Part 1 This excellent review (1) covers many of the brain regions we have discussed as being implicated in all the addictive behaviours. We have previously suggested also that these brain regions are connected in impaired decision making deficits and that these deficits in decision making are […]
Throughout this blogsite are blogs on how addictive behaviour can be conceptualised as a disorder of emotion/stress dysregulation and emotion processing deficit. Can EMDR act to improve these the skills in emotion regulation and help with the more successful treatment of those who suffer from addiction? The […]
Throughout this blogsite we have argued that addictive behaviours are rooted in inherent stress/emotion dysregulation and in emotion processing deficits such as alexithymia. These emotion processing deficits give rise to undifferentiated emotion states which are not utilised in reasonable prefrontal cortex based decision making but instead prompt more motoric […]
A Brief History of Treating Addiction as an Emotional Processing Disorder A constant thread throughout our blogs so far has been an assertion that alcoholism and addiction are primarily emotional regulation and processing disorders. So we were thus very interested to find this article (1) which describes […]
The principles of the programme of Alcoholics Anonymous are scientific and closely follow all the helping therapies which lead people to emotional well-being.
“Resentment is the “number one” offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else… If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are […]
The research we look at in the next two blogs asks the question – is cognitive control over emotions, lacking in active addiction, one of the main brain functions that improve in recovery? A core aspect of alcohol dependence is poor regulation of behavior and emotion. Alcohol dependent […]
When I first came into recovery I was assigned a task which has gone on to shape much of my thinking about my alcoholism and addiction. I was prompted by my wife to sit with my emotions, that is, to sit in one place beside my wife and […]
In early recovery I did not have a clue what emotions I was experiencing. I was not able to identify, label or process them. As a result of his failure to process emotions I seemed to be constantly distressed and and, as we seen in previous blogs, this […]
What makes some children of alcoholics vulnerable, and some resilient? by alcoholicsguide I come from a family of four siblings, two of whom are alcoholic and two who are not. I have often wondered why this is the case? Why is it the case that certain children of alcoholic […]
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