Project Addiction: The Complete Guide to Using, Abusing and Recovering from Drugs and Behaviors

By Scott A Spackey

Every addictive drug and behavior is as unique as the individual caught in it. This book abandons the recovery-industry "one-size-fits-all" mentality by separating each drug and behavior and provides strategies that are customized, specific and detailed.

Addiction is a pathological disorder that affects every society and every culture on this planet and has for thousands of years. It is much more pervasive than other clinical disorders; it is a defect of brain chemistry, mental and emotional wellness, spirituality and character loss.

I have pioneered new terms: AD (Addictive Disorder) & APD (Addictive Personality Disorder) as well as new terms for recovery: AP, RP and SP (Abstinence Phase, Recovery Phase and Sobriety Phase).

This is one of the only books written by a science-minded, professional who also has 20 years of sobriety from 11 years of narcotics IV using. Most recovery programs and literature today are designed by clinicians who are well educated but cannot personally report on the ineffable experience of addiction and recovery. This lack of personal insight compromises their ability to truly understand and provide the full spectrum of recovery needs.

When I began my addiction-recovery I was woefully disappointed in the available programs, as it seems nothing authentic and cerebral was available, no matter how much money, time or commitment I had.

The multi-billion dollar recovery-industry, with less than a 9% success rate, needs an overhaul. The recovery industry regurgitates the same treatments, but AD sufferers deserve modern options that are appropriate for this progressive age. There are drugs in this new millennium that did not even exist when many of the current recoveries were established.

PROJECT ADDICTION is a usable, innovative, unconventional guide covering the entire spectrum of addictive drugs and behaviors: what it's like to use them, abuse them, be addicted to them and to liberate from them.

No stone is left unturned!

Many people cannot resonate with conventional, recovery-industry platforms and require custom designed, original and innovative paradigms. This book teaches how to create them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Primordial Productions
• Release date: Dec 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9780996891332

Scott A Spackey

Krishnanand Scott Spackey has had a life of miracles.Fascinated by spiritual mysteries since he was a child, he went in pursuit of enlightened consciousness when he learned to read at five years old.Immersed in books throughout his life, writing came automatically to him as he was inspired from a wide spectrum of authors, from Shakespeare to Vonnegut, Hesse, Gibran, Toni Morrison and Hunter Thompson.He first book was a memoir of his time with crminal dope-fiends on the streets of Los Angeles and the bizarre culture and supernatrual events. A Stone's Throw-Memoir of a Dope Fiend, won 4 awards.He walked away from a succesful, self-owned commercial contracting company desring a career that was more fulfilling. He became a privtate practice counselor and behavioral specialist with clients around the world seeking his particualr brand of self-empowerment. His innovative addiction work and book changed the landscape of recovery by empowering indoviduals with the knowledge and mthods to customize their treatment.After his Near-Death Experience in 2013, he struggled to co-exist in both the spiritual and material reaiities simultaneously, defying the medical prophecy he would wake from his nine day coma a vegetable and never be self-reliant again. His life-long pursuit of Spiritual Enlightenment was intensified by the nine years of an ongoing Near-Death Experience. He decided to dedicate his author career and counseling work to spiritual concepts.He lives in the California peninsula region providing free workshops and mentors spritual seekers through thier own dark night of he soul.

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Project Addiction

The Complete Guide to Using, Abusing, and Recovering from Drugs and Behaviors

Scott A Spackey

•Certified Addiction Treatment Counselor (CATC)

•Registered Addiction Specialist (RAS)

•Clinical Hypnotherapist (CHt)

•Certified Life-Coach (CLC)

•Founder Project Addiction—LifeMind Counseling Centers

Project Addiction

The Complete Guide to Using, Abusing and Recovering from Drugs and Behaviors

By Scott Spackey

Published by: Primordial Productions

24303 Walnut St., Suite A

Valencia, CA 91321

Telephone: [phone]

Website: http://www.primordialproductions.net

E-mail: [e-mail]

Copyright © 2016 by Scott Spackey

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced by

any means stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in whole or in

part, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,

recording, or otherwise without the express written consent of the

publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

Print: 978-0-9968913-0-1

Ebook: 978-0-9968913-3-2

Audio: 978-0-9968913-4-9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015953966

First Edition.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Editor: Brandon Pi Bang

This book is dedicated to you and... …for Janete, she is my favorite addiction. …And to my son. The man who saved my life. Twice. JSR

CONTENTS

Glossary of Terms

Book 1: What, How, Who, Why

0. Down the Rabbit Hole

1. Take It or Leave It

2. Psychonaut

3. What Is Addiction

4. How Addiction Works

5. Who Is Addiction?

6. Why People Use Drugs

7. Recovery Supporters (RS’s)

8. The Chill Generation

9. Legalization

Book 2: Recovery

10. The Decision to Quit: Rock Bottom

11. Intervention: Getting Someone to Quit

12. Recovery Phases: Abstinence, Recovery, Sobriety

13. Abstinence Phase: The First 90 Days

14. Recovery Phase: 90 through 180 Days

15. Sobriety Phase: 180 Days through Life

16. A Sober Life

17. Lapse Vs Relapse

18. SAD: Seasonal Affective Disorder

19. Wellness

20. Pleasure Vs Fulfillment

21. Spirituality In Recovery

22. East Meets West Recovery

23. Recovery Attitude

Book 3: Treatments

24. Treatments

25. Support Programs/Groups

26. Medications

27. Hypnotherapy

28. Inpatient and Residential

29. Getaway

30. Outpatient

31. Solo Treatment: Addict & Family

Book 4: The Drugs

000. The Drugs

001. Marijuana

002. Alcohol

003. Tobacco and Caffeine

004. Narcotics

005. Stimulants (speed)

006. Cocaine

007. Amphetamines

008. IV Use: Injecting

009. Methamphetamine

010. Opiates (opioids) Heroin and Analgesics

011. Rant on Prescription Drugs

012. Barbiturates

013. Benzodiazepines

014. DXM (Dextromethorphan)

015. GHB (Gamma Hydroxybutyrate)

016. Psychedelics/Entheogens

017. Empathogens/Entactogens

018. LSD

019. Other Psychedelics and Psychotropics

020. DMT

021. Salvia

022. Ketamine

023. PCP (phencyclidine)

024. Inhalants (Huffing)

025. Paraphernalia

026. Behavioral Addictions

027. Sex

028. Relationships

029. Food

030. Lying

031. Shopping

032. Shoplifting

033. Gambling

034. Virtual Addiction (porn, internet)

035. Work (Workaholism)

1. Out Of The Rabbit Hole

2. The Author

3. Help Resources

Subchapter Index

Books From Primordial Productions

Glossary of Terms

DOC (Drug Of Choice): The drug or behavior an individual primarily uses. The DOC is the drug they feel the most resonance with compared to other drugs.

