Rewiring the AL Brain with medication

[Bruunhilde]

Hi all, three thoughts for your consideration this fine Sunday afternoon - mostly about rewiring the brain and healing the body/mind.

-Something that's been stuck in my mind for a few weeks is the idea of the brain being rewired by medications - baclofen and ibogaine in particular seem to have some effect on how people feel about AL after the treatment or at a certain "switch" dosage.

-Then there's the rewiring that comes with the healing body, after the body detoxes with AF time. AND the requisite emotional "growing up" a la Ig's thread last year about intimacy, once AF.

-Also, does "moderation" impact the "rewiring" by these meds? I know ibogaine AND bac both do not necessarily stop the habit of drinking nor the non-addictive looking forward to a nice cold beer at the end of a long hard day.

I'm looking at ibogaine as an alternative to HDBac since I can't tolerate HDB due to my blood pressure reaction on it. I was told by Anne that ibogaine is considered a cure in some countries for some personality disorders. And bac helps with anxiety.

I'm probably asking for it by putting this thread out there = all sorts of scientific discussions of the pathways and gaba receptors stuff, which is all well and good.

My biggest interest is in everyone's experiences. I know Pbar has done ibogaine as has Anne, and we have our bacster veterans who will also share, so I'm very interested in all y'alls thoughts on the matter. All ye who dread posting, let go your inhibitions! POST! Share your wealth of experience and many will benefit.

I hope I put this clearly - my brain is a little muddled this weekend. Thanks in advance for any thoughts and ideas and experiences.

[bleep]

Rewiring the AL Brain with medication

I'd like to believe that some form of rewiring effect is taking place. I haven't been on it long enough to conclusively say though. I'm glad it's medication doing it, and not me, the last time I rewired a plug the whole house shut down, and I'd like to think this is slightly more complex. In my brain, maybe not though!

I suppose if it is being rewired, eventually one would be able to go off baclofen, and from what I understand, OA is still taking baclofen, so perhaps it's just wishful thinking. I will say that while on 300mg's of baclofen, my thinking about booze is markedly different than it used to be. Who's to say that it wouldn't return to normal if I suddenly stopped though?

I'll come back to this thread in a couple of years and let you know Bruun!

[Guest]

Rewiring the AL Brain with medication

Naltrexone also takes part in some 'rewiring' too - via learnt behaviours(or not!) in breaking the link between addictive behaviours and endorphin rewards.

[ignominious]

Rewiring the AL Brain with medication

Hey Brun

Err, thanks, maybe, for the shout out?! My problems are not just confined to matters of intimacy, but with the effort I've been putting in over the last few months I've narrowed them down to about 50 issues! Seriously, I think I'm sort of in the borderline personality disorder camp/area or maybe just the adult child of such!

The point for me is that I do need to revamp the way I look at life at a rather fundamental level. Bloody difficult to do when you can't get a guide or have no pointers for which is the road to nirvana!! You can call this rewiring or growing up but I need to take a slightly different stance to most things in my life. Its difficult, frustrating and depressing in many ways but I'm sure of one thing and that is life wasn't going to improve if I carried on drinking.

I don't think the meds do it for you I think they just take away the habit that has been stopping you from facing facts. There is a feelgood factor that comes with baclofen which I think can be mistakenly identified as enlightenment or proof that one is on the right track. Anything that gives us alcoholics a lift up isn't to be ignored and can be used to great benefit but I think the the self growth that must come; must come from yourself.

If you weren't confused enough when reading Brunns original question then I hope you are now!

[Bruunhilde]

Rewiring the AL Brain with medication

Thanks bleep, UK and Ig - and Ig, I didn't mean to point you out as the poster child, we're all the poster children in our own lives and I was just using your post as an example because I recently reread it. I have intimacy issues and general growing up to do, and relearning how to live life could be a good idea.

Right now I'm focused on getting to where you three are - that means AF or nearly so. I think tonight will be the night I finally am too tired and beaten down by the beast to get blotto. Plus I only have two beers in the fridge and no hard liquor or wine. And I'm so tired and hot ... I'm hoping to just crash early and sober so tomorrow going AF will feel do-able via the white knuckling method.

UK, I was thinking about the reward circuitry but for me I have to have an abhorrance of AL, not just no reward. I drank half a liter of gin last night and couldn't catch a buzz, and that's not that unusual. I drink without reward and sometimes even more as I desperately try to reach DRUNK but really it's like poison water for all it's effects, good and bad.

Cheers, all! Thanks for your thoughts.

[ignominious]

Rewiring the AL Brain with medication

Its all cool here Brunn. Just trying to make an appropriate response when my name comes up, you know, sort of pretend that I'm on the same page!! Poster child doesn't sound completely obnoxious to me either.

