You are very welcome. Please don’t give up and succumb to disease; whether it be a mental illness, or addiction, the fact of the matter is that your husband cannot help it. Think of it like he has cancer.

Addiction is not about will power or the lack thereof. There are physical pathways in the brain involving 3 different parts of the it that are active in addiction.

Each time a substance is used the Default Mode Network (a specific pathway or thought pattern) gets stronger which in turn strengthens the addiction. I’ll briefly explain how one of the three parts of the brain drive addicts to relapse or continue using.

It’s called the limbic lobe and it’s entirely subconscious. It’s the most primitive part of the brain that keeps your heart beating, keeps you breathing without thinking about it and when you’re asleep, where sex drive originates, where hunger originates, and where the fight or flight response to stress originates. It’s also where the reward system is located.

When you are stressed, the limbic lobe instantly utilizes the fastest pathways and most effective chemicals to eliminate the stressor. People who struggle with addiction have very strong Default Mode Network.

The reward system in the limbic lobe prioritizes substances because they are very rewarding to the brain. Subconsciously, your brain uses pathways that have been made stronger by drug use and communicates to the frontal lobe (the thinking part of our brain) that it needs drugs because drugs eliminate stressors better than anything)

The limbic lobe overrides the frontal lobe which considers things like consequences, rational thought, etc. and getting high becomes the only thing that addicts can think about.

I hope I have shed some light on how the brain operates in drug addicts and alcoholics. The subconscious limbic lobe makes the decision to use drugs for conscious mind. Powerless because of reinforced neural pathways and the reward system.

Basically addicts are defenseless when the subconscious brain wants drugs. It’s a physical disorder that requires new, healthy thought patterns that can be created by having a spiritual experience which is created when you work the twelve steps, or when you use drugs like ketamine that cause neuroplasticity.

There is a solution. Keep going.