Greed, selfishness, exploitation, cruelty, and violence are still all-pervasive on this planet

Meditation Mind

"Greed, selfishness, exploitation, cruelty, and violence are still all-pervasive on this planet,". "When you don't recognise them as individual and collective manifestations of an underlying dysfunction or mental illness, you fall into the error of personalising them. You construct a conceptual identity for an individual or group and you say: 'This is who he is. This is who they are.'" "All this," he notes, "is enormously satisfying to the ego. It strengthens the sense of separation between yourself and the other, whose 'otherness' has become manifested to such an extent that you can no longer feel your common humanity, not the rootedness in the one Life that you share with each human being, your common divinity."

Doctors to vote on cigarette sale ban for those born after 2000

 

Doctors to vote on cigarette sale ban for those born after 2000 Public health specialist says most adult smokers began as teens and motion is aimed at stopping next generation taking up habit

The knowledge trap.

 Certainly there is a body of knowledge that it is important for us to acquire about the self. Truths like each "self" is uniquely designed by its Creator, each of us is always warmly accepted by our loving Acceptor, and none of us can out-sin Grace. These facts are essential to an empowering view of the self. But we all learn sooner or later that insight has its limits. Recovering a healthy view of ourselves will require more than just increasing our knowledge about what is true. In addition to learning the truth about ourselves we will need to learn ways to feel and experience these truths. Consistently feeling and experiencing these powerful truths personally in one's soul requires process, struggle, and time. Knowing is important. But by itself it is not powerful enough to make possible the changes that need to be made.

The inner logic of 12 Step recovery is completely different from the inner logic of our profit-driven, media-based culture or commercial treatment.

The inner logic of 12 step recovery is completely different from the inner logic of our profit-driven, media-based culture or commercial treatment. The fundamental difference is put succinctly by one of my favourite slogans from the 12 Step tradition: "If nothing changes, nothing changes." The Christian community has done nothing of any consequence in the last two generations to decrease the incidence of addiction and abuse. I am unable to point to a single denomination which can claim to have implemented prevention programs capable of significantly reducing the amount of addiction and abuse in its pews. There is absolutely no reason to think that the incidence of sexual abuse in the Christian community is decreasing.

AA's ineffective fantasyland of a program

AA's ineffective fantasyland of a program in which Man creates his own God, rather than "May you find Him now" as Bill and Bob did.

The Alcoholic Addict labours under a belief system which is no longer based on today’s reality

The Alcoholic Addict labours under a belief system which is no longer based on today’s reality and is therefore alien to what the rest of us believe. Most of us hold on to reality as best we can, sometimes with difficulty – so to have one of us stoutly declare that the world is full of unseen problems and fears, that there are voices , visions and blackouts which the rest of us cannot hear or see – this shakes us to our core. In particular it challenges our own personal belief systems – and when we are threatened, we tend to react aggressively, even destructively, which explains (though it does not excuse) the appalling history of maltreatment meted out to victims of addiction .

STEP 4 Why is it that it is often easier for us to confess our sins to God than to a brother?

Why is it that it is often easier for us to confess our sins to God than to a brother? God is holy and sinless, He is a just judge of evil and the enemy of all disobedience. But a brother is sinful as we are. He knows from his own experience the dark night of secret sin. Why should we not find it easier to go to a brother than to the holy God? But if we do, we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution...Who can give us the certainty that, in the confession and the forgiveness of our sins, we are not dealing with ourselves but with the living God? God gives us this certainty through our brother. Our brother breaks the circle of self-deception. A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person.
 The root of all sin is pride, superbia. I want to be my own law, I have a right to my self, my hatred and my desires, my life and my death. The mind and flesh of man are set on fire by pride; for it is precisely in his wickedness that man wants to be as God. Confession in the presence of a brother is the profoundest kind of humiliation. It hurts, it cuts a man down, it is a dreadful blow to pride...In the deep mental and physical pain of humiliation before a brother - which means, before God 
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Bill Wilson is on record for having found a solution in 1960 for treating anxiety and depression

