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Quitting smoking without help is hard: Effects of motivation and other personality factors
Quitting smoking is hard, but that suggestion probably isn’t terribly exciting all on its own since most of our readers probably knew it already. Still, while we’ve talked about quitting smoking using nicotine replacement and medication, we haven’t really touched the subject of all those people out there who just decide to give quitting smoking…
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Loss, but not absence, of control – How choice and addiction are related
In a recent post the notion that “loss of control” is an addiction myth was raised by our contributing author, Christopher Russell, a thoughtful graduate student studying substance abuse in the U.K. Though I obviously personally believe in control- and choice-relevant neurological mechanisms playing a part in addiction, this conversation is a common one both…
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Compulsive choices in addiction?
Is addiction an issue of bad choices or is it a case of biological, compulsive, necessity? If you know anything about me and my views, you know that I think little of anyone who tries to separate these. I see and talk to people all the time who are stuck in compulsive behavioral patterns but…
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Releasing the motivation bottleneck – Helping addicts by making recovery easier
My friend Patrick as SpiritualRiver reminded me of an issue that I think is somewhat obvious to many drug addiction researchers but may not be to others. The way I see it, there is a specific reason behind much of the research into medications, or other interventions, that will help drug addicts in their transition…
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Addiction-brain effects – Tolerance, sensitization, and withdrawal
If you’ve been with us for any length of time, you’ve already read about the addiction-brain effects for specific drugs. I think it’s important to understand some of the more general changes that occur in the addicted brain regardless of the specific drugs used. One of the most common effects of long term drug use…