How to live
A Clean And Sober Life
Anhedonia After Addiction | The Inability To Feel Pleasure After Getting Sober
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Hey everybody this is Rob with Tree House
Recovery and I'm back again and today I
want to teach you guys about anhedonia
one of the major reasons or a bigger
reason why people relapse especially in
early recovery is because of anhedonia
or a lack of knowledge of anhedonia and
the best way I can describe anhedonia
and by no means is it's a clinical term
but the best way I can describe it is a
state of blah okay it's a current
dissatisfaction with sobriety or
somebody's current reality which is
going to be sobriety okay and it
consists of two primary factors the
first is going to be biochemical and the
second is going to be psychological so
first let's focus on the biochemical
when somebody ingest drugs or alcohol
they release dopamine into the brain and
this continues over a period of time for
years sometimes and every time they put
a drug in their body dopamine is
released in the brain and what
eventually happens is the brain says
that's it I'm done I don't need to
produce this naturally anymore
now dopamine if you refer back to my
PAWS video is responsible for a lot of
things it's responsible for a reward
that keeps us safe and alive and keeps
us moving forward as individuals or it's
just a society in general and if we
don't have dopamine or a natural
production of dopamine well we're gonna
feel that blah feeling okay so when
somebody enters a recovery center or any
kind of treatment environment and they
are no longer having a chemically
altered amount of dopamine going off in
their brain throughout the day whenever
they put the drug in their body and what
will happen is if somebody goes through
everyday activities during that initial
phase of sobriety there's not going to
feel very good they're not going to feel
that reward so that's the biochemical
reasons of why somebody's going to feel
anhedonia the second thing that we need
to discuss when really understanding
anhedonia is the psychological effects
that somebody's going to be experiencing
while in early sobriety so to really
understand that let's take a look at
somebody while
an active addiction this is usually a
pretty exciting lifestyle now it's
negative excitement a majority of it but
excitement nonetheless so this is
somebody who might be participating in
illegal activity stealing this is
somebody who's probably putting
themselves in pretty dangerous
situations may be dealing with some
pretty shady people or running from the
police or maybe even just the excitement
provided from being dishonest to the
people around them trying to hide their
stash or just get away with the
substance use or anything involved in
the substance use so what all of these
behaviors do is it well it's the heart
beating okay and it can start to produce
adrenaline and all of these behaviors
will create that excitement now let's
talk about that individual when they
decide to go into treatment well they're
not going to be receiving that same kind
of excitement and what this can do is
lead to a comparison to where yes I
understand those were negative behaviors
but the way I interpreted it while as an
active addiction was this is very
exciting and now that I'm in treatment I
have a schedule I have a routine and I'm
not receiving that same kind of
adrenaline pumping excitement that I'm
used to all right so this can often lead
to other psychological set up behaviors
somebody can now awful eyes sobriety or
even romanticize the past using so with
the biochemical and the psychological
effects somebody will have that
anhedonia now anhedonia can be
consistent during somebody's process at
least the initial phase it can also
spike during different months of their
process it can also get elevated during
activities that maybe somebody has a
relationship with for example if
somebody grew up surfing and they loved
surfing every time they go out surfing
they get that dopamine reward well if
that same individual later on in life
decides to get sober and they go out and
they go surfing well there's a good
chance they're not going to get the same
reward the
there used to do to that dopamine
deficit this can easily lead somebody to
going and awful eyes in their sobriety
or even hyper focusing on things from
their past that would produce that
dopamine for example substance use
alright and this is a major reason why
we see people relapse this is why I'm so
confident in the tree house approach to
treatment we got guys waking up at the
crack of dawn going out to the ocean and
experiencing that joy that excitement
getting the heart beating getting the
adrenaline going as they're out there
they're riding the waves and we're doing
this all and it's structured and
controlled environment but still
creating a new relationship with that
excitement that for a lot of people who
have the disease very much crave and
then from the beach they're going into
the gym and they're participating
intense workouts and when they're doing
that what that's gonna do is kickstart
that natural dopamine production we have
the ability to assist somebody through
that initial phase without the use of
any kind of any kind of medications
anything that's actually gonna do more
harm than good so ultimately what's
gonna happen is we can help somebody get
through that initial phase of anhedonia
and then on our clinical side our guys
are gonna filter into the office they're
gonna get lessons from guys like me or
the other IRT team and they're gonna
learn about anhedonia they're gonna
learn in real time how to use coping
skills all of this works together
well anhedonia is gonna act as a one-two
punch as far as the biochemical factors
the psychological factors well we got
the same kind of recipe combating that
we got the physical we got the mental
all right the problem that we often see
is people making permanent or
life-threatening decisions based on
temporary uncomfortability and that's
why people will relapse from anhedonia
all right so if somebody's able to come
in to our environment and we're they're
given the opportunity to promote brain
healing along with all the knowledge of
why they're
a certain way that set somebody up for
opportunity and the ability to maintain
long-term sustainable sobriety this is
Rob again the treehouse recovery I want
to thank you guys for joining me if you
have any questions feel free to reach
out to us also check out the links below
there's a lot of good stuff down there
and I'll see you guys next time
you
