Chopra Addiction and Wellness Center – Addiction and the Brain.

Love your books, videos,etc for years I have enjoy them. Since you have the meditations, has been more gratifien to open an IPad, and listen In the middle of the night. I am subscribe to your newsletter, but for the last 3 weeks, I don`t receive them. I wish to correct it thru Apple and you, I SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEW 21 days thru a friend in Montreal,Canada. I just listen to day 1, enjoyed, is very soothing. Thank you, g.b.

I utterly disagree with this. Opiate addiction and the relapse of the addict is primarily caused by the discomfort of the withdrawals. This pain (imagine the worse flu then times it by 100) isn't caused by lazy people who choose to be addicts. Its caused by psychological/memory issue. Rather new research shows it is directly related to to Glial activation. Mark R. Hutchinson at the University of Adelaide has found "Glial activation participates in the mediation of pain including neuropathic pain, due to release of neuroexcitatory, proinflammatory products" [1] This inflammation was treated using an anti-inflammatory, ibudilast . Not only does it greatly reduce the withdrawal affects but it also reduces tolerance! As they say themselves Glial activation amplifies the withdrawals/pains the addict goes through [2] Basically what is happening is no different to a really bad flu! Furthermore other addicts of other drugs such as Methamphetamine are also responding to it. This in my mind comprehensively proves that for years doctors have been making shit up. Guessing and making people believe that addiction was a behavioral issue, a failure of lazy people who spit in the face of so much help they've received. What Mark's research shows is that people are primed in pre and post natal periods of their life to be addicted (this gial neurotransmitter issue). It is likely that stress hormones like cortisone are responsible for this neurological changes in early childhood. This explains why addiction affects the rich and poor. Was your mother stressed during pregnancy. Did you rich father abuse her? Well your primed for addiction (even if you never meet him). Ultimately it proves some of us are born with addiction, and that we cannot choose to not be addicted anymore then we choose our sexuality or the colour of our eyes. It also supports the conclusions and arguments raised people like Dr Gabor Maté [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2783351/ [2] http://www.adelaide.edu.au/news/news55261.html

Thought provoking.