The Nervous System
What are the three main components of the nervous system?
What is the Brain, Nerves, and Spinal Cord?
What happens when the brain's reward system is overstimulated, making the brain reliant on certain substances or behaviors for pleasure?
What is Addiction?
What do healthy coping skills do?
What is help you face problems constructively, while unhealthy coping skills (like avoidance) offer temporary relief but cause long-term harm, emphasizing the need to find personalized techniques like mindfulness, self-care, or creative expression.
What are cognitive distortions?
What is Biased, irrational thinking patterns that twist reality, making you view yourself, others, and situations more negatively than they actually are?
What is a logical fallacy in addiction?
What is A flaw in reasoning that weakens an argument, making it deceptive, invalid, or illogical, often giving people in recovery flawed reasonings to return to or continue their addiction.
What are the two main parts of the nervous system?
What is the Central Nervous System (CNS) and the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)? Info: The central nervous system is made up of your brain and spinal cord. Your brain reads signals from your nerves to regulate how you think, move and feel. The peripheral nervous system is made up of a network of nerves. The nerves branch out from your spinal cord. This system relays information from your brain and spinal cord to your organs, arms, legs, fingers and toes.
What is the brain's reward system responsible for?
What is a network of regions and pathways that drives how we feel pleasure, form habits, and motivate behavior?
What is generally the first step in developing a healthy coping skill?
What is Identify personal stressors? Info: Pinpoint specific situations, thoughts, or people that trigger stress, anxiety, or anger that make you want to use unhealthy coping skills such as using.
What is the most common negative impact of cognitive distortions?
What is Feeling bad or worse? Cognitive distortions can cause mental health conditions to worsen, like anxiety and depression, lower self-esteem, and create conflicts in relationships.
Why do people in recovery or active addiction use logical fallacies?
What is It is hard to face the truth? Info: People in addiction and recovery use mental defense mechanisms in order to avoid facing the truth about their substance problem and its consequences. Sound reasoning and truth is replaced with lies, deceit and denial. The person's mind creates an existence based on obfuscation, where what they’re doing is okay when in reality, it’s exactly the opposite.
The nervous system uses nerve cells called neurons to send signals all over your body that allow motion, feeling, and permit you to experience stimuli. What are the three types of neurons?
What is Motor Neurons, Sensory Neurons, and Interneurons? Info: Motor neurons regulate muscle movement. Sensory neurons allow you to experience internal and external stimuli. Interneurons connect one neuron to another in somewhat of a chain of responses, creating complex experiences such as learning, planning, and reflex reactions (ex: pulling your hand away after touching a hot stove.)
What is the primary neurotransmitter/hormone responsible for the feeling of pleasure?
What is Dopamine? Info: Dopamine is released in response to rewarding activities, whether it’s eating, socializing, or achieving a goal. This evolved mechanism reinforces behaviors that are beneficial or enjoyable by making us feel good when we do them. Drugs of abuse release significantly higher, often overwhelming, levels of dopamine in the brain's reward system compared to natural, healthy rewards. While natural activities like eating or social interaction produce small, controlled bursts of neurotransmitters, drugs can cause a 'flood' of dopamine, with some substances releasing up to 10 times more than natural rewards. Chronic or heavy drug use depletes dopamine levels and, more importantly, reduces the brain's ability to utilize it. This results in highly negative feelings or 'emptiness' (anhedonia). Thankfully, the brain is a strong organ, and can heal over time after drug use is discontinued.
What is generally the second step in creating a healthy coping skill?
What is Evaluate current habits? Info: Determine if your current reactions are adaptive (helpful) or maladaptive (unhealthy, like avoidance or substance use).
What is a coping skill that one can always use in the moment when they are dealing with a cognitive distortion?
What is Mindfulness? Info: Mindfulness is the practice of purposely focusing attention on the present moment—including thoughts, feelings, and sensations—with an attitude of openness and non-judgment. It helps reduce stress, anxiety, and depression while improving cognitive focus and emotional regulation. Common techniques include guided, seated, or walking meditation, breathing exercises, and body scans.