 Bill Wilson is on record for having found a solution in 1960 for treating anxiety and depression using vitamin B-3 therapy and worked tirelessly for eleven years begging for its inclusion into A.A. recovery circles.  His desire was to help alcoholics stay recovered. This means he would have immediately brought this mineral replacement therapy that eliminates alcohol cravings forth without exception.  Master of ceremonies, Andrew W. Saul, includes Bill Wilson as an inductee of the Orthomolecular Medicine Hall of Fame at the Hotel Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, April 29, 2006 in his induction speech, “…To this day, selective history records A.A.’s 12-Step Program, but has forgotten, or deliberately purged, what Bill wanted to be A.A.’s 13th step – orthomolecular therapy with vitamin B3.”[Lee Brack1]  In February 2009, Orthomolecular Medicine’s founder, Abram Hoffer and Bill Wilson’s good friend, clarified to me over the phone, “..yes, Lee, he wanted to share this information as an added step and talked about it all the time because he felt so strongly about nutrition…”  Abram Hoffer passed away a few months later in May having lived healthy and happily for ninety one and a half years.

Understand the inherently peaceful presence of Awareness the art of Living in the NOW

Understand the inherently peaceful presence of Awareness the art of Living in the NOW, and see that this peace is not dependent upon the condition of the mind, body or world, just as a screen is not dependent on the quality of the words or images that appear on it.

The addicted brain is distinctly different from the nonaddicted brain, as manifested by changes in brain metabolic activity, receptor availability, gene expression, and responsiveness to environmental cues

There are many biological factors that are involved with the addicted brain. "The addicted brain is distinctly different from the nonaddicted brain, as manifested by changes in brain metabolic activity, receptor availability, gene expression, and responsiveness to environmental cues" (2) In the brain, there are many changes that take place when drugs enter a person's blood stream. The pathway in the brain that the drugs take is first to the ventral tegmentum to the nucleus accumbens, and the drugs also go to the limbic system and the orbitofrontal cortex, which is called the mesolimbic reward system. The activation of this reward system seems to be the common element in what hooks drug users on drugs (2).

Drugs seem to cause surges in dopamine neurotransmitters and other pleasure brain messengers. However, the brain quickly adapts and these circuits desensitize, which allows for withdrawal symptoms to occur (3). Drug addiction works on some of the same neurobiological mechanisms that aid in learning and memories (3). "This new view of dopamine as an aid to learning rather than a pleasure mediator may help explain why many addictive drugs, which unleash massive surges of the neurotransmitter in the brain, can drive continued use without producing pleasure-as when cocaine addicts continue to take hits long after the euphoric effects of the drug have worn off or when smokers smoke after cigarettes become distasteful." (4)

Since memory and pleasure zones are intertwined in the brain, many researchers have been using psychological approaches to stop drug use. Many rehabilitation centers have used classical conditioning to rehabilitate drug addicts. They combine exposure to drugs combined with cognitive scripts, like statements how drugs have destroyed a person's life or what can be accomplished without using drugs, according to DeLetis (5). By using classical conditioning, the drugs addicts pair the drugs with negative connotations and properties. "Adverse withdrawal symptoms can function as an instrumental negative reinforcer and can be linked to the opponent process theory of motivation." (6) However, drug addicts may relapse and start using again because of many environmental "cues", which are external forces that are associated with drug use in their lives. When the drugs addicts see these cues, their brain circuitry, especially the orbitofrontal cortex become hyperactive and causes these people to start craving drugs again (2). No matter how successful the rehabilitation treatment is, once those "cues" are around, the drug addicts remember how pleasurable the drugs felt and relapse into drug abuse again.

Through all of the research done about drug addiction and its affects on the brain, one can see how drug addiction is considered a brain disease. Drug addiction is a disabling disease and can ruin a person's life. By taking drugs, a person's brain becomes "rewired" to tolerate high amounts of dopamine neurotransmitters, but once those high amounts of dopamine cease to exist, the person experiences withdrawal symptoms. However, there are ways drug addicts can control their drug intake by using classical conditioning techniques, which allows them to associate drugs with negative attributes.

Bill Wilson is on record for having found a solution in 1960 for treating anxiety and depression using vitamin B-3 therapy and worked tirelessly for eleven years begging for its inclusion into A.A. recovery circles.

