhaled poison the night before. My head was killing me, I felt nauseous and my lungs felt as though I'd sucked up broken glass. There was no 'aaah' feeling. It was more like 'aauugghh!!!' What had I done to myself?"[2]
Thousands of enticing old use memories stored in her prefrontal cortex had told Lizzy to expect a sense of relief and satisfaction, that use would satisfy wanting.
But in that her brain had already fully adjusted to functioning without nicotine years earlier, her desire was memory-based, and the expected "aaah" wasn't there. Unlike when those old "aaah" sensations were recorded, there was nothing missing and nothing in need of replenishment.
Memories suggested a physical need that no longer existed. It's normal to blame each use-memory's tease on the absence of nicotine, thus, in our minds, transforming the culprit into a cure.
So, with great expectations, Lizzy took that first hit of nicotine and it failed to measure up.
What happens next? Sadly, the uneducated user is likely clueless as to why lapse didn't match expectations. They'll find the absence of an "aaah" wanting relief sensation hard to believe.
Deep down, they know that the satisfaction message being shouted by thousands of old replenishment memories was true when made.
Although relapse has already occurred and full-blown wanting and begging will soon return, they'll likely keep digging inside the pack, cartridge, tin, pouch, or tube, attempting to get use to match expectations.
Eventually, they'll succeed. Active dependency is soon restored, often with an increase in the level of use (a tolerance increase possibly due to nicotine binge gorging following relapse).
Now, they can look in the mirror and say to themselves, "See, I was right." "Smoking did bring me a relaxed "aaah" feeling and a sense of relief!"
Still, the basic wanting satisfaction message suggested by each old use memory was a lie, even at the very second that the memory was formed.
There's no denying that while still actively using, that sagging blood nicotine levels reduced background or tonic dopamine, which generated wanting. Each nicotine fix stimulated the release of a burst of dopamine (a phasic release) which briefly elevated tonic levels and temporarily satisfied wanting.
But the bedrock truth is, use cannot and does not end wanting. To the contrary, it's the only way to ensure that urges return. Truth is, the only way to end wanting is to navigate this temporary period of re-adjustment called recovery.
Still, how could we not believe them? Each use generated a new high-definition dopamine pathway memory documenting exactly how wanting was satisfied. Collectively, daily, thousands of old such use memories pounded home the falsehood that use is the answer to wanting.
Addiction isn't magic. It's about the influence of countless wanting satisfaction memories in collectively forming a prison cell. Ever thickening walls prevented us from seeing the truth. While we may have dreamed of breaking free, urge anxieties made it hard to take escape seriously.
I hope you never forget that every memory of that "perfect" fix was created inside the mind of an actively feeding drug addict riding an endless cycle of nicotine/dopamine highs and lows. While documenting a brief pause in wanting, they belong to who we once were.
Trapped and living from fix to fix, it was vastly easier to simply invent justifications for that next mandatory feeding.
Real drug addicts in every sense, we needed a less harsh explanation. Still human, our dignity and self-esteem needed to survive.
References:
2. LizzyB, The Final Truth, Response #11, Freedom from Nicotine, June 26, 2006.
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