To Continue on ADD but on Addiction

to my readers: Before reading this piece please refer back to my recent article on ADD.

We understand how very early experiences even in the womb leave a trace, something engraved in the entire neurophysiologic system—an imprint. The imprints send information to higher levels of the brain as it evolves. The information that sends is loaded with a force, an energy or valence. The earlier the imprint the more loaded the information because it is usually a matter of life and death—not enough oxygen, for example. Or a mother taking drugs or drinking alcohol, or just being totally depressed.

The severity of the experience taxes the strength of the gates. That is, in order to relay information (often via the thalamus)to higher levels there needs to be a smooth flow of information; what helps keeps it flowing and not overloading higher levels is a system of gates. Thus, we produce chemicals such as serotonin and others that impede the flow of information when it is too much. Early trauma can overtax the gating system producing either faulty gates or what I call “leaky gates.” Thereafter those feelings and sensations intrude into our mental apparatus, and cause us to feel miserable or unable to concentrate. As lack of love, neglect and abandonment continue it weakens the gates so that we are chronically anxious or upset. We no longer produce the chemicals we need to hold back pain and keep the gates functioning properly. All this I have made clear.

What that intrusion also does is make us seek out those chemicals that were weakened or depleted in the service of repression early on. We are looking to be and feel normal. So we thrive on pills that enhance serotonin (prozac, Zoloft, etc.)or other drugs affected early on. So of course someone with a parasympathetic imprint takes cocaine or even coca cola and suddenly feels better and energetic. The ADDer often needs a boost for the prefrontal cortex, and so they are prescribed Adderral or Ritalin which is an upper that makes those neural cells more efficient. Or when there are leaky gates there is trouble sleeping as the deep imprints surge upward and force the prefrontal area to churn and ruminate. And there are many of these non-sleepers. But if the pain is great but the defenses hold and the gates are not leaky then we can look forward to cancer, or at least a shorter life. This is only an assumption but based on decades of clinical work. It is when repression is most massive and blankets feelings that our lives become shorter. If one can see the pressure in a Primal one would know immediately what happens to the cells from early pain. It is not simply a theory; it is observable every day in our clinic.

So once we know what happened in our womblife; was the mother a smoker, a pill-popper or drinker we have a good idea why we need the drugs we do. Or to put it differently, once we know what we get hooked on we can estimate what happened to us during womb-life and at birth. It is all no longer a mystery. So if you drink coca colas four times a day it may well be because you mother was depressed and down. She also depressed you. Contrarily, if you need to slow down with tranquilizers it may be because your mother was speedy and anxious while carrying. We are always looking for the other half of our nervous system.

Gates are good because they keep us sane and functioning, but they are not great when we lose access to ourselves and our feelings. They those gates are dangerous. It is usually a matter of too tight gates or leaky gates, and we can make our diagnosis and prognosis for therapy from there. Leaky gates puts us over the primal/feeling zone, while dense gates often place us under the feeling zone. A truly loved child lives in the primal zone all of the time.