Pain/Pleasure Principle: The driving mechanism of human behavior—to seek pleasure and avoid pain.

Psychonaut: An explorer of varying states of consciousness. (Psych: soul/spirit/mind; Nautes: sailor/navigator)

SDNE & O: Serotonin, Dopamine, Norepinephrine, Endorphins and Oxytocin; the primary neurochemicals that drugs and behaviors interact with.

Central Nervous System (CNS): The main part of the nervous system along the spine that connects to the brain. The CNS receives information from, coordinates, influences and communicates with all parts of the body.

Recovery Supporters (RS’s): Family members, friends, sponsors, counselors and anyone who is involved with someone’s recovery experience.

Abstinence Phase (AP): The initial first ninety days of recovery, broken down into thirty day increments, 30/60/90. The abstinence phase features withdrawal, detox and preliminary adjustments.

Recovery Phase (RP): The second phase spanning the 90-180 days of recovery.

Sobriety Phase (SP): The third phase of recovery extending from 180 days through life.

Addiction Disorder (AD): A mental defect to participate in a behavior that overrides logic and reason that functions on survival mechanisms.

Addictive Personality Disorder (APD): The chronic, more severe form of AD. APD encompasses a large spectrum of desire objects and is not sustained only by a specific object or desire. It is sustained by a more innate defect of the mind—the need to compensate for deficient emotions or neurochemicals within the brain.

Brain/Mind: A term used to differentiate between the brain being physical matter and tissue and the mind being more complex as the driving force of the brain.

Thinking/Feeling Apparatus: The combined mechanisms of intellect/reason and emotions/perceptions.

Mechanism of Action (MOA): The biochemical interaction with which a drug substance causes an effect; how it binds to specific molecular targets, such as an enzyme or receptor.

Club Drug: Drugs that are mostly used by the under 30 generation at music clubs, festivals and raves such as GHB, Ecstasy, MDMA, Ketamine and others.

Marijuana/Alcohol Maintenance: The use of marijuana and/or alcohol as a recovery tool from other drugs.

Euphoric Recall: Spontaneous thoughts and memories of drug using episodes.

Lapse: A drug using episode that is brief and isolated.

Relapse: A return to using behaviors that may or may not include actual using.

Wellness: A comprehensive state of being including physical, mental and emotional fitness.

Pleasure: Sensual enjoyment, i.e. feels good, tastes good, smells good, looks good, sounds good.

Fulfillment: Pleasure that is accompanied with feelings of achievement.

Soft Drugs: Drugs that can be used recreationally by nonaddicts such as pot, alcohol and some medications. Soft drugs are not administered through injection.

Hard Drugs/Narcotic: Drugs that cannot be used recreationally and have the ability to be administered by injection such as heroin, meth or cocaine.

Ninety Day Challenge: Ninety days of total abstinence from a drug or behavior to break the bond of it within the mind.

Habitual: A recurring behavior.

Compulsion: A behavior driven by need over want.

Addiction: A behavior that stands independently of someone’s personal will and dominates over logic and reason.

WARNING

This book explains addiction behavior and drug using in graphic detail. If you are an addict, this book may cue using behavior. The safest way to read the drug sections is to read them in single reading sessions; the beginning of a specific section to the end in one session. If cueing (triggering) is activated, discontinue reading. It may be necessary to have a nonaddict supporter read them to you. It is also recommended to postpone reading cueing sections if you’re feeling unstable.

Book 1

What, How, Who, Why…

0

Down the Rabbit Hole

Little Alice fell

d

o

w

n

the hOle,

bumped her head

and bruised her soul.

—Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Addiction is a pathological disorder that affects every society and every culture on this planet and has for thousands of years. It is far more pervasive than other clinical disorders; it is a defect of brain chemistry, mental and emotional wellness, spirituality, and character loss. An addict is no more to blame for this defect than a person born with an intellectual disability, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder. It is a defect of the human organism that is typically there at inception, but it can also be generated in the very early development of the brain and its neurochemistry.

The disorder of addiction is debilitating in every way considerable, causing suffering to the individuals afflicted, their families, concerned loved ones, and to our communities and societies as a whole. We all should address it, as we are all victimized by it directly or remotely and even contribute to its presence.

We’ve come a long way in technology, science, and understanding since Alexander the Greats dispensing of opiate drugs to his forces in 330 BC. Yet as a global culture, we still maintain pitifully simplistic, unevolved, and even archaic methods of treating and dealing with the issue of addiction. Drugs and addiction seem to evolve and become more textured and complex every year and every decade, yet the recovery mentality is stuck in primitive understanding and in a time passed by. This book will address everyone: passive, selectively ignorant individuals in society, the billion-dollar recovery industry, government officials, placating bureaucracies, and even afflicted individuals who refuse to take a leading role in their own recovery.

The answers do exist, in spite of what we’ve all been force-fed for a millennium or more, and you have a right to those answers. I am living proof that we can coexist with this awful, debilitating disorder and still have successful lives with families, relationships, and careers, and we can feel whole and fulfilled. We do not have to be slaves to this pathology. I cannot cure mine or make it disappear, but I live well in spite of it and have spent twenty years learning how and a decade assisting others to do the same. My success rate as a counselor has been 85 percent. The 8 to 10 percent success rate the recovery industry and pop-culture organizations enjoy is embarrassing and simply not good enough.

Addiction is driven by specific defects that find unique ways of being expressed. It is as unique as every different individual who has it. Recovery is not a one-size-fits-all strategy. This book teaches you how to customize universal truths and features of addiction—for your specific personality, mentality, strengths, and weaknesses.

Something’s Missing

Addiction is rooted in the sense that something is lacking. Something seems missing, and while that something is unique for everyone, there are deep, underlying, and universal truths about it. If we are willing and brave enough to go searching down the recovery rabbit hole, we will realize many truths that apply to us all—and I do mean us all—as we are all addicts in one way or another. We are all slaves to desires, needs, and hopes for a happy existence. We are all searching for ultimate peace and pleasure, thereby making us all addicts, varying only in degree and in expression.

