Bruce K. Alexander, The Globalisation of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit

In the previous post I discussed how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) to a large extent play an important role in the development of addictions. Given that over 80 percent of those who develop addictions begin adaptive behaviors to cope with ACEs prior to the age of 15, we as a society need to place a greater emphasis on identifying at-risk kids and intervening as early as possible. But there is another insidious root to addiction that I believe goes beyond individual ACEs and plays an even greater role in the development of addiction – free market society.

Bruce K. Alexander spent decades as a distinguished addiction researcher in Canada before becoming so frustrated by a lack of progress in helping those who struggle, that he completly changed careers and decided to focus on teaching history instead. Despite doing everything he could to avoid topics around drugs and addiction, the more he studied history, the more he discovered insights that began to change his entire perspective on the nature of addiction.

In general, when we think about addiction, we think about it as an individual problem. Individuals are exposed to a host of risk factors, including ACEs, peer group influences, and the availability of objects of addiction in communities. The more risk factors an individual is exposed to, the more likely the chances are that he or she will develop an addiction. Conventional wisdom also suggests that the antidote to addiction is intervention and treatment. But when Dr. Alexander began studying history, he discovered cultures and societies where common objects of addiction were present (drugs, alcohol, sex, food), yet addictive behavior was minimal or nonexistent. ”Addiction can be rare in a society for many centuries, but can become nearly universal when circumstances change – for example, when a cohesive tribal culture is crushed or an advanced civilisation collapses (Alexander, 2008).” Throughout history, the primary factor responsible for the societal change leading to pervasive addiction is the introduction of free market society. Why?

When a society introduces free markets, exchange of goods and services optimally are not encumbered by family ties, cultural traditions, religious values, or anything else that may impede free play of the laws of supply and demand. In other words, free markets create an “every man (or woman) for yourself” dynamic that puts me in competition with everyone else for jobs, insurance, a house, goods, services and Lady Ga Ga tickets. One consequence of this system is that people become dislocated, or disconnected from one another because of the time and energy necessary to keep up with the Jones. Free markets are incredibly profficient at knowing how to keep people focused on stuff over experiences. Flashy ads, mass media, and the latest gizmo from Steve Jobs keeps us always wanting more. In the pursuit of the American dream, what many get instead is isolation, fear, and dislocation, which ultimately leads to compulsive lifestyles where people develop addictive relationships to stuff and get further and further disconnected from nurturing human relationships.

Dr. Alexander’s Dislocation Theory of Addiction is well documented in a paper titled The Roots of Addiction in Free Market Society (highly recommended reading) and a more extensive read: The Globalisation of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit. His work is extremely important in helping us all understand many of our current societal ills beyond addiction, including: divorce, single parenthood, children in poverty, obesity, unemployment, and excessive time in front of the TV. Until we as a society place relationships and experiences over materialism, consumption and stuff, Thoreau’s observation that ”the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation” will ring ever more true.

What is the solution to mass dislocation? I believe part of the answer lies in making some tough societal changes including ending the senseless war on drugs (a big topic for another time). But for the individual struggling right now with addiction, the answer is much more about restructuring life in a way that emphasizes relationships over stuff. To do this, one must have the developmental  capacities necessary to know how to initiate, develop, and maintain healthy human relationships.

After listening to the insightful interview by Jari (please go listen now), it is clear that much of what Dr. Mate believes is very much in line with the information on this website and blog. He advocates understanding addiction as a coping response to underlying pathologies, namely adverse childhood experiences. These early events impact brain development, as well as other developmental capacities, resulting in the need for relationships with objects that help regulate stress and emotion cycles. Although much of the discussion focused on addiction as a coping response (feel better), I believe Dr. Mate would also agree that addictive behavior is perpetuated because it feels good – the brain likes it!