Good luck with your AF attempt. I just listened to the radio interview that Murph posted and they mention that the addiction has already been dealt with by the time patients stop drinking. I think its the physical repulsiveness that convinces many of us to not have a drink that evening and then a few days later we realise we don't need one anyway.

[RudyB]

Rewiring the AL Brain with medication

i have just started reading 'healing without freud or prozac' by dr david servan-schreiber, and it's so exciting. i love anything brain science. as far as i can understand at this point, in his book he postulates that there are very real ways to heal ourselves -largely via our brains- using methods that western science has pretty much ignored. he was a seasoned 'hard' scientist, until he found himself in these new waters.

he writes about how talk therapy has done a lot for people in terms of gaining an intellectual understanding of their challenges, but it ignored the body. often leaving them groping for the ultimate solution, resolution, and true healing. the body is where we need to go to deepen on -and change- our underlying challenges.

so far he has mentioned acupuncture and massage, maybe a couple of others. i love this! we DO need to treat the whole person (as ig mentions), and that certainly includes the body! we westerners are so preoccupied w the mind and its intellectual ways; we give it full authority, to the tune of ignoring one the of most important tools in healing.

the amagdyla, interestingly, operates more independently of the prefrontal cortex than of the body. the former, in fact, governs much (if not most) of the body's functions. imagine that! so if we can tap into that fact, and use it in our healing, we are empowering ourselves so much more than if we don't. worlds more.

so, folks, the lesson i've gotten so far is that we must honor our bodies and our emotions at least as much as our intellects, and seek concrete ways to do that. i for one will call the acupuncturist again tomorrow, and an hypnotherapist (i seemed to have pretty much kicked the bottle, now i've gotta stop smoking!). and thursday i have an appointment with an intuitive massage therapist.

thanks for an excellent thread, brunn.

good luck, all, on your unique journeys.

rudy b

[Bruunhilde]

Rewiring the AL Brain with medication

Thanks Ig, I figured you were cool but just in case... it's so hard to know when you've crossed the line with people online. I don't understand half the tiffs I see here at MWO personally! :H

Rudy, I've been reading alot in the last few years about that mind body directive. I'm reading The Power of your Subconscious Mind right now, which is dated but still worth reading I think - I'll let you know when I'm done if I"m happy, healthy and rich (all the things my conscious mind will teach my subconscious so that my lizard brain will "make it so"). Another oldie is You Can Heal Your Life - these both use some concepts of CognitiveTherapy in that you're training your mind using your thoughts, but I think they go beyond, I haven't finished either one, they're on my nightstand but I've been passed out every night and not reading. The other book on my nightstand is Professional Hypnotherapy Manual or something like that. I'd love to find a good practioner, let me know how your session goes. The book talks about whether or not you're very "suggestible" and how the hypnotherapist should approach you based on that.

Soon I will likely have read up and have something else to say, since today I'm having chocolate milk instead of gin. (so much for the diet!)

[RudyB]

Rewiring the AL Brain with medication

alright, bruun! good goin w the milk! honey, anything is better than the booze, forget about the calories (tho we all know booze has plenty of those)!

i'll write those titles down. and i'll keep you abreast when possible about 'healing w/out prozac or freud'. i'm continuing to LOVE it!!! and it's quite current. and applies so much to what i'm all about right now. i'm so excited that i'm going to hypno. and acupuncture and massage therapy tomorrow. and i'm drinking all kinds of (chinese) tea these days, lots of ginger infusions. fuckin loving it! the cigs feel so AWFUL, yet i still smoke them. so i'm headed in many directions to correct that. behavioural therapy sounds great, always has, but i've never tried it. maybe i'll read one of those books. i'll also be running again, meditating and using rj's cd's, changing my thinking around smoking. (i really have been watching my thoughts around the impulse to smoke. i have it more and more often now that i smoke more -durr...chicken or egg?- when something is even slightly uncomfortable: a challenging conversation; a difficult package to open; a scared feeling; a minor annoyance; a whining four year old.) i'm gonna get a grip on this. i'm gonna wrestle this ugly beast to the ground, pin it by the neck, and slit its throat with a very sharp knife. one quick, deep swipe.

watch me. and i'll watch you as you slay yours.

[ignominious]

Rewiring the AL Brain with medication

Hi Rudy, here seems as good a place as any to chime in with views on breaking the nicotine addiction. From where I'm sitting it sounds pretty much like you've hit the switch so well done on that. From here on any problems that you have with alcohol will be down to the habit part of drinking.

I think that baclofen cuts out the physical craving fort different drugs at different levels but unless you are planing to titrate up then this is going to be the most help that you will expect to recieve from baclofen to cut out smoking and I suggest that you give it a try.