Here you will learn about your (or someone else’s) addiction and deep truths about character and personality. No one will be unscathed—so buckle up!

Each person has a unique personality, and so does each drug and addictive behavior. If we are going to escape its tractor-beam pull, we better get to know it and ourselves thoroughly and intimately. It is well advised that you read this entire book and not merely the parts that seem specific to your drug or behavior. There are applicable insights, strategies, and exercises in sections that may not seem specific to you, and if you master this subject, you will surpass it or help someone else to. You never know when a different drug’s recovery strategy will become the one that saves your life, so leave no stone unturned! This is your life. Others can help you, but they cannot do your work; they cannot take your suffering or provide specific and absolute truths for you. I wouldn’t allow a government, another person, this book, or anything else to be in total control of my recovery. I cannot risk it. I have to be intensely honest and humble to remain free from the slavery that held me captive for so long.

If you are a professional addiction counselor or are considering becoming one, then I hope you’ll study this book, since it exposes and explores the current recovery industry, which only gives rudimentary teaching and simplistic strategies about a seriously complex issue. At the very least, you’ll learn a few things you don’t agree with, enhancing what you do agree with, and at the most, this will enrich your compassion to make a difference and get you to think more deeply and from various angles.

If you’re a family member, this will give insights into the addiction paradigm so that you can develop much needed objectivity, clarity, and strategy to help someone you love and begin to heal yourself too.

If you’re an individual caught in addiction, this will empower you and give perspectives you suspected were there all along but were maybe giving up hope of ever finding and will give truths you can apply and move forward with.

What’s Inside

1. A definition of addiction and a look at the inner philosophy of it

2. A definition of the varying types and stages of addiction

3. The science and philosophy of how to inspire and motivate recovery

4. A thorough understanding of the stages of recovery for life

5. A thorough exploration of available outside treatments

6. Detailed instructions on how to personally manage recovery and succeed

7. The needed roles of the addicted, their family, and supportive people

8. Explanations of each drug: what they feel like, what they do, what they are

9. Examination of behavioral addictions

10. Road maps for managing and recovering from each drug or behavior

11. An exploration of the mental and philosophical driving forces of addiction are explored, including venturing into the mystical and spiritual

12. Summaries and revisitations to the deeper, driving forces at work

It is advised to do more than read the text. Experiment with the actual provided strategies. It is a good idea to modify and customize these recovery strategies to your personal circumstances, personality, and developing recovery stages—this is essential to success. What works for me or someone else may not work for you unless you adapt, customize, and modify it to your strengths and your weaknesses.

This book does not judge drug use. It does not encourage it, and nor do I. However, I do not pretend to be an enlightened master who has the authority to judge or unanimously decide what we should all do or not do. This book simply explores the entire spectrum of drugs and habitual pleasures—the good, the bad, and the ugly. The discussion on safe drug use is not meant to encourage—it is merely to acknowledge that there are many people who believe that their drugs or medications are more positive than negative, and I refuse to condescend to them by telling them what is right and wrong. As an addict, I’m attracted to drugs too. Who am I to sit in authoritarian judgment of them? Let he who is without sin (or without a desire for donuts, candy, TV shows, sleeping, or any other behavior that’s excessive) cast the first stone. I’m all right, you’re all right…ya know?

So…are you ready, Alice? Are you ready to go down the rabbit hole?

1

Take It or Leave It

We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.

—Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

The theories and science presented in this text are from a combination of sources—primarily from my own personal experiences as an addict and the experiences of hundreds of clients I’ve treated, as well as from other drug users, abusers, and addicts I have personally known. There is no greater resource of recovery data than the very real experiences of those who experiment with drugs and those who suffer from the disorder of addiction. Addiction, in any form, is an ineffable experience—an experience whose realities cannot be conveyed to the nonaddict (though I make about as good an attempt as a person can). Addiction is elusive and difficult to understand, and 100 percent of the addicts I have known and treated agree that it takes an addict to understand an addict. Other sources that are more conventionally scientific—such as clinicians, nonaddict professionals, or authors (i.e., practical science)—are secondary and insufficient. Practical science is necessary and valuable; however, it can only bring dry clarity to the subject. Neuroscience, psychiatry, or psychology may explain what love is in the context of the brain and how brain chemicals are involved with it, and they can even make superficial attempts at describing the experience of it, but they cannot properly elucidate on the meaning or true significance of love in absolute terms. In this book, you will find all sorts of verified data from practical science, yet I rarely site the source; rather, I take a lot of latitude with the text. Feel free to double- and triple-check my facts, hypotheses, and statistics. I’m confident they will withstand scrutiny, and I hope to earn your trust!

Personally, I don’t feel most people are too interested in statistics or names or dates, nor have I ever found citing them useful in treating my own or someone else’s addiction. In some chapters, I present several theories on the physiological machinations of addiction. While I am aware of a lot of science that supports these theories, I’m also aware there is an equal amount that disagrees with them. The bottom line is this: no one can fully understand addiction in a measurably scientific manner. The truth of the disorder lies with those who have suffered and recovered (or are recovering) from it. Therefore, the most reliable scientific data or info is from the laypeople who’ve experienced it and continue to experience it. Matters of the mind and heart extend beyond clinical perception.

Addiction is a very controversial subject, and recovery (like religion and politics) is often populated by people who are opinionated and hardheaded. As I criticize various theories and contradicting forms of treatment, I am not intending to offend anyone. I am merely pointing out personally verified experiences and those of dozens or hundreds of others.

Old School

I do not believe a nonaddict is qualified to help an addict, and I’m not alone in this. Dr. Samuels, founder of the Hills Recovery Center, has stated this in his interviews on CNN and other TV news programs. This has also been verified with 100 percent of the hundreds (if not thousands) of addicts I have met, treated, and known in my life. However, the bottom line is whether it’s religion, twelve steps, love, parenting, or an asylum that ultimately activates someone’s recovery, it makes no difference as long as it works. Anything, and I do mean anything, is a better lifestyle than one involving the enslavement of drug abuse.

My style and approach in treating others has been one of intensity, humor, and compassion, which at times has appeared insensitive as I maintain a healthy, productive, and needed objectivity. I assure you, I care deeply for everyone afflicted with this problem, and some gallows humor is often a part of the culture of recovery.

