(This is Part 31 of a series. Go back to Part 30.)
Imagine sitting in a lighted room, a room comfortably lit with the normal lighting common in, say, a living room. To our eyes the room appears "normal", neither too dim nor too bright.
Now imagine that some movie-set lights are brought into the room and turned on. Suddenly the room will seem to us extremely bright.
However, if the new lights stay on and we let some time pass, we'll notice that the room seems "normal" again. It's level of brightness will seem unremarkable to us.
What has happened? Our nervous systems have adjusted, they've neuroadapted to this new state so that it seems normal to us.
Now if the film-set lights are turned off our room will seem "dim" to us even though the regular lights are still on and even though the room in this state had previously seemed "normal" to us.
However, after a period of time our nervous system will readjust once again and the room's brightness will once again seem "normal" to us.
If we put all this on a numeric scale we might say that "normal" is 100 on the scale, while "bright" is 150 and "dim" is 50. Then our experience with the room and the lights would look like this:
First the room is normal to us (100). Then when the film lights are turned on the room seems bright (150). But after awhile the room seems normal to us again (100).
When the film lights are turned off the room now seems dim (50). But finally, as time passes, the room will seem normal to us again (100).
This same phenomenon what happens in drug addiction. Let's look at a typical addiction—cocaine, say, and let's imagine that we ourselves are the protagonist in this journey.
When the scenario begins our baseline is at 100, meaning that we're at a normal level of pleasure and pain. We win some, we lose some, we feel relatively "normal" in our degree of happiness.
Now we begin to take cocaine and we feel an intense high. This feels good! Our pleasure circuits are taking a direct hit and we feel stimulated both physically and emotionally. We're at 150 now—flying high. This is the
primary effect.
However, an interesting thing happens over time. As with the bright lights, our brain neuroadapts to this new reality and after the passage of time—even though we're taking more and more cocaine—we feel once again at a more or less "baseline" level of physical and emotional well-being, that is, at 100.
Meanwhile, something else is happening: Even though we feel more stimulated for awhile, over time we notice that our body/mind is becoming physically and emotionally exhausted and that now we are taking the cocaine just to try to maintain some semblance of "normalcy".
However, sooner or later the effort fails and we confront exhaustion. And this is the secondary effect.
That is what happened to Sigmund Freud. In the late 19th century the newly synthesized cocaine struck Freud as a wonder drug. He recommended it to his patients and took it himself. Though everyone at first felt marvelous, Freud noticed that over time his patients deteriorated and that he himself had become exhausted, depressed and miserable.
Now if we begin the process of withdrawal from the drug we'll feel at first even less than normal—let's say 50 or so. Temporarily we'll feel even more exhausted than before as the artificial stimulation is no longer present.
But after awhile our brain will once again neuroadapt and we'll feel at 100 again, at a normal level—with the great difference that this time our level is sustainable.
(This is the end of Part 31. Go to Part 32.)
—jim sloman, 10.27.04 for Apr 19
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