What is a way that people in recovery can challenge logical fallacies?
What is Countering with facts and by maintaining consistency in thoughts, feelings, and actions.
What are the two 'sectors' of the peripheral nervous system?
What is the Somatic Nervous System and the Autonomic Nervous System? Info: the somatic nervous system guides your voluntary movements. The autonomic nervous system regulates the activities you do without thinking, such as involuntary movements.
What is the secondary neurotransmitter involved in mood regulation and pleasure?
What is Serotonin? Info: It is often referred to as a 'feel-good' chemical. It helps regulate mood, anxiety, and happiness. Located mostly in the gut, serotonin regulates intestinal activity and digestion. It plays a crucial role in regulating sleep cycles and appetite. It assists with blood clotting (released by platelets to narrow blood vessels) and influences bone health. During chronic drug abuse, the brain adapts. It becomes less responsive to normal levels of dopamine, and starts relying on the addictive substance—or behavior—to feel good. Everyday activities that once brought pleasure now feel dull by comparison. This shift can also lower levels of serotonin, leading to feelings of emptiness or depression.
What is generally the third step in creating a healthy coping skill?
What is Understand your needs? Info: Ask, "What do I need right now?"—be it rest, movement, connection, or a change of scenery. From here, you can more easily identify the coping skill that suits you in the moment. (Ex: In a crowded grocery store, I begin to feel panic. I identify that I need a moment to collect myself from the noise and movement, so I close my eyes and practice deep breathing.)
Give an example of a cognitive distortion.
What is: Magnification and minimization: Exaggerating or minimizing the importance of events. You might believe your own achievements are unimportant or that your mistakes are excessively important. Catastrophizing: Seeing only the worst possible outcomes of a situation. Overgeneralization: Making broad interpretations from a single or few events. “I felt awkward during my job interview. I am always so awkward.” Magical thinking: The belief that thoughts, actions, or emotions influence unrelated situations. "If I hadn't hoped something bad would happen to him, he wouldn't have gotten into an accident." Personalization: The belief that you are responsible for events outside of your control. “My mom is always upset. She would be fine if I did more to help her.” Jumping to conclusions: Interpreting the meaning of a situation with little or no evidence. Mind reading: Interpreting the thoughts and beliefs of others without adequate evidence. “She wouldn’t go on a date with me. She probably thinks I’m ugly.” Fortune telling: The expectation that a situation will turn out badly without adequate evidence. Emotional reasoning: The assumption that emotions reflect the way things really are. “I feel like a bad friend, therefore I must be a bad friend.” Disqualifying the positive: Recognizing only the negative aspects of a situation while ignoring the positive. You might receive many compliments on an evaluation, but focus on the single piece of negative feedback. “Should” statements: The belief that things should be a certain way. “I should always be perfect.” All-or-nothing thinking: Thinking in absolutes such as “always,” “never,” or “every.” “I never do a good enough job on anything."
What is the most common logical fallacy in addiction?
What is Argument from Anecdote? Info: Also called Personal Experience, or the "I only" fallacy. This fallacy occurs when someone uses their own personal experience ("I only...") or a single, isolated incident to argue against a general, evidence-based consensus. Ex: "I did X drug for years before I experienced a serious negative consequence, therefore doing X drug isn't bad as long as I'm careful," or, "I only drink all night after work, so I'm still in control."
What are the three parts of the Autonomic Nervous System?
What is the Sympathetic Nervous System, the Parasympathetic Nervous System, and the Enteric Nervous System? Info: the sympathetic nervous system is known for the 'fight-or-flight' response; it activates body processes that help you in times of stress or danger. The parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for the 'rest-and-digest' function. It is the opposite of the sympathetic nervous system. The enteric nervous system manages how your body digests food. It is often called the 'second brain.'
How many main reward pathways are there in the brain?