I unfortunately went another week smoke free, which again proved that I had it beat and therefore it would be OK to have one occasionally! MoFo! I'm now smoking about 7 a day which is still a success compared to 60 but not the complete break that I'm looking for. I don't think that it physical addiction that brought me back to smoking more like some Mr Monk like OC compulsion.

Baclofen can deal with the physical aspects but addiction is a many headed monster which has to be dealt with on all fronts.

[SlipperyPete]

Rewiring the AL Brain with medication

Bruun - While researching healthy food and stuff for working out, I remember reading a lot of stuff saying chocolate milk is good for you, as long as it's low fat.

The Debate over Chocolate Milk Good Or Evil | Parade.com

Don't feel guilty about it.

[beatle]

Rewiring the AL Brain with medication

Great thread, Bruun.

I have never bought in to the "rewiring" concept. Just doesn't make sense to me. Our brains and bodies are too complex to just need some rewiring to fix us. And I've always been a strong proponent of nutritional, supplements, exercise (even if just taking a walk) as integral parts of recovery.

One book that looks at changing the balance on the brain (not rewiring it) is "Seven Weeks to Sobriety". It is mostly focussed on nutrition and supplements, and highly focussed on amino acids. It all has to do with subtly changing the brain's way of dealing with things, especially those that lead to alcoholism.

I also suggest looking at my thread: Healing the brain and body through supplements -- everything explained

https://www.mywayout.org/community/f6...ned-46772.html

I also do believe the healing process is equally dependent on healing the body as balancing the brain. And usually they are one and the same. Or go together. Maybe sometimes the brain has to be balanced first, sometimes just balancing the body will do the trick, but in general, they are all part of the big, individual puzzle.

In general, I used to only participate on the Holistic Healing forum. I got (and imparted, I hope) a great deal of wisdom and inspiration there.

I got into baclofen through serendipidous circumstances, and have always maintained that it is a supplement, rather than a medication. If you look up the differences,you will see what I mean (of course).



If you all are interested more than a quick and painful fix that might not even be a "fix", then I can recommend that forum.

Best to all, and to you Bruun, especially, for starting this discussion.

[Bruunhilde]

Rewiring the AL Brain with medication

Good to hear your voice again Beatle, it's been a while. I read your thread on the holistic thread, and it's excellent, but I started this one with the comparison of two drugs in my mind, ibogaine and baclofen, which both seem to have some similar concepts and changing the pleasure pathways in the brain seems to be something they both help with. Nal does too, for some, and I'm sure there are other drugs out there that do. As Ig points out, the physical addiction can be minimized or fixed by the drug but the habit it self is a monster, and I'm also thinking we can address that here as well - since the book Rudy mentions extends that far, and why not, all the books I'm reading go there too. As you know beatle, I'm very into supplements and have been since I was diagnosed in my mid twenties with hypertension and high cholesterol in spite of my healthy diet, exercise, weight, gender, age. I agree supplements can help, and maybe drugs are just synthetic supplements, categorize them however you want, makes no difference unless you're trying to be natural and avoid paying the pharma companies. You're still paying the manufacturers of the supplements which are monsters in themselves, some of them. I haven't read yet but did notice your thread in holistic on making your own supplements. Will have to check that out. I have read Seven Weeks to Sobriety and the author's other book Depression Free Naturally. I have all those supplements and have taken them for ten years albeit inconsistently.

Hey Pete, thanks for the encouragement, and the milk I had was whole milk because I don't believe that lowfat or skim milk is a whole food. And chocolate of course is an essential supplement. The problem is the sugar! But you're right, sugar in the form of milk and chocolate beats the hell out of gin and TODAY I'M NOT HUNGOVER. :wavin: AF yesterday.

Rudy, I'll let you know when I'm done if I actually recommend these books - good luck with the hypno, don't forget to let us know! Love it.

Thanks and everyone have a great day.

[Rusty]

Rewiring the AL Brain with medication

:yay:CONGRATULATIONS, BRUUN ON YOUR AF DAY!!!:jumpwow: OOH LA LA! The joy of awaking unhung! I am sooooo proud and happy for you! Sending you major (((((((hugs)))))) and congrats!

xoxox

Rusty

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Rewiring the AL Brain with medication

Bruunhilde;1143136 wrote: And chocolate of course is an essential supplement.


TODAY I'M NOT HUNGOVER. :wavin:
AF yesterday.

Just thought I'd point out all those things...

(btw, just read that statins are as likely to give you type-2 diabetes as they are to prevent a heart attack. really. didn't I read somewhere that you kicked your cholesterol problem? good on you! I'm upping my fish oil and cutting out...well, at least upping the fish oil.)