And Me? (Your Humble Narrator)

I look at life through a hybrid of practical, rational, scientific, philosophical, mystical, and spiritual set of lenses. My addiction, my recovery, and life itself have revealed this perspective consistently. If these lenses are of no interest to you and you only want dry science, then this may not be the text for you. I place high value on the sensible and practical in life—I’m scientific. Yet my experiences, research, and exhaustive studies have brought me to perceive life through the aforementioned philosophical, mystical, and spiritual lenses as well. Philosophical, mystical, and spiritual perspectives are not fantasy or exclusively ambiguous. They can be learned with a logical mind-set of sensibility and are far from being impractical or convenient magical-thinking concepts. Anything we learn intellectually requires further layers of understanding and often requires pushing the limits of the reality perception we already have to at least consider something new or beyond our own current logic and reason. Once upon a time, people thought Earth was flat…but no more! We don’t need to accept the impractical or insensible in order to develop philosophically, mystically, or spiritually; we only need to accept that there are further layers to reality than our five conventional senses perceive. I mean, c’mon…love defies practical science. Sure, science can make it seem mathematically sensible: Neurons and cells and chemicals and blah, blah, blah, but you and I know it’s much, much more than that! So…

Let’s get started.

2

PSYCHONAUT

But, said Alice, the world has absolutely no sense, who’s stopping us from inventing one?

—Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

What is a psychonaut? (psych: soul/spirit/mind; nautes: sailor/navigator)

An explorer of varying states of consciousness.

A psychonaut explores consciousness with a scientific intent or to expand and evolve. Meditation, ritual, ceremony, and engaging in challenging life experiences are some of the mediums used to explore and expand consciousness, and these are often undertaken in combination with mind-altering substances. Life experiences themselves can become tools for reaching enlightenment and consciousness exploration, suggesting the simple truth that there are infinite ways of exploration that can be used in psychonetics. Like the seven notes in the musical scale and seven base colors of the color spectrum that can be combined for an infinite number of chords, notes, shades, and hues, the mediums for consciousness exploration are also as mutable.

Physical-nauts

Extreme sports enthusiasts BASE jump, skydive, free-climb, snowboard, or ski down completely vertical mountains, which most normal people would never intentionally consider doing. As a matter of fact, most of us would accept death by tiger mauling before jumping off of a cliff with our only means of survival being a handheld parachute in our palm. For most people, and I mean rational people, BASE jumping is synonymous with death.

Yeah…it’s dangerous. But the need to go farther and higher and faster is inescapable. When you’re in that moment, the rush and the excitement is all that exists. Yeah, you know it’s dangerous, but once you’ve tasted it, you’ve got to go more and more just to get even near the same satisfaction you once had. In those moments, life becomes absurdly simple and meaningful…without it you can no longer be fulfilled!

This is a quote from an extreme-sports snowboarder who virtually risks his life for an adrenaline rush. If this sounds a lot like the rhetoric you would expect from a hard-drug abuser, you’re right. Extreme drug enthusiasts infer the exact same idea. Both of these activities—extreme narcotic use and extreme sports—flirt with death and disaster. Heroin addicts can, and often do, overdose, suffering from lifelong complications, or worse death, as a result of their quest for the next big, bigger, biggest rush. Extreme BASE jumpers, like the one who experienced five months of painful, rigorous physical therapy to repair her broken body from a gone-wrong BASE jump, do the same thing: They risk an extreme amount for their next rush. And many of them die as well. The percentage of extreme-sports players who die from their pursuit of bigger challenges is similar to the percentage of drug users who die from drug-related deaths.

There are major differences, though. Extreme-sports players train hard and train a lot. They use specialized equipment and put a lot of emphasis on preparation and caution. You won’t see a novice who has never BASE jumped before going for broke… ever. They work their way up to the bigger challenges gradually, but eventually they have to take a leap to push beyond where they’ve been if they are to get the next, bigger rush.

By contrast, the drug-abuse culture is filled with novices without training or experience, and they, like an inexperienced skydiver, have to know not go too far too soon or they will, and often do, die.

I have skydived and scuba dived, jumped from fifty-foot waterfalls, and backpacked the sierras. My adventuring is not in the same class as extreme sports players, but I have sampled it enough to know what they are getting out of it and that they, like mystics, spiritualists, meditators, and drug users, are psychonauts. Pushing themselves into extreme situations to go beyond normal human experience to see just…what…EXACTLY…is on the other side.

My motivation to jump from a perfectly good airplane for a skydive was similar to my motivation to sample LSD or crystal meth. I wanted to feel something beyond the normal parameters of human experience. I wanted to brush up against death and see what it felt like and live to tell the tale, but mostly I wanted to experience the profound, the special, the unknown and have it change me! To understand my own identity, I felt I must view the entire spectrum of it!

Physical-nauts vs. Psychonauts

Psychonauts do not avoid extreme challenges; they look for them. Extreme-sports players scour the globe for new places to jump, raft, and ski from. Mystics and spiritualists scan their inner world and their outer world for new horizons and experiences that will leave them different than before. Many drug users are attempting the same thing: to go beyond the parameters of their known self and conventional experiences to learn more about themselves and discover the boundaries of their own identity.

This book is not about extreme sports. It is not about a quest for enlightenment either. But it is not possible to discuss the culture of drugs and their effects on the minds of those who use them without at least drawing comparisons and wading into the philosophical/mystical waters for discussion.

Like participating in extreme sports, becoming a psychonaut requires:

•training and preparation

•a sober, intellectual attitude

•a spirit of adventure and exploration

When these requirements are adhered to, it is often as safe—or safer—than trekking down eight hundred meters into an unexplored cave. Dangerous yes, but exhilarating and satisfying, too.

Yes, drugs can hurt you. And so can BASE jumping. Yes, drugs can kill you. And so can mountain climbing. Drugs can cause brain damage, and the more drugs you do the higher the odds you will eventually damage yourself or someone else. Just like other dangerous things.

But drug exploration requires toxic, foreign substances and extreme sports is natural and organic. No…they’re not the same at all.

Another similarity between the two categories is motivation. Most extreme-sports players are out for nothing but themselves, a big rush, and a good time. They will work hard jobs just to fund their expeditions, hoping to be good enough to get funded by a sponsor like Red Bull so they can pursue their sport full time and gain access to more and better challenges. Do you have any idea how much it costs for Sean White, the world-famous X Games winner and extreme snowboarder/skateboarder, to take a helicopter to a crazy peak in Tibet, Nepal, Alaska, or the Dolomites? Me neither, but sponsorship helps!