I remember a case involving very successful business owner who decided to have lunch with her girlfriends at a local diner that just happened to also have newly installed video poker machines. Having no history of gambling behavior, she thought nothing of putting a buck in the machine to see what would happen. Minutes later she experienced a “big win” – a $600 dopamine rush. So…the following week she told her girlfriends they should meet again for lunch at her lucky restaurant. She put another dollar in the machine and amazingly she won the jackpot again, another $600 big win. That was all it took for her brain chemistry to rearrange some important neurons that led to an out-of-control gambling addiction. Her husband brought her to the clinic because she was unable to stop playing video poker, was blowing thousands of dollars per day, and neglecting her business and family. Although she did love how winning made her feel, in the end, her relationship with video poker machines was just another substitute for the human intimacy she so longed for, but struggled to obtain.  

Addiction is a very complex problem with no easy answers. What I like most about Dr. Mate’s approach to healing is that it is humane, sensible, and incorporates harm reduction strategies. More information about his work can be found on his website. But if you can’t wait to read his book, then listen to the podcast byJari, it is well worth your time.

I love Ray’s story because it so clearly illustrates why “create” is part of the MRC Solution to addiction. It is positive psychology at its best, optimizing life, providing meaning and hope, and unlocking innate talent that is more powerful than addiction.

Recently, Ray and I spoke on the phone. I appreciated his candor and honesty about his life, and his reponses to some of the questions that remained for me after reading the book. Without giving too much away, Ray’s tenancity for his art and willingness to allow the correctional system to do its job,  eventually results in a second chance at life. His website documents many of his achievements and has a great video presentation showcasing his work, as well as a personal interview. He summed-up what helped him most deal with addiction by saying: 1) my art work, 2) personal affirmations specific to self-esteem, 3) support from other people, and 4) a higher power.

Successfully dealing with addiction is not for the faint at heart. It is a challenging road, requiring significant effort at many junctures in life. Has emboridery solved all of Ray’s troubles?…of course not. But in talking with him, it is clear that through his art he has learned to speak his truth. He has learned to speak of his pains and joys, his successes and failures, and his fears and hopes for the future. Godspeed Ray.

A collegue of mine a few years into her work as an addiction’s counselor emailed me recently about her efforts to enact change within her organization:

“With regard to my attempts to enlighten others on topics such as housing first initiatives and pharmacological treatment for alcohol dependence, I am finding that scientific findings are no match for anecdotal evidence based upon meaningful personal experience.  My colleagues/superiors are either entirely skeptical or they simply minimize the validity of addiction interventions that are non-traditional or abstinence based.  The resistance seems to derive from defensive beliefs that the research methods are somehow flawed, the purpose and designs are somehow biased, and the results are somehow over-inflated, over-reported, or just misinterpreted. It is so disheartening. Beyond that, there is the very real challenge in finding funding for medications and housing. I was also told I have to terminate a client who continues to relapse though I adamantly oppose.  My attempts to advocate for this client with, I believe, sound rationale are ignored and viewed as my unwillingness to accept supervision, etc.  All of this leaves me quite shaken.  Yet I love working with the folks I work with.  For now anyways.”

It’s no wonder that the turnover rate for addiction counselor’s is higher than in the fast food industry! Not only is it challenging helping patients, but the job is made even more difficult when working in organizations that resist change, resist embracing findings from research, and fail to acknowledge the limitations of personal experience.

So what to do? We need to be smart about how we go about making changes, in our life, and in organizations. We need to be aware that change is a process, often with many underlying factors that can influence outcomes. And we need to recognize what science tells us about change. This includes understanding the limitations of the widely adopted Stages of Change Model (see #11).

If you are contemplating a personal change, you might benefit from reading The First 30 Days by Ariane De Bonvoison. A very readible approach that focus on optimism and eliminating fear. If your challenge is implementing change within treatment organizations, a great place to start is The Change Book – A Blueprint for Technology Transfer and the Change Book Workbook.  There are other great resources specific to personal and organizational change, but the key message is that it is a lot harder than people think. It takes perseverance, commitment, and discipline. I applaud my colleague for continuing to push what is right her treatment organization.  

