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	Emotional Intelligence and Addiction Part 1 by Susan Dunn Momentum Coaching
Astrology, Tarot, and Self Improvement for the New Age.

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Emotional Intelligence and Addiction
Part 1
by Susan Dunn

Page: 1 2

Between stimulus and response, there is a space.
In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and freedom.
~ Victor Frankl ~
Man's Search for Meaning

Emotional Intelligence creates or extends that space between stimulus and response, which ultimately disappears for the addict. No one has less freedom than an addict.

1. It isn't about the substance. We don't talk about addictive dice.

"The Natural History of Chipping" (the American Journal of Psychiatry) reported a study of 54 long-term heroin users who did what's called "chipping." According to Norman Zinberg, then clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard, these users had regularly injected the drug (for up to 23 years in one case) but never became addicted. The explanation: "They had purposefully developed social rituals and ways of using it that permitted stable, controlled use of heroin." This debunked the myth that heroin was the most addictive drug. As Howard Shaffer, an associate professor of psychology in the department of psychiatry and director of the division on addictions at Harvard Medical School says, "We don't talk about addictive dice." He has studied addicts and compulsive gamblers for year.

2. The release of dopamine at the nucleus accumbens is the end reward of all addictive substances.

The release of dopamine at the nucleus accumbens in the brain is the conscious experience of pleasure, the "reward" or the "high." All addictive substances end here. However, morphine won't relieve a heroin craving, nor heroin an alcohol craving.

3. Don't underestimate nicotine.

Studies at the University of Calgari and the University of Pennsylvania are showing that "nicotine affects the brain similarly to the other drugs of dependence" like heroin and amphetamine. Indeed, says John Hughes, editor of the scientific journal Tobacco Control, many alcoholics say it was harder getting off smoking than alcohol. The habituation rate for nicotine is higher than any other drug, approaching 70%.

4. The seat of addiction is the reptilian brain.

According the leading addiction researcher at Harvard, George Vaillant, M.D., the reptilian brain is the seat of addiction. Anything going on in this brain is uber-powerful because it pertains to survival. It is also automatic, outside our control, and sometimes said to be unconscious. "The best intentions in the world don't help you with addiction" says Vaillant. "Will power is not a prognostic factor in recovery. Addiction resides in what is often referred to as our reptilian brain, and--well, alligators don't come when they're called."

5. Try a little EQ!

If addiction -- alcoholism, for instance -- has an underlying dynamic of suppressed rage at helplessness, as some believe, and is a compromise between doing nothing, and doing something constructive, as others believe, certainly increasing your EQ skills such as Personal Power, Anger Management, Intentionality and Self-Regard would allow you to consider the latter alternative instead of the former, and to make it happen. And Optimism, an EQ facilitator which can be learned, is the opposite of "learned helplessness."

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Susan Dunn, MA, Clinical Psychology, The EQ CoachT, Susan Dunn, MA, cEQc, The EQ Coach™, Susan Dunn. Bringing the power of Emotional Intelligence to YOUR life through coaching, eBooks, and distance learning. Midlife, retirement and transition coaching, career and relationships. Email for free EQ ezine. Want to be a certified EQ Coach? Email for information on this fast, affordable, comprehensive, no-residency program. Products available for licensing to build your practice. Visit the best ebook library on the Internet - EBook Library.

In human relationships, kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.
~ Graham Greene ~
Born October 2, 1904

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Enchanted Spirit is a non-denominational spiritual center of healing, support, self-improvement, personal guidance, education and writing. We publish multi-media works of New Age thought and information to encourage serenity and growth in individual life choices, advance the universal search for life's meaning, and promote tolerance for positive ideas from all philosophies and religious traditions, believing as we do that truth is where you find it.

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Last updated September 2nd, 2007

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Interpreting Tarot -- Reading the Book of Life
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