Psychonauts, by definition, are largely motivated by sharing research and experiences in an attempt to enlighten others and lead them out of the darkness of mundane consciousness and into a higher, more evolved state of being.

Most extreme-sports extremists, and business extremists, are in it for themselves: what they can accomplish, achieve, and acquire.

The majority of drug abusers are also in it for themselves. They not only do not share anything of evolving, enlightening value, but instead become parasites to those around them. They do not train, nor are they trying to do anything but fulfill a self-serving agenda of experiencing pleasure, and they lose sight of how this affects others.

Most of the heroin addicts I have encountered in my community get loaded and torment hardworking mothers, fathers, and spouses without a conscience. While I feel for them and work my hardest to liberate them from their addictions, I see their issue as something much more than being enslaved to the pleasure compulsion of a drug. They are inherently selfish and will take, take, take until there is nothing left to take. Some require hitting rock bottom as the only way that will get them to stop hurting those they know. The equation is almost always the same: a compulsive, unconscionable addict combined with codependent, cowardly family members unwilling or unable to do the difficult emotional task of stopping the cycle. Yes, I know, I make it sound obvious and easy to judge, but I do not see it as obvious or easy to judge at all!

If I’ve learned anything in my ten years as a counselor (and I’ve learned a little), it is that there are people of varying levels of intellectual and emotional capacity. It is frustrating to see people who seem like they get it, sound like they get it, look like they get it, who simply don’t get it! They cannot get themselves together without outside leverage and help. Recognizing that everyone has varying limitations has taught me compassion. When I began as a counselor, I found myself judging so many people who I deemed to have lesser intellects or emotional stability than I. As I worked with them, I learned humility and perspective through their suffering. Instead of seeing people as stupid or small minded, I began to see them as human beings trapped by limitations the same way a physically disabled person has limitations they simply cannot overcome. A mentally, intellectually, or emotionally impaired person is simply limited, and it is not by choice. They often seem to understand what I’ve explained and even appear to be making breakthroughs, and yet, when I see them in the very-next session after a vowed transformation, it is as though we never shared a cathartic breakthrough the week before. Like a rubber band snapping back to its original shape once the pressure of exerting it beyond its natural shape is released, the mind reverts back to what it is familiar with. Some people improve and some downright change, but many stay within the circumference of their existing pathologies, never stray too far from them, or never get far enough to reach an outer ring that could be liberating. As if there is an invisible, elastic shield that serves as a slingshot taking them back to their most familiar mentality.

As a counselor, I learn to accept people as they are with their limitations, all the while wanting them to change, and I never give up trying to help liberate them from the limitations that cause them to suffer. Accept them as they are, yet facilitate and encourage change. What a paradox!

Of course, I fully acknowledge that I myself have limitations and that I also am ignorant and do not easily move beyond my limitations: I don’t know what I don’t know. A teacher and guide of mine revealed to me, in ways that were embarrassing and humiliating, what a dope I am compared to the total spectrum of knowledge and humanity. The lesson was embarrassing and humiliating, yet liberating. That is a teacher’s role: to point out your shortcomings while simultaneously accepting your faults without condition.

Psychonaut Qualifications

Not everyone is a qualified candidate for being a psychonaut, any more than any average person is cut out to BASE jump or competitively snowboard. Never mind training: athletic aptitude and ability is needed to be an extreme skier. There are people born with physical limitations that prevent them from doing an extreme sport they may long to do, and there are also those born with mental and/or emotional limitations that disqualify them from extreme-consciousness exploration, especially with drugs.

The risks are many when using substances in psychonetics: addiction, mental or emotional dysfunction, brain damage, and disorders and trauma, just to name a few. Because drugs are available to nearly everyone and there is no required test to qualify candidacy to experience them, tragedy abounds. Unfortunately, drugs get blamed for these events. It reminds me of the saying Guns don’t kill people, people do. Guns are dangerous in the wrong hands, and it certainly seems that a large percentage of gun owners are the wrong people to own them. Drugs are like this, too. Drugs don’t kill people; people kill themselves with drugs! With education, understanding, limited availability, and intelligent regulation, drugs can be safer than they are now (not safe; just safer). You will never stop people from shooting other people, and we will never cure or stop addiction or death or destruction to lives as a result of drug abuse.

I make this prognosticating declaration: there will never be a cure for addiction in the span of humanity regardless of how long humans exist and science marches forward. Addiction is not exclusive to drugs, or to a set of behaviors, or to a certain faction of the population. It is a component of the human condition that is dormant in many, but present in absolutely everyone in the simple truth of desiring.

We are desire machines. We form endless streams of needs and wants from our minds. If we are awake, that is conscious, we are forming desires. Some are large and potent desires and some are small and insignificant. Addiction is more than a specific disorder or pathology; it is simply an expression and manifestation of the basis of human nature: we want. We want comfort, peace, love, respect, status, power, validation—we want pleasure over pain. Wanting is the source of addiction: our need for more and our basic human nature that leads us to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. The only relief from this is total liberation from our own minds or death (and that’s no relief).

We seek. And that seeking will never end until we achieve a final, ultimate, perfect, and absolute experience of pleasure/bliss/peace that is never-ending and exponentially increasing. Until then, we will always want extra cheese with those fries, a few more dollars, another channel to choose on the remote, and on and on and on.

Don’t Confuse the Intent

This text is not designed to encourage drug use or abuse. This author does not believe that drugs are a path to liberation or enlightenment as he once considered or suspected in his ignorant youth. Drugs are dead ends (sometimes literally), and, at most, they can serve as an indicator—like a finger pointing the way—alluding and hinting at something for you to discover. But it is essential not to confuse the finger for what it is pointing to. In other words, what you seek is not the drug itself, nor is it the drug experience. You seek and desire to be liberated from the trappings of the human condition and its inherent limitations. Instead, the drug feeling is, at best, merely a sign: an intimate view or glimpse into what is possible. Like an appetizer or an enticement to look further and seek the real thing. The real thing is the absolute pleasure/bliss/peace experience that is available to all who seek it organically and purely, but not with artificial means. Drugs give you a clue—a hint—at something sublime, but they give nothing more than a hint. They are a tease, and like any tease, they inevitably conclude in disappointment.

