8th June, 2006

Dr NICK HODGSON

Jack is depressed, and is becoming increasingly frustrated. And things aren’t improving. Each time he tries to overcome his addiction to marijuana and then relapses, the feelings of failure, desperation, disconnection and hopelessness increase. But Jack’s struggle isn’t just destroying his own life. His sister Sue is tired: tired of Jack disappearing in search of fulfilment of his compulsive need for “relief”; tired of him reappearing in a dark, dishevelled, unwell and dirty state; tired of dealing with the calls from authorities telling her to come and get him; tired of the angry outbursts, the coughing and hacking through the night as Jack dries out once again.

Jack’s niece Kath hates him: why does she have to have her junky uncle living in her home? Why can’t he just get his life on track? Why can’t the many rehab centres that he has checked into keep him clean? The last thing she needs is another dysfunctional male in her life - she is trying to break things off with her "loser" boyfriend and is fighting her own struggle with depression and anorexia. Jack’s cousin Neil, on the other hand, thinks it’s kind of cool having Jack around. He likes having someone around to share a smoke or the occasional joint with - when Sue’s at work that is. Neil doesn’t see any similarity between Jack’s addiction and his own personal, “social” use of dope. But he has been finding it increasingly difficult to sleep at night, and has needed to have a few bongs by himself lately to relax. And the really bad trip he had a few nights ago at a party had made him scared: what was that stuff that his mates had given him? In the future he’d stick to the “safe” stuff. Anyway, he’d had one too many punch-ups at parties lately, and wouldn’t miss that scene for a while.

SHEDDING LIGHT ON THE SUBJECT OF ADDICTION? Dr Hodgson says research paper after research paper seems to be linking impulsive, compulsive and addictive disorders with Reward Deficiency Syndrome. PICTURE: David Schauer (www.sxc.hu)

The world around Jack doesn’t seem to fit. He attends many job interviews for a better class of job but there seems to be an invisible field of discrimination against him. How many times has he been told that he’s not the sort of employee they are looking for? So he ends up taking any kind of work that will accept him. Usually the sort where he doesn’t get paid enough to repay all the debts he has accumulated: his car is soon to be repossessed unless he can catch up on the six months of instalments that he now owes. And all the phone and power bills that sit in a messy pile on his desk at Sue’s place just don’t seem to make sense. Things would be better if his last landlord hadn’t insisted on confiscating his bond money. How can he owe so much, to so many people? And, to make things worse, his new bosses always seem to take him for a ride in the end.

Jack’s story is not as uncommon as we would like to think. His condition can actually be described in one diagnosis: Reward Deficiency Syndrome (RDS). But there are many more faces to this one disorder. Research paper after research paper seems to be linking this same mind dysfunction with all of the impulsive, compulsive and addictive disorders. This means that there may be one common thread connecting Jack, Kath, Neil, and many, many others. The impulsive and compulsive disorders include the worlds’ most concerning paediatric diagnostic trend - ADHD. Addictions range highly across the broad headings of drugs, food, sex, gambling, and work.

This revelation in medical understanding began several years ago now with the discovery of the “gene for alcoholism”, the A1 Allele of the D2 Dopamine Receptor Defect. Subsequent studies confirmed this genetic trait and isolated related defects. The same biogenic flaws also started to be isolated in many other, seemingly unrelated, maladies - carbohydrate bingeing, addictions to other substances of abuse, pathological gambling, and ADHD.

This new model was seen as so important, and as such a paradigm shift in the foundational understating of these disorders, that an entire supplemental edition of the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, the scientific journal initiated by the founders of the famous Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinics in San Francisco, was dedicated to outlining RDS. This 100 page feature was supported by over 400 scientific references.

For so many years, and even within many rehab circles still today, the predominant model of psycho-social dysfunction - poor choice making, bad peer-group selection, and the expectation of the history of an abused childhood or dysfunctional family upbringing - traps sufferers into an ongoing demand to learn better behavioural strategies, enforced agreements to strive to be a better “addict”, and/or chemicals of choice being replaced with chemicals of prescription. There is no doubt that these can help and there is no doubt that these strategies save lives. But a house of harm minimisation is at best a half-way house of addiction maintenance. There is a more permanent home that awaits those who are willing to embrace a recovery model that includes strategies to repair the effects of Reward Deficiency Syndrome.

Much like a diabetic who has inherited a genetic predisposition to metabolic problems in their blood sugar balances, an RDS benefactor (they are estimated to be 20-30 per cent of the population) has inherited a predisposition to metabolic problems in the mind’s molecules of emotion. We all have a "brain reward cascade" which, if operating properly, is a chemical chain reaction of “neuropeptides” which excite or inhibit each other to result in feelings of wellbeing, focus, attention, reward, satisfaction, enjoyment, clarity and fulfilment. Put blockages in that brain reward cascade and we develop a mind that lacks the ability to achieve reward and the attached functions, feelings and emotions.

Jack was lucky; he had been helped by some good people. His older brother Rod had been a solid influence and had helped to "clean up" Jack on a number of ocassions. He lived too far away to be there all the time but his background in success thinking, and his influence on Jack to clean up his diet, take some vitamins, and drink much more water had helped to improve Jack’s general health - but the addiction remained. The counsellors meant well and Jack didn’t mind talking about the struggles he had as a teenager - he felt like he had never totally fitted in to the “normal mould” and it was therapeutic to get some of this stuff off his chest. And the financial adviser was helping him to get his debts repaid a little at a time. But then his sister had insisted that he go and have a chat with a natural health practitioner who had been receiving training from overseas in radical and alternative treatment strategies for people just like himself.

