How your past hurts you today
Bear Psychology Podcast
Relationships rule our inner world. Understanding how you feel and think about your relationships helps you become more accepting and then more peaceful. You can develop an appreciation for other people's perspectives and stop assigning blame on others. Dr. Jacqueline Heller’s book “Yesterday Never Sleeps: How Integrating Life's Current and Past Connections Improves Our Well-Being” draws upon decades of clinical experience to create a powerful and more positive inner narrative. Her unique combination of neuroscience, memoirs of her life as a child of Holocaust survivors, and patient...
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Dangerous People in Powerful places
Bear Psychology Podcast
Disconnected People in positions of power make the world more dangerous for everyone – Bear Psychology Radio hosted by Dr. Anna Baranowsky with guest Dr. Steve Taylor. Disconnected people have the tendency to gravitate toward power. When Disconnected people rule in positions of power societies trend toward patriarchal, hierarchical and warlike. In contrast, societies with connected leaders trend toward egalitarian, democracy and peace. Although most people have a deep need to be connected, life events/upbringing and trauma exposure can interfere in this profound human characteristic....
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Why your coping skills stop working
Bear Psychology Podcast
Experiencing stressful or traumatic experiences during childhood leads us to develop certain coping mechanisms to get us through. While these strategies might have helped us feel secure when younger, they often fail us in adulthood. Richard Brouillette’s book “Your Coping Skills Aren't Working: How to Break Free from the Habits that Once Helped You But Now Hold You Back” offers an evidence-based guide using multiple therapeutic modalities including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), schema therapy, and attachment theory to help readers leave behind unhelpful coping strategies that keep...
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Muslim Loving Peace and looking to a better future
Bear Psychology Podcast
Raheel Raza, a Muslim Canadian born in Pakistan, migrated to Canada in 1988, has a unique perspective on what is happening right now in the Israel-Hamas war and her reflections on misinformation and what Peace would take. She has visited Israel 13 times in the 16 years. In her National Post Article “I'm a Muslim and I love Israel. Here's why” published in February 2023, Raza details what she has learned about hate and antisemitism, it’s prevalence in Arab Muslim countries, her hope for Peace and the struggles of supporting Israel at this time. Listen to our conversation...
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Collective & Personal Trauma: one family’s graceful end-of-life story
Bear Psychology Podcast
What does it mean to lose someone so close to you that your world will never be the same? What if this happens when the whole world is locked down during a global Pandemic, a collective trauma? How do we navigate terrible loss with great compassion and love? Journalist Mitchell Consky has something important to share with us about this based on personal experience. During the worst of the COVID pandemic, Consky received distressing news. His father had been given less than two months to live after being diagnosed with a rare terminal cancer. In his book, “Home Safe: A...
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Childhood Emotional Neglect impacts your life today
Bear Psychology Podcast
After 20 years in practice, Dr. Jonice Webb noticed the painful struggle of people who grew up in homes where they were emotionally neglected. She identified this neglect as an "invisible factor" that continued to affect adults often leaving them feeling depleted and dissatisfied or what she described as “Running on Empty”. In Dr. Webb’s books “Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect” and “Running On Empty No More: Transform Your Relationships” she shines a light on this invisible force of CEN. She discusses how to bring new tools, strategies and...
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Mind, Body and Yoga for Healing Trauma
Bear Psychology Podcast
Recovery from trauma is not simply about healing the mind but about healing the body as well. Often the approach when treating trauma is solely focused on the mental and emotional effects and fails to address the physiological imbalances that trauma leaves behind on our bodies. In Dr. Arielle Schwartz’s newest book “Therapeutic Yoga for Trauma Recovery: Applying the Principles of Polyvagal Theory for Self-Discovery, Embodied Healing, and Meaningful Change”, she guides the reader using yoga practices to help release the burdens of trauma and begin the journey of healing the...