Brain on Drugs—Drugs on Brain

One of the more fascinating features of drugs (and all sensual pleasures) is that they, in and of themselves, don’t do anything to you. All drugs do is cause the chemicals, molecules, and neurotransmitters that already exist within your brain to increase or decrease in volume. Drugs block or enhance the production of neurotransmitters that you already own and possess. They don’t add anything new to the equation that isn’t already present; they simply alter the equation to one end of the spectrum or the other, increasing or decreasing specific neurotransmitter production.

A common myth is that humans only use 10 percent of their brain. While this is far from literally accurate, there is some truth regarding untapped potential. Neuroscience tells us we actually use all the parts of our brain. But the evidence seems clear that, while we are using all portions and sections of the brain, we are not accessing its total capabilities.

It is impossible to quantify what brain percentage is unused, dormant, or is simply unknown to us (we don’t know what we don’t know). Clearly, we can observe the difference between people’s intellectual levels; some people are simply smarter than others. If we use an fMRI to map the brain activity in two different people doing algebra math problems, we will see that they are both using the same neurons and sections within the brain. Yet, one subject might solve the algebra problem with those neurons and the other may not be able to solve a simple-division equation. Therefore, we see that everyone uses the whole brain, but to different potentials and capacities.

Einstein said the only difference between him and others was that he stayed with a problem longer, implying that his tenacity was the real source of his genius. That may be true, but how did he stay with it longer? What was he accessing that allowed him to concentrate on a problem with the same level of focus a Zen master uses to enter into satori (a sublime state of consciousness) for long periods, and why can’t I do it?

We may all be using the whole brain, but it obviously works at different intensities and efficacies for different people. A common feature of many deranged or mentally ill people is a superintellect in areas that most cannot conceptualize. Savants have extraordinary and prodigious abilities in areas like art, calculations, musical talent, or memory, yet many of them cannot tend to their own basic needs of hygiene or tie their own shoes. When I say they demonstrate extraordinary talents, I mean that many are not only up to par with geniuses in similar areas but far exceed them and with no training or teaching.

Supernatural

We must begin to accept that at least some of the people on this planet have, what seem like, inexplicable abilities in psychic areas; whether levels of clairvoyance, clairaudience, precognition, or others, there are simply too many cases to totally ignore these talents. We can debate to what degree they exist, but it is no longer sensible to insist that they do not exist at all.

Since the people who demonstrate these abilities didn’t go to Hogwarts to learn them, they are, in most cases, innate and therefore a manifestation of a level of brain functioning that most of us do not experience nor know how to experience. Scans done with an fMRI performed on clairvoyants while they are having a psychic vision do not show neurons firing that do not fire in other people. We see similar areas firing; they’re simply performing in a different way than they would with someone who is not clairvoyant and this is the missing information we cannot measure—yet. We can see parts of an fMRI light up that indicate what areas of the brain are working, but those colorful lights do not explain what those neurons are doing exactly or even how they are doing it. Like in the case of the neurons firing for that algebra problem—one person’s brain is doing it and another’s is merely trying.

We now know a lot about the brain and its mysterious neurotransmitters. Specific neurons are in charge of certain things (like moving your finger) and we know when they do it (when grasping) and often why they’re doing it (to grasp). Yet we are only in the beginning stages of understanding the full potential of neurons. What they have the capacity to be responsible for when used properly in a fully evolved mind remains a mystery. We may not be as primitive as our ancestors, but we are still primitive compared to what we may be like in thousands of years.¹ There is no evidence that our physical gray matter (brain tissue) changes as we evolve and get smarter. It is the degree of functionality, not the quantity of matter that counts (in this case, size really doesn’t matter). A child is not dumb nor is his intellect stunted due to small brain size. While it is an issue of development, images of a child’s brain doing math during that fMRI show the same neurons firing as those that fire for an adult, but with dramatically different results (except in my case… I suck at math).

Neuro–Holy Grail

The main neurotransmitters involved in any discussion of drugs, pleasure behaviors, consciousness, or mood are serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and endorphins (aka SDNE) and a common hormone involved in these areas is oxytocin. Like any molecule, they’re each made up of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and all the other atomic constituents we find in any and every other thing on the planet. The only observable difference between one molecule and another is the order and quantity of the atoms that it consists of—for example, two oxygen atoms versus three, or one carbon atom versus four. Science understands that serotonin is responsible for happy feelings, yet there is not, and probably never can be, an explanation as to what the essence of that happy feeling is, how it works, or why it makes us happy and not sad. We only know that certain hormones or transmitters are present and released when we feel this or that; that a happy molecule is basically made up of this number of atoms combined with that number of atoms; and that a sad molecule is simply a different number of atoms in a different order. But the why remains a mystery. What is happy anyway? The meaning of happy is rather arbitrary and yet it’s universal.

Science has unveiled the mystery of the microcosm in quantum physics. Having revealed the molecule; the atom; the subatomic parts to the atom; the sub, sub, sub atomic parts that make those (quarks, gluons, and the recently discovered boson); and so on and so on, we’re now landing on the shore of a final, unifying theory that shows how the whole of existence and material manifestation itself work or function. Like with brain chemicals, scientists will unveil the parts and assign them the proper role of responsibility, labeling them one by one so we can know of them, but still we will not know them. The true why will always elude conventional science. Scientists will fathom the how and the what, but if we are to truly understand the why or the essence of what these things are, or the inherent power of them, we will need to return to a less pragmatic science and begin to feel our way instead of thinking our way through the darkness. (Trust the force, Luke!)

Buckle Up

You are going on a journey in this book.

You…are a psychonaut. An explorer, venturing into your own mind and discovering new horizons to deepen the truth of yourself. You will hear of and learn things in this book that will challenge you and stimulate your thinking in directions you may not have planned on. We will explore every corner we can and turn over every stone in reach. Please: leave your preconceived ideas and perceptions behind as much as possible. While there is nothing too new here (I’m not the only pioneer to discover these new worlds, and certainly pioneers do not create the worlds they discover), this text is designed to bring cohesion to these matters and to be a comprehensive resource and guide. A one-stop shop giving you comprehensive information about addictive drugs and behaviors: their experience, their consequences, their pleasures, effects, risks, meanings, and the whole gamut of knowledge regarding them.

There will be plenty of conclusions drawn, but the most important ones will be your own. My own agenda and motive is to supply information and that’s all. I accept full responsibility for my work, but you must take responsibility for what you do with it. (Drugs don’t kill people…)

Should you decide to ignore the pleas of caution and venture recklessly, you will find out the hard way that I am a well-informed, veteran expert. I learned a long time ago how to be right all the time: just don’t talk about stuff you’re wrong about! Should you heed the advice and information here and proceed with caution, you may have some interesting experiences that may complement and contribute to your growth, belonging, and evolution of consciousness.

