Motivation and the Brain Paper

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When a person that is refraining from taking drugs start into the withdraw process there are a number of changes in the brain and the central nervous system that can make this process very unpleasant and even possibly dangerous in some cases. The most common drugs that people work on getting off of is opiates. Advanced opiate withdraw can cause severe depression, anxiety, restlessness, and even physical symptoms such as body aches and fatigue. During this process your brain can’t function normally without the substance and the central nervous system sends out random signals that are incorrect and this can lead to neuropathy and even restless leg syndrome in some cases. These symptoms get so severe that sometimes a person needs to go to a medically operated rehab where they can receive medications to help with this process. There are medications out there that can help with these symptoms. Buprenorphine has a very high binding affinity and can beat all other substances to the receptor and latch on and this will help with the withdraw symptoms. One of the reasons this medication is so helpful is because it is a partial agonist and partial antagonist which means it’s quite a bit different than other medications of its kind. Another option is a medication called methadone but it has been proven to be quite dangerous and hard on a person’s respiratory system.

When refraining from taking drugs some people don’t realize the agony that a person may go through just to give up this addiction. This is a disease that has in some way touched everyone’s life in one way or another. The brain is probably the most affected part of the body because it has to adjust to all the changes that the substance being missing presents. Since the brain controls the body you could just imagine how hard it would be to go through that without giving into temptation. The motivation and the drive of knowing that when it’s all over a person can regain control of their life without the substance making their decisions for them. Just knowing this makes a person strong, motivated, and ready to do battle with addiction and break these chains.

References

- http://www.helpguide.org/harvard/how-addiction-hijacks-the-brain.htm

- http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/understanding-drug-abuse-addiction

- http://psychology.about.com/od/motivation/f/difference-between-extrinsic-and-intrinsic-motivation.htm