Comment by d-us-vb | Hacker News Reader

Comment by d-us-vb | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

The view that addiction is a disease is still contentious. Addiction may really be the brain functioning normally, but with abnormal stimuli. Brains are learning organs. Addictive substances don’t rewire it any differently from “normal” stimuli, it just does it faster and it’s harder to undo.

But due to brain plasticity, the most effective treatment for addiction yet discovered is forgetting it, or more precisely, abstinence for a long enough period. (But that usually sounds trite because the problem being solved during treatment is more preventing voluntary relapse, starting the forgetting period over again.)

The fact that the effects don’t last for more than a few months is very concerning, and I have to wonder about the long term side effects of so bluntly changing something as complex as a brain. And even more concerning is the risk of predatory behavior of practitioners preying on the desperation of addicts.

Maybe this is already in everyone’s mind as they read this, but as someone dealing with an addiction, I would not volunteer for this treatment due to these risks. Imagine if the long term effects actually make the addiction worse. And that seems very possible based on how much we actually know about how the brain works.

And some things take time to forget or are even impossible to forget. Even after years and years of not riding a bike you don't forget how to if you learned it in your childhood. Same with driving a manual car and later switching to automatic transmission.

I'm very hopeful that psychedelics help with (un) learning.

abstinence for a long enough period having an effective mechanism of forgetting is actually a pretty interesting concept, do you have any paper recommendations on that line?

Sadly I think addiction is a psychological process induced by ones state of life.

Most addition therapies work well while a person is engaged in it but as soon as the person comes back to their old life style it comes back.

You need to change your life to change the habits otherwise is near impossible unless you have very strong willpower, which most people with addiction don’t.

On the other hand there are the majority of people living under the same circumstances and are not getting addicted.

I think there is another way of getting rid of addictions: I heard of multiple people that quit smoking form one day to another which usually has a very low chance of success (~3%). One thing they had in common: They pursued their addiction and one day got so horribly sick that something changed. I think the Sinclair method follows a similar approach. Give alcohol addicted people naltrexone which blocks the rewards from ethanol but keeps the nasty side effects and then let them drink as they like.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com