Fortunately, there is increased momentum to study implementation science and learn how to get the latest treatment discoveries to the front lines – to the clinicians who can make a difference in people’s lives. The movement has been led by Dr. Dean Fixsen who heads The National Implementation Research Network. There is a goldmine of information on this site, including a synthesis of implementation research that can be downloaded for free. What I find most interesting from this work is:

• We know from a lot of research what does not work. For example, training alone, no matter how well it is done, does not result in successful implementation of new innovations. Sadly, this finding has significant implications in the academic arena, where teacher lectures account for a large percentage of class time.
• Having a toolbox of evidence-based practices for addiction, as we do today, is one thing, but getting clinicians to use the various evidence-based tools is an entirely different thing. My dissertation research on use of addiction medications provides evidence for this fact. 
  
• Implementing a new practice or innovation requires a number of specific drivers, diagrammed above from a presentation on the NIRN website. Notice that implementation is a process, not a specific point in time, and it involves individuals at all levels of an organization, dedicated to learning and refining new actions.

This topic also has a lot of relevance for individual treatment. Learning to manage chronic behaviors, resolve underlying core issues, and engage ones creativity requires implementation of specific actions. This is why therapy is also a process – a collaboration between patient and therapist who work together over time to learn how best to incorporate new  behaviors into the patient’s life, and stop or limit unhealthy behaviors.

Writing about implementation science reminds me of an earlier post I wrote about making addiction education stick. To increase the chances that new ideas take hold, whether in an organizational context or in individual therapy, we must make our interventions sticky. To do this we must tell stories, boil down complex issues to their essence, be unexpected in our delivery, and make things concrete so understanding is enhanced.

In the end, there are no short cuts to implementation. Remember Wexelblatt’s scheduling algorithm. When implementing an innovation you can pick any two out of a possible three choices: cheap, fast, good (i.e., it can be done cheap and fast, but not good; fast and good, but not cheap; or cheap and good, but not fast). Take your pick.

In the recently published book Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life, Winifred Gallagher makes a case that life ultimately adds up to what you choose to pay attention to. This got me thinking about how addiction has evolved (and adapted) to our changing world, and the ways in which we are all more vulnerable to excessive (addictive) behaviors – or at least exposed to far more triggers or precursors of excessive behavior:

• Food: Not long ago I had the pleasure to hear Dr. Kelly Brownell, Director, Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, speak about the link between food and addiction. In brief, his talk was shocking, sad, and made me really mad. He provided a very empirically-based overview of how the food industry, food marketers (guerrilla, viral, stealth), and chemistry explain a great deal of our current epidemic of obesity. Check out slide 71, where pop manufacturers used baby bottles to package soda – absolutely disgusting!
• Drugs: If the 60’s/70’s were about heroin/LSD/etc., the 80’s were about cocaine, the 90’s about methamphetamine, the drug-object of addiction for our current times is prescription drugs. Why? They are readily available, many believe the myth that they are safer than illicit drugs because they are prescribed by a health care professional, anyone can learn about them online, and we currently live in a culture that seeks quick fix solutions to problems.
• Sex: Advancements in multimedia technologies have been led by the porn industry. Today, anyone can act-out their fantasies in cyberspace through avatars in second life, or find their sexual cup of tea online. Sex also sells products today more than ever, and marketeers continue to up the ante in ads of all kinds. And a day does not go by that some celebrity ends up in the news for infidelity (David Letterman, Jude Law, Ethan Hawke, John Edwards, Hugh Grant, Bill Clinton – need I say more?) Is it all bad? The flip side of the coin argues that what we need in our every day lives is sexual intelligence.   
• Reality Television: The evolution of reality television has resulted in many people spending inordinate amounts of time living in illusory worlds. When people lack the development capacities to initiate, form, and maintain healthy relationships, then relationships depicted in reality shows provide an easy out. We can get caught up in the lives of those we find interesting or are attracted too – their relationships, struggles, and triumphs – and then cheat ourselves of real relationships living only vicariously through those on television.
• Social Networking Websites: Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and other social networking sites have fueled a new generation of social interactions, but research into the depth of social networks today reveals a very sad conclusion: We are becoming more and more isolated in our everyday lives. In a well-designed general social survey comparing social networks in 1985 to those in 2004, the number of people saying there is no one with whom they discuss important life matters nearly tripled! Seems like isolation may be a trigger for wanting an escape…
• Trauma: I continue to be amazed at the degree to which news makers will go to grab the attention of an audience. Traumatic, horrific, terrifying events happen every day, but now they are brought right into our living room in graphic detail via YouTube, Internet news sites, and other multimedia channels. Sure 9/11 changed a lot, but stories about children being brutally attacked, tortured, locked away, thrown over bridges and left for dead, or kidnapped, raped and held captive for years – and that is just the tip of the iceberg – how are we to take-in these violent images and stories? How are we to process them? Make sense of them? Or have we just desensitized ourselves to such stories? And how does exposure to this type of media motivate our desire to escape into fantasy?
• Time: I began this post apologizing for not blogging because of a lack of time. Despite all the new time-saving gadgets I utilize, I still don’t seem able to keep up with the pace of our fast moving society. Fast food, twitter, blazing high-speed Internet, sound bite news, packed calendars, energy drinks, and did I mentioned residential treatment for addictions in under five days? In the book In Praise of Slowness, Carl Honore challenges our way of life in the age of speed. I like both the book and his TED talk because they help us understand how the pace of our society promotes our need for quick fixes, quick releases, and quick highs. Perhaps one solution to addiction is just to slow down life.