But remember this summation of my own experiences: Drugs were an unnecessary detour. I do not regret them. Hell, I make my living off them (counseling and writing—not dealing). I now know I never needed them to explore my own vistas of consciousness. I know I could have bypassed drugs as a route to higher knowledge, as the highest knowledge and truths I now find have nothing to do with drugs and are not reliant or dependent on them in any way. The most I can say about my involvement with drugs is this: I am grateful for them. Grateful for the good times, grateful for the nudges into the philosophical and mystical paradigms of thought, and grateful I can now help liberate people from their trappings.

First, I am grateful I have made a good living for many years as a counselor, speaker, and author on the subject. My involvement with drugs, combined with a slightly better-than-average gift for thinking, reasoning, insight, and articulation, has made me an expert and therefore earned me some well-needed means of support with which to support myself and my family. Not bad for a dope fiend!

I am also grateful to drugs for playing a role in my search for ultimate truths. While my need for truth and absolutes was innate, it was my relationship with drugs that gave me evidence of them and reinforced my search when I may have given up through laziness or exhaustion. I always suspected there was something more to reality than what I perceived with my five senses. Drugs proved that to me, and because of that evidence, I pressed on.

Still, it is apparent that many of my associates who are on similar paths of conscious evolution but are at more advanced stages of enlightenment than I did not get there through drugs. They skipped the narcotic path and were instead led where they are by forces more spiritual and not artificial.

And there are a lot of them.

And I feel like I missed out.

I no longer need drugs to pave my way or to illuminate the path I travel toward enlightenment, and I now realize I never did need them. Drugs were integral for me due to my ignorance and stubbornness. Being unwilling to see the truth any other way, I required artificial insights to get me going. I’m a dum-dum. I thought drugs would liberate me from ignorance and lead me to a higher understanding. What they actually do is waste your time—valuable time you need to find true paths to liberation and higher understanding. They are a dead-end distraction.

Out of Retirement

For this project, I briefly came out of retirement for you. Many of today’s drugs were not around when I was using, and others I simply never got around to trying. I have broken my long-term sobriety from narcotics to give you my firsthand account and insights about a few of these drugs. I have put myself at great risk, and I hope you appreciate it. I cannot lie and say I did not enjoy some of the revisits with my drug experiences, but much of it was done purely for authenticity and to deliver a personal, high-quality product in this text, and much of it was unpleasant and even scary. I knew as I began, and my loving partner supported me along the way, that I could get lost and descend into drug abuse for years again, losing everything before it was regained. I am an addict, and that is no lie or exaggeration. But while I never thought I handled drugs better than anyone else, I have somehow been quite exceptional at getting free from them and landing on my feet, strong and healthy. Some people can swallow swords and juggle or be athletes—and I can do this. Go with your talents, right?

I knew the only way to bring you something of quality was to immerse myself into the experience, Morgan Spurlock–like, and give you the straight dope.

You…do not want some secondhand account. You want an expert’s take, and you’re getting one.

You…would not trust my advice or insights if you knew I was giving you theoretical accounts.

You…deserve to know the truth, and I would never consider giving anything less.

What kind of psychonaut would I be if I wasn’t willing to prepare, train, become informed, and then have the balls to make the leap down the straight vertical side?

If you’re going to make that jump based on anything I’ve said, I better have made it first. If you’re willing to trust my counsel and not jump at all, it will only be because you trusted me when I told you, Don’t jump, so…please…

Don’t jump.

Happy trails!

3

What Is Addiction?

The more there is of mine, the less there is of yours

— Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Addiction is a disorder. The term disease typically implies something physical, so our mental health community has adopted the word disorder for afflictions of the mind, mood, personality, character, or emotions. We will use the term disorder going forward. Like those with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), bipolar affective disorder, and other personality disorders, addicts suffer from addictive disorder (AD). Some are addicted to something specific, like heroin, and some have a more chronic version of the disorder I termed addictive personality disorder (APD). APD encompasses a large spectrum of desire objects and is not sustained by a specific object or desire. Instead, it is sustained by a more innate defect of the mind—the need to compensate for deficient emotions or neurochemicals within the brain.

Addiction is a progressive disorder. Addiction begins at the recreational stage and progresses to the advanced stages sequentially. It is not certain that every recreational user will advance to full addiction. However, in modern society addiction is the most prolific disorder in the world, outnumbering every other disorder. Drug epidemics occur in every civilized city and town in the world.

A false belief is that everyone and anyone who does drugs can, and likely will, become an addict. That’s just not so. Not anyone and everyone who goes out on a sunny day will get a severe sunburn. Genetics, constitution, and a myriad of other factors have to come to bear. We will be thoroughly exploring those factors that make an individual vulnerable, less vulnerable, and even invulnerable to addiction.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, is the manual for the psychiatric field, and it is used to diagnose mental maladies. It diagnoses addiction as follows:

The individual must have three or more of the following at any time in the same twelve-month period:

•Tolerance: a need for markedly increased amounts to achieve the same effect. (In other words, the addict needs more dope to get the same high.)

•Withdrawal: painful or adverse conditions directly related to the abstinence of using. (The DSM does not specify whether these symptoms are physical (like cramps) or psychological (like bad moods or depression.)

•Using more, and using more often than intended. (This is when I’m only gonna have two drinks on the weekends and go home at eleven turns into fourteen drinks several times per week and getting home at dawn.)

•Persistent desire or unsuccessful attempts to quit or use less.

•A great deal of time is spent on activities to obtain, use, or recover from using. (Time and energy are spent scamming money to score or driving for an hour to wait for two hours for a dealer who takes three hours to show up, working feverishly to repair a pipe, a syringe, or other paraphernalia, or lying in bed all day following an episode.)

•Using displaces other interests to some degree. (I used to play video games. Now I do dope.)

•Continued use despite the awareness that using contributes to a physical or psychological problem. (An example of this is using cocaine even though one has a deviated septum…from using cocaine.)

Addiction is a compulsion—a pathology. The idea that an addict’s drug use is a choice is insultingly oversimplified and a convenient perspective for nonaddicts to persist in. Individuals with OCD do not feel they have a choice in their compulsive behaviors. They know that sections of their brains are responsible for creating a desire to perform a behavior that is not subject to reason, intellect, or sense. This is why we call their acts compulsions—not decisions. Likewise, a schizophrenic does not choose to be delusional. A pathology is not a choice.

