Keys To Recovery Interview
I was delighted to be asked and honored to take part in one of the excellent “The Hope Interviews” with Steve Jones for the recovery newspaper “Keys to Recovey”
Alcohol Addiction and the Attachment System
Attachment Style, Alexithymia, and Psychiatric Disorders in Alcoholic Inpatients This excellent article (1) presented the idea, formulated by Fonagy et al. (2002) that the way people’s attachment system is organized, corresponds both with their representational capacities and with their style of relating to others. They combine a measurement […]
Maternal Neglect: Oxytocin, Dopamine and the Neurobiology of Attachment
Part 1 I am quite excited by these recent discoveries in oxytocin as they appear to offer some explanation for one question that has been with me for nearly ten years, why do alcoholics especially feel like they have a “hole in the soul”. As a adolescent this felt […]
Filling In The “Hole in the Sole” Debate?
Today we conclude our fascinating article on the role of oxytocin in addiction. I am quite excited by these recent discoveries in oxytocin because they appear to offer some explanation for one question that has been with me for nearly ten years, why do alcoholics especially feel like they […]
Can Oxytocin be what’s missing in the Alcoholic “Hole in the Soul”?
PART 2 The endogenous oxytocin system changes and matures over time as part of normal development. This paper postulates that individual factors and early external influences (i.e. parenting, stress and illness) affect the developing endogenous oxytocin system and its connectivity with other systems affecting oxytocin levels and […]
Is the Alcoholic “Hole in the Soul” Oxytocin Shaped?
PART 1 In a previous blog we have suggested that addiction may partly be the consequence of insecure attachment to our caregivers in early childhood and that as a result addicts often learn to attach instead to consuming substances, or behaving in certain “rewarding” ways such as […]
Link Between Child Maltreatment and Later Addiction
I feel alcoholics have remarkably similar reactions to life and these centre on an inherent difficulty regulating stress and emotion. Some aspects of behaviour I have noticed in me and in others are, among others, distress based reactions such as perfectionism, distress intolerance and frustration intolerance, normally exemplified in […]
Emotional Immaturity in Addicts Linked to Insecure Attachment
Insecure attachment, fear of intimacy and differentiation of self may indicate vulnerability of drug abuse.
How Insecure Attachment Effects the Neglected Brain
Following our from our blog Is Addiction an Attachment Disorder? we look at a videos that explains a figure in this blog by Dr Perry which shows the different levels of the brain and illustrates how brains may be affected by neglect and and insecure attachment. These are […]
Inside The Alcoholic Brain 
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