What is Two? Info: The brain's key reward neurotransmitter, dopamine, is primarily produced in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) located in the midbrain. It can choose two pathways from here: the Mesolimbic Pathway and the Mesocortical Pathway. The mesolimbic pathway drives motivation and pleasure, running from the VTA to the nucleaus accumbens (NAc), a region in the ventral striatum that plays a central role in motivation and reinforcement. When we encounter something rewarding, dopamine neurons in the VTA fire and release dopamine into the NAc. This release creates the experience of pleasure and signals the brain that the behavior is worth repeating. The nucleus accumbens is tightly connected to the amygdala (emotional intensity) and the hippocampus (encoding of contextual memories). The mesocortical pathway weighs value and guides decisions. This also begins in the VTA, but sends dopamine to areas in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), especially the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and ventromedial PFC. The prefrontal cortex is involved in planning, evaluating, and regulating behavior. Dopamine in this region helps us reflect on past rewards, weigh potential outcomes, and make decisions based on long-term goals. While the mesolimbic pathway handles the feeling of reward, the mesocortical pathway helps us think critically about how, when, and whether to pursue it again.
What is Anything? Info: Virtually any healthy activity that does not cause harm to yourself or others can be a healthy coping skill. Every person is different, so what works for one person may not work for another. One person may knit to cope, another may prefer to play chess. One person may journal, another may take a walk through nature. Coping skills are as diverse as each person who uses them, and it is important to have a diverse arsenal of them!
How can someone challenge a cognitive distortion?
What is Ask yourself if the thought is based on facts, look for alternative explanations, and reframe it into a more balanced thought? Info: One must first recognize that these thoughts are automatic and negative, often called ANTs (Automatic Negative Thoughts). After challenging the thought, one can practice a healthy coping skill (ex: mindfulness, gratitude, healthy habits) to build more resilient thinking.
Give an example of a logical fallacy in addiction.
What is: Tu Quoque: The fallacy of “you, too.” Also known as the appeal to hypocrisy. For instance: “Why can’t I drink if it is okay for you to drink?” The fallacy usually goes even further: “If they do X substance, why can't I?” Two Wrongs Make A Right: It may sound obvious and cliche, but it is used a lot. For instance, somebody might rob a CVS because CVS is a chain store that puts smaller stores out of business. Ad Hominem: When somebody uses ad hominem, they do not attack with logic; they attack the person behind the logic. This tends to become intertwined with tu quoque, resulting in a verbal blow. (Ex: “Why would I listen to my peer support specialist? They relapsed twice.”) Ad Populum: Appeal to the masses. This means that if a widely affirmed belief is held by a large enough group of people in one social circle, it becomes true. This can be especially dangerous, depending on the type of crowd one spends time with. (Ex: "All my friends do X drug at parties, therefore it is safe to do X drug at parties.") Ad Misercordiam: This means the appeal to misery, or pity. After the grace period before substance/behavioral dependence kicks in ('pre-addiction'), user ends up feeling bad about themselves. As a result, they deflect their emotions and use them as an excuse to continue in active addiction. (Ex: “I have no one to get sober for,” or “I’m too sick and depressed to stop.”) The Masked Man: This is when the person uses truth to create false claims. (Ex: “People relapse, therefore genuine recovery is impossible.”) Fallacy of Composition: This is when the person believes or says that because part of an argument is true, this means the entire argument is true. (Ex: “Some treatment options didn’t work for me, so I don’t think any of the others will.”) Post Hoc Fallacy: This is when the person determines that because one condition follows the other, they must be casually linked at all times. (Ex: “I know someone who relapsed five times after he went into a treatment center.”) Argument from Silence: This is when the person assumes that since no one is arguing with them, they must be right. They didn’t know that this is merely probably the other party knows the argument will not go anywhere anyway. (Ex: “Since no one tells me I’m wrong, then I must be right.”) Hysteron Proteron: This is when the person assumes truth based on groundless beliefs or based on things that are not factual. (Ex: "Sober people are always unhappy, so why should I try to be sober?") Ignoratio Elenchi: This is when the person uses irrelevant information to support a wrong conclusion. (Ex: "Some sober people are depressed, so being sober isn’t a good idea to get into.")