WOAD Wellness

WOAD Wellness run by Woad Stress Management cc © All Rights Reserved

Stress Management and Holistic Wellness


Coaching Blog

Physiology of Addiction 2

Stress Management

You crave after you eat because those gates are open and you may overeat trying to satisfy the need for excess Dopamine. That is why it is a good idea to avoid sweets or products that contain sugar and alcohol, which "teases" those gates unnecessarily.

Now, while those gates never go away, the good news is that after you are clean for awhile, they do become less sensitive. Eventually, even though they are still there, fewer will open and things return to as close to normal as you will ever be able to get to. So, basically you have them, they are laying dormant and if you get say a good 6 months to a year clean time, they pretty much leave us alone.


BUT, how many times have you heard an addict say that they were clean for a while and thought they could just use recreationally now and control it?

Of course you can't control it, once we take that first pill (or whatever) again, the HUGE amount of Dopamine is released and ALL of those dormant gates are wakened and our tolerance is just as high as it always was. you don't have to build it back up, you pick right back up at the amounts that you are accustomed to. How many times have you seen someone who never had a drinking problem get clean from pills and then become an alcoholic?

They think that if they are not taking their “DOC” they will be ok. But remember, our brain doesn't know if you are feeding it Vicodin, Heroin or whiskey. All it knows or cares about is the end result that the substance produces.


Stage Two
Now, you are getting clean, the WD's are over, you are not using any other substance but you are miserable, can't sleep, are depressed, anxious, etc, etc....Now, why is this, it's not fair, right?

I mean, you did what you were supposed to and yet you feel so ABNORMAL and it seems to last forever.

The reason for this is simple, when you were growing all those extra gates and training our brain to rely on a unnatural chemical, you ACTUALLY, PHYSICALLY altered the chemical make-up in the brain.

You may be clean but you are left with a bunch of synapses (sic),and receptors that are in essence "misfiring". You feel the way you do because your brain is no longer functioning normally. This does eventually heal but it is not a quick process. Your brains have to repair all the damage you did when you went in and rearranged it. Usually this takes anywhere from several months to a year. The longest time belonging to those whose DOC is opiate based, such as Vicodin, Percocet, Oxycontin and Heroin. This is why such extreme caution has to be use in early recovery and also why so many addicts relapse. It takes so long to feel normal again that most of us give up and return to the drug induced normality that they are used to. The sad truth is that only 2 out of 10 addicts recover using conventional "rehabs". It again is not because they are weak people, but rather because it is such a long term mental challenge. I mean, how long can you go through living everyday just not caring about anything? (this is where hypnosis can help!)


If your stay strong, have a support system and be patient, one day you discover that you can smile again and while it may only last a few seconds, it is a real feeling and you can being to hope. There is life after drugs, and that life can be as rewarding and meaningful, if not more so, than any other person's life.


what to do to continue with successful recovery,


A support system is key (12 step program with sponsors and helping others) and proper diet and exercise. Your body is a machine, and if you can feed it with optimum natural healthy fuel, and service it regularly (exercise), it recovers very very fast!

Hypnotherapy and other psychotherapy will assist through the early middle and later stages of recovery.



Contact Us for Appointment Information

“Wellness is a perpetual feeling of self empowerment which allows you to live at your highest possible potential in all areas of your life, and helps to create the time and energy to improve yourself and others.”