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Continue reading →: A Date for the Diary! My Interview on KLĒN+SŌBR’s Podcast
KLĒN+SŌBR @KLENandSOBR May Guests on #SinceRightNow First Up – Paul @DrunkenNeuron – May 9th 2015 Hear my interview with Chris on podcast here May 9th! Talking about my research into the underlying cognitive-affective mechanisms of Addictive Behaviours as well as Recovery from these behaviours. I’m looking forward to it –…
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Continue reading →: Are There Two Types of Alcoholic
In this three part blog we sill start to look more closely at the genetics of alcoholism, a subject area slightly neglected so far on this blog site. I have often sat in the rooms of AA and wondered if there are different types of alcoholics. One old timer once…
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Continue reading →: How it (Mindfulness) Works? (Part 4)
“Mindfulness Training Ameliorates Addiction by Targeting Neurocognitive Mechanisms EXPOSURE AND EXTINCTION Individuals in early recovery from addiction often attempt to suppress craving for drugs and alcohol as a means of maintaining abstinence. However, these suppression attempts often backfire, resulting in depletion of self-control resources (1, 179) and a consequent rebound…
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Continue reading →: How it (Mindfulness) Works? (Part 3)
“Mindfulness Training Ameliorates Addiction by Targeting Neurocognitive Mechanisms In the third part of this excellent review paper (1) we look at the empirical evidence is presented suggesting that MBIs ameliorate addiction by enhancing cognitive regulation of a number of key processes. EMOTION REGULATION When individuals are unable to marshal effective…
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Continue reading →: How it (Mindfulness) Works? (Part 2)
“Mindfulness Training Ameliorates Addiction by Targeting Neurocognitive Mechanisms ATTENTIONAL BIAS Given that drug-use action schemas may be evoked by cues associated with past substance use episodes, activation of addictive habits may be interrupted by re-orienting attention from substance-related stimuli to neutral or salutary objects and events. MBIs may be especially…
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Continue reading →: How it (Mindfulness) Works? (Part 1)
Following on from our previous blog Neural mechanisms of mindfulness meditation we now use abbreviated excerpts form a very good researcher Eric Garland into how possible mindfulness helps repair, via meditation based neuroplasticity, those areas and networks of the brain which are impaired or do not function adaptively in the addicted brain. In…
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Continue reading →: Neural mechanisms of mindfulness meditation
Mindfulness is simply paying attention to thoughts, emotions, and body sensations in a non-judgmental manner.Meditation is a platform used to achieve mindfulness. This practice originated from the idea of mindfulness in Buddhism and has been widely promoted by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Components of mindfulness meditation Although several components for mindfulness meditation have…
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Continue reading →: Changing your Mind, Emotions (and brain) via Mindfulness
Apart for the 12 step program of recovery, the other reasons for me still being alive today are my wife and mindfulness meditation. All the periods I have struggled in my recovery have coincided with me not meditating properly. I spent a number of years learning and practicing Vispassana meditation,…
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Continue reading →: The “Yets” Illustrate the Progression Of Alcoholism.
Alcoholic denial and how this denial (or delusion) can manifest in the most elaborate plans to convince one they are not alcoholic is very apparent.
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Continue reading →: Intolerance of Uncertainty and Distorted thinking About the Future
Another common area I feel addiction has with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is intolerance of uncertainty (IU). In fact it is also associated with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)- there is actually a high co-morbidity (at least around 40% comorbidity) with addiction and PTSD and it is one so-called co-morbidity…
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The Alcoholics Guide to Alcoholism 