The Serotonin Support Group (SSG)

Is a mutual support group for people who suffer from low Serotonin levels,  wishing to participate in a support group that uses as one method a vitamin supplement as a method of replacement or addition to a diet to help the sufferer.The historical basis of this form of nutritional treatment was discovered and researched by Bill Wilson of Alcoholics Anonymous and it is to promote this Legacy to persons who suffer from low serotonin uptake and depression that the Group was formed.Bill Wilson wished to add a step to the 12 he had produced for AA. We struggle to make that possible and fulfill his promise. Without detracting from the message of recovery in the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. If alcoholics and addictive abusers of other drugs have specific chemical imbalances in the brain, and if these imbalances turn out to be reliable enough and measurable enough in sufficiently large numbers of human addicts, it is natural to wonder whether, eventually, science can find a way to correct them.

Some sort of neurotransmitter cocktail, maybe.

Or just possibly... a pill?

Bill Wilson is on record for having found a solution in 1960 for treating anxiety and depression using vitamin B-3 therapy and worked tirelessly for eleven years begging for its inclusion into A.A. recovery circles.  His desire was to help alcoholics stay recovered. This means he would have immediately brought this mineral replacement therapy that eliminates alcohol cravings forth without exception. Andrew W. Saul, includes Bill Wilson as an inductee of the Orthomolecular Medicine Hall of Fame at the Hotel Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, April 29, 2006 in his induction speech, “…To this day, selective history records A.A.’s 12-Step Program, but has forgotten, or deliberately purged, what Bill wanted to be A.A.’s 13th step – orthomolecular therapy with vitamin B3.”[Lee Brack1]  In February 2009, Orthomolecular Medicine’s founder, Abram Hoffer and Bill Wilson’s good friend, clarified to me over the phone, “..yes, Lee, he wanted to share this information as an added step and talked about it all the time because he felt so strongly about nutrition…”  Abram Hoffer passed away a few months later in May having lived healthy and happily for ninety one and a half years.

The results strongly suggest that the mechanism of depression after alcohol drinking may be related to serotonin.

We examined tryptophan and serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine) levels in the blood after consumption of alcohol. Forty-five minutes after drinking, whole blood serotonin concentration was significantly reduced, whereas no changes were observed in tryptophan level. The diurnal rhythm of 5-HT in subjects who the day before had drunk alcohol was quite different from the control group, but very similar to that of patients with depression. The results strongly suggest that the mechanism of depression after alcohol drinking may be related to serotonin.

 

The important thing with serotonin, is to keep it at steady levels.

The important thing with serotonin, is to keep it at steady levels. The medicines that raise the level of serotonin in the brain do so by slowing the reabsorbtion of serotonin. The alcohol increases the availible serotonin for a bit and then it drops off quickly, leaving the depressed person feeling worse, and they tend to not take the medicine correctly when they feel badly or are drunk. High serotonin levels do not mean somebody will feel happy or good, It makes it more likely that they won't feel realy bad.

Alcohol is literally a neurotoxin, it kills brain cells, it kills final bacteria in your gut, and it is essentially poison. It makes you stupid, it lowers your IQ level, and it is addicting as hell

We all know that we shouldn't let alcohol get the best of this, or go to our heads. Alcohol is literally a neurotoxin, it kills brain cells, it kills final bacteria in your gut, and it is essentially poison. It makes you stupid, it lowers your IQ level, and it is addicting as hell. Surely, we all know people who have trouble with alcoholism. It's a real problem in our country. These people need serious help, and the sooner we get them into a rehab the better, otherwise as they age their bodies wear out twice as fast, worried about health care costs? I am.

If you don't think that alcohol is a neurotoxin, or adversely affects your judgment, then perhaps you should talk to Senator Ted Kennedy about this. Oh yeah, you can't he died of a cancerous brain tumor. See the point? Senator Ted Kennedy had a problem with alcohol his entirely of life, not only did end up killing himself off early, his alcohol problem also killed someone else in his younger days.

I'm not sure why the media wants to prop up the false image behind Senator Kennedy, rather than using his life as an example of why alcoholism is so bad. He is the perfect example of why you shouldn't let your kids drink, and why you should get your alcoholic friends and family members off the bottle. I noted after Sen. Kennedy's death that no one from MADD Mothers Against Drunk Drivers stood up to make that point.

