Craving Research

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mel486

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During my insomnia last night and walking around the house or reading on the computer, I read an article that did a study of Opiate addicts who all were verifiable clean for perioRAB ranging from 10 days to a few years. The team did a study of brain activity of the subjects when they where thinking about using opiates, as opposed to thinking about being off of the drugs. Their brains showed different areas of activity. They used the term, "Cue Responsivity," which refers to viewing situations, seeing drug paraphernalia, getting into mood states or having memories associated with previous drug use, can trigger real brain related cravings. Different areas of the brain were active depending if they were thinking about their drug use or not. Out of the 14 patients that they studied, the exact same regions of the brain lit up or were active in both situations, when thinking or not thinking about their drug use. We're talking about vastly different areas of the brain also.

This made a lot of sense to me. If I think about the drug or how it relieved the pain, etc... I am more apt to begin to crave the drug more. When I start to crave and then I begin to do other activities to get my mind off of it, then the craving goes away. By vacuuming the house yesterday, followed by cooking dinner before my wife got home, I stopped the intense cravings I had that afternoon.

So, I expect everyone on the board to have clean, spotless houses and fully cooked meals from here on out to stop those cravings!! ;)
 
Denon,

First of all, your last statement about the spotless houses, fully cooked meals and what not had me laughing so hard!!!! I don't know why, it just struck me as hysterical!

Second of all, thank you so much for sharing your research!!!!! I have been meaning to look further into this situation but I only have so much time at work and let's face it.. my free time is spent post here like a wild woman... Plus, there are certain things my computer filters will let me look at and others it won't and most drug related stuff it will not!! hahhaa Imagine that.

What you wrote made a ton of sense to me as well... Thank you for sharing and I am sure your wife LOVED coming home to a clean home with a delicious meal prepared!!!

You are great!
 
I had the cravings and shaky, jumpy legs again this afternoon and I immediately got up and started doing things around the house again. Organized my meRAB and vitamins for the week into their daily containers, put a pot roast and veggies in the crock pot, and just stayed busy. When I was done with that, the cravings were gone and I felt fine. (By the way... my wife and I share cooking, cleaning and all of the other duties. Sometimes you feel like doing it, sometimes you don't - then the other might be in the mood to do it. Makes life easier.)

So that is my new plan when I do get the cravings from now on - get busy doing something physical to get my mind off of it.
 
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