Addiction is behavioral. The drug of choice (DOC) can be a substance (like alcohol) or an action (like gambling). The term DOC will be used generically in this book to refer to any addictive focal point.

The Power of Addictive Thinking

If I were to ask you to have lunch at a cannibalistic restaurant, you would say, No way! That’s disgusting and sick! I would never eat people! And I agree; it is disgusting. However, in the 1970s when a sports team crashed in the Andes Mountains, the survivors of the crash were faced with the decision to either eat the flesh of the dead passengers—their teammates and friends—or perish. Faced with life-and-death situations, brain chemistry can literally alter itself, making the repulsive and seemingly impossible possible. The fight-or-flight mechanism is activated in such circumstances, making us capable of doing things we would not otherwise be able (or willing) to do.

Drug addiction creates a similar paradigm and works with the same neurochemicals. The need for a DOC becomes so overwhelming that it actually activates fight-or-flight mechanisms, and an addict will do anything to fulfill that need. This includes behaviors that would otherwise be considered objectionable, if not outright violations of one’s personal principles. Many addicts in need of their DOC express a feeling of despair so profound that dying is preferable to leaving the urge to use unfulfilled.

If you had been stuck in those mountains like those poor people about to die, you too would have resorted to cannibalism. They didn’t enjoy it; they were just capable of it. This is why it is so important not to judge addicts on a personal level for their dishonesty and immorality. They are overwhelmed and, in many instances, not accountable for their actions.

One of the first issues families present to me as their counselor is the lack of trust for their addicted loved one. I ask them, Are the lying, stealing, and deception independent of the addiction, or are these behaviors always related to the addiction? The answer is nearly always that the addict’s lying and stealing are associated with and motivated by his or her drug need and use, not independent of these factors.

A Lifelong Disorder

There’s no cure for pathological disorders, and addictive disorder is no different. Anyone who tells you addiction can be cured is likely trying to sell something he or she cannot deliver or is being optimistically ignorant. Addiction disorder is dormant in childhood, much like OCD and other personality disorders, and becomes active, or symptomatic, in adolescence or when drugs are introduced to the individual.

I was an addict before I ever did drugs, as the components of addiction within my brain were present but dormant. Because of my addictive pathology, I was easily willing to say yes to dangerous drugs, even though I was intellectually aware of their dangers. I was intelligent enough to know that drugs were dangerous and rational enough to know I should avoid them; however, my addiction-disordered brain overrode those safety mechanisms.

There are those who can say no to drugs because they lack the addictive disorder and those who say yes because they do have it. Once the DOC is introduced, addictive thinking is instantly awakened and begins to manifest, overwhelming reason and logic. Take the case of the man who never once used drugs until he was thirty-five and became a full-blown addict within a month. Due to circumstances, his addictive disorder was not activated until then.

Addiction does not go away as a result of abstinence. It can become manageable, and the addict can remain symptom-free for many years or even his or her whole life. But one never stops being an addict. With the introduction of the wrong circumstances, an addict could very well relapse at any time. If relapse occurs, addicts and their families must remain calm and work to reestablish sobriety by implementing the strategies used to achieve it the first time. This process is covered in the following sections on treatment and recovery.

Drug Stats in the US:

•135,000 deaths each year are directly attributed to drugs with an additional 100,000 fatalities related to drugs, e.g. suicides, homicide, auto accidents and others ( Center for Disease Control ).

•One in twelve people over the age of are 12 addicted to drugs making addiction more prevalent than cancer, stroke, HIV/AIDS or Alzheimer’s disease. ( American

Cancer Society, CDC, American Alzheimer’s Association)

•Drugs are linked to more hospital emergency room visits and hospital admissions than any other single cause ( drugabuse.gov ).

•85% of US prison population are convicted of crimes committed while under the influence of drugs, committed offenses to get money to buy drugs or involve alcohol or drug violations ( 2010 study by Casacolumbia.org )

•Total cost of drug abuse in US exceeds 400 billion in health care, crime and lost productivity ( Drugabuse.gov ).

4

How Addiction Works

How puzzling all these changes are! I’m never sure what I’m going to be, from one minute to another.

—Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

The Pleasure-Pain Principle

The main underlying principle that drives behavior is the pleasure-pain principle.² We are designed to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. This is so intrinsic that absolutely everything we do in each and every waking moment is guided by this principle alone. We are fully capable of enduring pain to fulfill a greater pleasure, like going to work for a paycheck; however, we cannot escape the pleasure-pain principle.

The mind defines pain and pleasure as follows: pleasure is sensually pleasing (feels good) and familiar (puts us in our comfort zones). Pain is the polar opposite—it is sensually painful (physical pain) and unfamiliar. Fear of the unknown is psychologically painful. They are both recorded and categorized by the subconscious mind hierarchically, with the strongest feelings at the top and the lesser ones at the bottom.

The subconcsious applies pressure to pursue identified pleasures by activating certain neurochemicals, and this pressure is mentally painful. There is more pressure from the subconscious to pursue greater pleasures. This pressure is activated by neurochemicals that cause degrees of fixation.

Let’s say one day you go with your friends, Harold and Kumar to eat lunch at a White Castle burger joint. While eating the burgers, you realize that you love White Castle burgers above all other burgers. The next time you get hungry, White Castle comes to mind automatically. Your subconscious begins to apply pressure in the form of an intense craving.

This pressure is achieved by the suppression of specific feel-good brain chemicals known as SDNEs.³ The message is clear: without White Castle, the craving (pain) will persist, but with White Castle, good feelings (pleasure) will triumph.

To an addict, the absence of his or her DOC is conceived of as the ultimate pain (to be avoided). The subconscious can manufacture and simulate feelings of actual death, triggering extreme and extraordinary actions to prevent or counteract these feelings. The addict cannot reason out the difference between a manufactured fear of death and a real one. We can intellectually know we’re not dying but still feel the same amount of fear and anxiety.

The pain portion of the principle is now fully present and active, as death is pain. The pleasure portion of the principle is also fully present and active, because survival is the only way to experience pleasure again. We survive not only in order to avoid pain but to pursue pleasure again.

Some argue that an unfulfilled craving for drugs is not a matter of survival—that the addict has a choice. However, it is essential to understand that the subconscious has access