KNOW YOUR BRAIN
What part of the brain helps us think, plan, and make decisions?
Prefrontal cortex
The midbrain is heavily involved in keeping you what?
Safe, Alive
What brain chemical is strongly involved in motivation and reward learning?
Dopamine
A person, place, thing, feeling, or situation connected to using is called what?
Trigger
What is one thing you can do instead of immediately acting on a craving?
Pause and use a healthy coping skill.
What part of the brain is heavily involved in automatic survival and reward responses?
Midbrain
Name three basic things the brain considers important for survival.
Food, water, and safety
Dopamine helps teach the brain that something is what?
Important and worth repeating
A strong desire or urge to use alcohol or drugs is called what?
A craving
Repeatedly choosing healthy behaviors helps the brain develop what?
New habits and neural pathways
Which area of the brain is important for judgment, impulse control, and considering consequences?
Prefrontal cortex
Why can a craving feel like an emergency even when it isn't one?
The brain has learned to give the substance excessive importance.
Why can drug-related people, places, and things become extremely powerful?
They become strongly associated with reward, dopamine, and motivation.
Why might seeing an old using friend suddenly cause a craving?
The person has become a learned or conditioned trigger.
Why is creating time between a craving and your response important?
It gives you time to make a choice instead of automatically reacting.
During an intense craving, which brain system can compete with the brain's executive decision-making system?
During an intense craving, which brain system can compete with the brain's executive decision-making system?
How can addiction change what the brain considers important?
It can cause obtaining and using the substance to become an extremely high priority.
Why can normal everyday rewards seem less motivating during addiction or early recovery?
The brain's reward system has adapted to repeated high-intensity drug reinforcement.
Why can a trigger cause a physical or emotional reaction before you consciously think about using?
Learned and conditioned responses can activate automatically.
What is the brain's ability to change and form new neural connections through experience called?
Neuroplasticity
Why can someone understand the consequences of using and still experience a powerful drive to use?
The brain's automatic reward and survival systems can compete with executive control and long-term goals.
In the "hijacked brain" analogy, what has essentially been misidentified as a survival-level priority?
The addictive substance or behavior
Dopamine is better described as a signal involved in motivation, learning, and importance rather than simply what?
Pleasure
Why can someone experience a strong craving after being sober for a long time?
Strong learned associations can remain and become reactivated when old triggers are encountered.
From a brain-learning perspective, what is one major goal of recovery?
Strengthen healthier responses and weaken the automatic connection between triggers, cravings, and using.