Apparently, it didn't seem politically correct to show how alcohol had ruined the Senator's life. But it went well beyond the man himself, as some of his legislation that he had put into place may one day cause the bankruptcy of the United States of America. It is only fair to tell the truth, and put everything into perspective. It is unwise and unfair to truth to cover over this little white lie in the name of Camelot. Alcoholism kills. Please consider all this.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2857804

Alcohol idiosyncratic intoxication is an unusual condition that occurs when a small amount of alcohol produces intoxication that results in aggression, impaired consciousness, prolonged sleep, transient hallucinations, illusions, and delusions.

Alcohol-related psychosis spontaneously clears with discontinuation of alcohol use and may resume during repeated alcohol exposure. Although distinguishing alcohol-related psychosis from schizophrenia through clinical presentation often is difficult, it is generally accepted that alcohol-related psychosis remits with abstinence, unlike schizophrenia. If persistent psychosis develops, diagnostic confusion can result. Comorbid psychotic disorders, eg, schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder, may exist, resulting in the psychosis being attributed to the wrong etiology.

Some characteristics that may help differentiate alcohol-induce psychosis from schizophrenia, are that alcohol-induced psychosis shows a significantly lower educational level, later onset of psychosis, higher levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms, fewer negative and disorganized symptoms, better insight and judgment, and less functional impairment.^[1]

Alcohol idiosyncratic intoxication is an unusual condition that occurs when a small amount of alcohol produces intoxication that results in aggression, impaired consciousness, prolonged sleep, transient hallucinations, illusions, and delusions. These episodes occur rapidly, can last from only a few minutes to hours, and are followed by amnesia. Alcohol idiosyncratic intoxication often occurs in elderly persons and those with impaired impulse control.

Unlike alcoholism, alcohol-related psychosis lacks the in-depth research needed to understand its pathophysiology, demographics, characteristics, and treatment. This article will attempt to provide as much possible information for adequate knowledge of alcohol-related psychosis and the most up-to-date treatment.

The Role of Serotonin in Alcohol’s Effects on the Brain http://www.currentseparations.com/issues/18-1/cs18-1d.pdf

http://www.currentseparations.com/issues/18-1/cs18-1d.pdf

Serotonin is an important brain chemical that acts as a neurotransmitter

to communicate information among nerve cells. Serotonin’s actions have

been linked to alcohol’s effects on the brain and to alcohol abuse.

Alcoholics and experimental animals that consume large quantities of

alcohol show evidence of differences in brain serotonin levels compared

with nonalcoholics. Both short- and long-term alcohol exposures also

affect the serotonin receptors that convert the chemical signal produced

by serotonin into functional changes in the signal-receiving cell.

Drugs that act on these receptors alter alcohol consumption in both

humans and animals. Serotonin, along with other neurotransmitters,

also may contribute to alcohol’s intoxicating and rewarding effects,

and abnormalities in the brain’s serotonin system appear to play an

important role in the brain processes underlying alcohol abuse.

When alcohol is inputted into our brain, it induces many forms of typical behavior outputs such as impaired judgement, extreme emotion, and slowed behavior.

Alcohol and its effects

Sarah Kim

Does the brain control all forms of behavior? Is everything we do, say, think and feel a direct output from nothing but the brain? Is it justifiable to think of the brain as interconnected box within box with inputs and outputs? The focus of this paper is on the input alcohol and how the processes generate a certain type of behavior output. This focus of alcohol input and behavior output will demonstrate that indeed brain is and does equal all forms of behavior.

When alcohol is inputted into our brain, it induces many forms of typical behavior outputs such as impaired judgement, extreme emotion, and slowed behavior. Long-term effects include damage in cognitive behavior especially associated with the frontal lobes of the brain such as "slowed processing of information, difficulty in learning new material, deficits in abstraction and problem solving, and reduced visuospatial abilities." (1). The reason for this kind of damage in cognitive behavior can be explained the alcohols effect on the brain structure itself. Researchers have found that brains of alcoholics are smaller and have an increased number of brain tissue loss then the comparable nonalcoholic. Known as the premature aging hypothesis, alcohol is stated to "accelerate normal aging" and make the young alcoholics older then they really are. This kind of aging due to alcohol allows the younger non-alcoholics of the same age, faster and quicker in cognitive abilities. (1)

So what is the underlying mechanisms of this kind of output behavior? What goes on inside the boxes within boxes that cause actions such as slow cognitive output? These behavioral outputs can be explained from alcohol's effects on the humans' smallest box, the neuron. With alcohol, the neuron's and chemical messengers involved in signaling is depleted and interfered. Specific chemical messengers effected by alcohol are the neurotransmitter serotonin (5 HT), gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), and dopamine.