William James said “My experience is what I agree to attend to”,  but it seems that we are increasingly living in a world where the choice of what to attend to is being made for us.

His appointment comes at a time when the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University recently released their second report on the cost of addiction in our society: Shoveling up II: The impact of substance abuse on federal, state, and local budgets (can download entire report for free!).  In short, “The CASA report found that of $373.9 billion in federal and state spending, 95.6 percent ($357.4 billion) went to shovel up the consequences and human wreckage of substance abuse and addiction; only 1.9 percent went to prevention and treatment, 0.4 percent to research, 1.4 percent to taxation and regulation, and 0.7 percent to interdiction. Let’s hope Tom can change this.

I am often asked what I think about the war on drugs, and my answer is:

The modern war on drugs really began when the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) was created in 1988 to deal with the epidemic of cocaine abuse throughout the 1980s. Since its inception, ONDCP has spent billions to battle illegal drug abuse in the United States, primarily pushing three goals: 1) stop use before it starts through prevention efforts, 2) heal drug abusers by getting treatment resources where they are needed, and 3) disrupt the markets for illegal drugs by attacking the economic basis of the drug trade.

In a critical analysis of the effectiveness of ONDCP, Dr. Matthew Robinson and Dr. Renee Scherlen, both Associate Professors from Appalachian State University, conclude that the drug war has been a massive failure. After reviewing six editions of the annual National Drug Control Strategy between 2000 and 2005, they provide significant empirical evidence that ONDCP has not represented the facts about the drug war accurately, often skew statistics to put a rosy face on less than productive results, and in the end, should be abolished.

What then should our policy be? 1) stop saying “war on drugs” as this punitive ideological language does not represent a well thought-out and humane approach to addiction in our society, 2) beef-up our prevention efforts in families and communities using empirically validated risk/protective factor approaches that address a wide range of adolescent problem behaviors, 3) increase funding for treatment, 4) drop the “abstinence” approach to drug abuse as the only viable intervention option and incorporate scientifically validated harm reduction approaches (e.g., needle exchange programs), and 5) decriminalize marijuana for personal use (see Reefer Madness).

This topic reminds me of one of the best movies ever on this topic – Traffic. This clip where the head of ONDCP catches his own daughter doing drugs, makes the point so clearly that a war on drugs is a war against our own loved ones (note audio disabled).