Jack knew this guy, Dr Justin, from years before, and had seen him when his back got really sore. He’d always felt better after some back manipulation so figured he had nothing to lose - after all, his back had been killing him, he couldn’t stand straight sometimes, and the headaches had become increasingly severe and common. But Dr Justin was insistent that the treatment program that he would offer Jack wasn’t just about his sore back. He believed Jack needed to commit to persisting with the treatment for weeks instead of the usual days, and that he was going to provide a mixture of therapies that nourished and repaired the mind chemical deficiencies due to Jack’s RDS.

Each time Jack visited, Dr Justin he received a new type of chiropractic adjustment, called "torque release technique". Instead of having his neck and low-back twisted and “cracked”, it was like Justin was shooting little bolts of energy into his spine with a hand-held device. It wasn’t uncomfortable, Jack always felt really relaxed and almost sleepy after his adjustments, but he was sceptical at first because he didn’t feel like his back was getting the instant pain relief that he had experienced previously. But over the next few weeks the pain in his back and the headaches gradually subsided, and Jack felt like the fog in his mind was mysteriously clearing.

Justin’s assistant would then give Jack a type of ear treatment, where she ran a high pitched device over his ear lobes, leaving hom with a buzzing and at times sharp sensation. This treatment was called auriculotherapy and had apparently evolved out of ear acupuncture, after European research had proven that it was nerve pathways that were being stimulated instead of meridian channels. This probably explained why they were using an electrical treatment instead of needles: the assistant said that it was micro-current technology, supposedly best for balancing nerve and brain function. Jack didn’t really care: he really liked the auriculotherapy because it made him feel so relaxed, like he’d just had a nap. And for some strange reason, Jack’s cravings and withdrawals seemed so minimal compared to the other times he had attempted to go cold-turkey.

Then Jack felt he made real breakthrough. Dr Justin had given him a bottle of vitamin-type capsules that Jack had to take three times a day on an empty stomach. These capsules contained amino acids, minerals and a few vitamins - stuff that Justin said were the building blocks of the mind chemicals that were deficient in the majority of RDS sufferers. Jack couldn’t be sure that it was the capsules, or whether it was the combination of things that he was trying, but seemingly days after starting the “nerve food” as Justin called it, his mind just seemed clearer and more focused. He even sat at his desk and organised the pile of bills into the order in which they most needed to be paid.

Dr Justin was seemingly always on Jack’s case about keeping his mind healthy as well: he’d recommended some meditation CDs that had special binaural tones to balance the brain waves. He was always checking on Jack to make sure he was keeping his appointments with the counsellor and financial adviser, tried to convince Jack to find a 12-step support group, and even suggested that Jack should find a church group to help support him.

The strategies that were being utilised in Jack’s recovery were all based on an understanding that each piece in the treatment jigsaw fitted neatly together in an attempt to produce recovery of the brain reward cascade mechanisms. In the same way that many diabetics can keep their genetic predisposition at bay by making better dietary, lifestyle and emotional choices and by accessing health care services that support them with nutritional supplementation and coaching, a sufferer of RDS can access a range of strategies that nourish, repair, reactivate and release the mind-body towards a state of wellbeing. These strategies are featured in a new book called Staying Clean and Sober by experienced recovery facilitators, Merlene and Dr David Miller.

Others noticed the changes in Jack. Sue liked to see the return of colour to her brother’s skin, and the dark rings under his eyes were fading. Kath was finding Jack easier to get along with and felt like she had gained an uncle and lost an enemy. Neil missed the free bongs that he used to score from Jack, but he too had started seeing Dr Justin to help him get back in control of his own growing dependency. AndDr Justin had made a whole lot of measurements of Jack’s spinal and nerve function, and his stress and emotional states, and these too had all visibly improved.

Jack couldn’t believe how much more comfortable and steady his recovery was going this time. It just seemed like he had the strength and clarity to be able to make better choices, even when he was in tempting circumstances. It was like he just didn’t need a synthetic means of getting high and feeling good anymore. Perhaps his brain reward cascade was finally flowing again.

This article is based on a true case. Names have been changed for confidentiality.

The information contained in this article is of a general nature only. For advice on your specific situation, please consult your medical professional.

Dr Nick Hodgson is a chiropractor working in Victoria. Recognised by both the Chiropractors Association of Australia (Vic) for his service to the chiropractic profession, Dr Hodgson has been responsible for introducing the torque release technique (www.torquerelease.com.au), auriculotherapy and addictionology training to the Australian chiropractic profession. Nick is a Fellow of the Holder Research Institute (F.H.R.I.), has completed five of the ten modules of the Certified Addictionologist (CAd) program, and is the Australasian provider of Torque Release training. He is a member of the Chiropractors’ Association of Australia (CAA) and the World Chiropractic Alliance (WCA), and sits on the WCA’s International Board of Governors. Visit Nick online at www.healthetalk.com.au.

© Dr Nick Hodgson 2006.

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