The role of neurotransmitters in the brain is to either stimulate or inhibit the flow of an impulse between neurons. The GABA is an example of a neurotransmitter that is used as an inhibitor, where the 5 HT and dopamine can have either function of stimulating or inhibiting impulse, depending on what area of the brain it is at. All three neurotransmitters are involved in influencing some type of behavior through their inhibition or stimulation. The 5 HT for example, is known to have the most diverse functions in influencing all kinds of behavior. The influence of behavior is caused by the binding of the serotonin to its receptor, which then stimulates small molecules to form within the cell, which then in turn act with other proteins to activate various cellular functions. These cellular functions result in either stimuli or inhibition and "through these mechanisms, serotinin can influence mood states, thinking patterns, emotion and motivation." (2). The 5 HT also "appear to involve control of appetite, sleep, memory and learning, temperature regulation, mood, behavior, cardiovascular function, muscle contraction, endocrine regulation, and depression." (2 ).

Although not as diverse as the 5 HT, the GABA and dopamine are also involved in influencing certain behaviors. Many GABA neurons for example, are found in the hippocampal formation, which is a part of brain that is important in memory and other cognitive functions. The dopamine, on the other hand is found in brain regions called the ventral tegmental area which is a region involved in producing pleasure and reward.

The input of alcohol into the brain on these three neurotransmitters produces much interference that result in certain output behavior. These interferences can involve either the individual neurotransmitter or the interactions of the neurotransmitters working together. One form of interference that alcohol causes on the 5 HT is by increasing its serotonin release in the nervous system. Studies have shown that after a single drink, there has been increase in concentrations of serotonin in the individual urine and blood. This 5 HT increase indicates that more 5 HT's were released at the serotonergic synapses, thus increasing 5 HT's influence on the output behavior such as emotion, mood and thinking.

In the similar way, alcohol also works to increase the activity and effectiveness of GABA. Since GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter, alcohol increases its ability to inhibit. "When alcohol is introduced into this system, its immediate (i.e. acute) effect is to add to (i.e.potentiate) the inhibition caused by the GABAconsequently, neurons receiving messages through GABA are even more inhibited by this transmitter than usual when alcohol is present in the brain." (3). And because GABA neurons are located not in one specific part of the brain, the presence of alcohol inhibits many activities within the brain, influencing behavioral output.

As stated before, the role of Dopamine in output behavior is associated with positive reinforcement. When alcohol is inputted inside the brain, it increases the Dopamine concentrations in reward centers of the brain. These increases of concentration induce the individual to think and behave as if drinking more is okay. This then "ultimately raises the 'set point' for alcohol intake, i.e., the amount it takes to make an alcoholic feel 'normal'" and explains high tolerance levels of frequent drinkers. (4).

Alcohol not only effects the neurotransmitters individually, but also influences the interactions of these three neurotransmitters when working together. For example, 5 HT may interact with neurons that secrete GABA. If alcohol is present, the alcohol influenced 5 HT may effect the actions of GABA neurons in areas involving behavioral output such as the hippocampal formation, where cognitive decisions are made. Similarity, alcohol influenced 5 HT works to stimulate more dopamine production and thus more extreme behavioral outputs.

The exact effect of alcohol's molecules on these neurotransmitters is still under study. The overall behavior output caused by an increase in activity of neurotransmitters is known to be caused by alcohol, but the exact methods of how it is done on a more molecular level is under research. A classmate of mine stated in a weekly forum that "every emotion [that] we feel and every thought [that] we have is due to what's happening inside our brain at the molecular level. [I believe that] the mind/brain/spirit/soul is all the same thingwe think the things we think, do the things we do, and feel the things we feel because of some reactions going on in our brains. And what are those 'reactions' exactly? I don't know." (5). There are many 'reactions' that occurs in our brain which produce behavior. Alcohol is one example of them.