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Healing from Emotional Eating
Bear Psychology Podcast
Every wonder why you make poor food choices? Have you ever tried a new diet just to end up miserable and eating even more than before? Kim Shapira will help us understand how to put an end to disordered eating habits and improving your health and happiness in the process. Shapira recognizes that unhealthy food habits can occur as a result of life stressors and old patterns of self-soothing. Her work focuses on getting back on track and using food for health. Kim Shapira, author of “This Is What You’re Really Hungry For”, teaches us how to develop a healthy relationship with our...
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Cultivating Core Creativity
Bear Psychology Podcast
I know you are creative and innovative at your core. However, most of us just don’t know how to access the deep wealth of creativity that sits inside. Dr. Ronald Alexander’s book “Core Creativity: The Mindful Way to Unlock Your Creative Self” guides you through using mindfulness practices to train your mind so that it more easily opens the portal to core creativity: the unconscious mind. I am really excited about this show as it focuses on opening up to a powerful element of our true nature. Listen to our conversation with psychotherapist & author Dr. Ronald Alexander as...
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Healing the World through Human Connection
Bear Psychology Podcast
Disconnected people have the tendency to gravitate toward power. When Disconnected people rule in positions of power societies trend toward patriarchal, hierarchical and warlike. In contrast, societies with connected leaders trend toward egalitarian, democracy and peace. Although most people have a deep need to be connected, life events/upbringing and trauma exposure can interfere in this profound human characteristic. A person’s “goodness” and capacity for compassion often results from connection, whereas cruelty often originates from a feeling of being cut off from others....
info_outlineDid you know that in the United States alone, 40 million people ages 12 and older abuse or are addicted to nicotine, alcohol, or other drugs? The percentage among the Canadian population is similar.
Addiction is a disease that’s usually chronic in nature. It affects how the brain and body function, and it’s characterized by compulsive, or uncontrollable, drug seeking and use even in the face of harmful consequences.
Addiction causes changes in the brain, which can be long-lasting and lead to harmful behaviours. Drug addiction is also characterised as a relapsing disease where people return to drug use after trying to stop.
What are the Symptoms and Causes of Addiction?
One of the leading causes of substance abuse stems from an unhealthy way to manage your emotions. Addiction can begin when you acquire the wrong tools to cope with the emotional and/or physical pain that you might feel during a particular moment in your life. Everyone needs to bond and connect, and often it’s a lack of genuine personal connections with others that creates a dependency on substances that bring relief.
The primary symptom of addiction is the recurrent use of a substance or engaging in an activity that leads to impairment or distress. Some symptoms include:
- Using a substance or engaging in an activity for longer periods or in larger quantities than intended.
- Wanting to stop but unable to do so.
- Dedicating too much time to pursuing the substance or activity.
- Strong cravings.
- Disrupting your obligations at work, school, or home.
- Continued use of the substance or activity despite problems.
Experts agree that you must show signs of at least two symptoms to be considered addicted. How severe your condition is depends on the number of symptoms you show. Two to three symptoms typically indicates a mild condition, while four to five symptoms mean a moderate disorder, and six or more symptoms is considered a severe case of addiction.
Fortunately, addiction can be treated. However, treating addiction is not simple. Since addiction is a chronic disease, it’s not possible to simply stop using drugs for a few days and be cured. Most people require long-term or repeated care to recover fully from addiction and stop using entirely.
Effective treatment for addiction will help you stop using drugs, stay off drugs for the rest of your life, and allow you to be productive at home, at work, and in society.
There are several ways to treat addiction including the use of medication, behavioural counseling, medical devices used to treat withdrawal symptoms or deliver skills training, and evaluation and treatment for mental health issues like depression and anxiety that can cause addiction.
For example, medical professionals have been prescribing drugs to treat addictions for many years. Buprenorphine and naloxone (Suboxone) are most commonly prescribed to treat opioid addiction as it helps alleviate withdrawal symptoms and cravings, without the same “high” or associated psychosocial effects of using illegal opioids.
However, some medical experts believe ancient plant medicines can treat addiction even better than pharmaceutical drugs. For instance, Ayahuasca is a psychotropic plant medicine blend that comes from the Amazon and has been used by native Amazonian tribes for centuries for a variety of medicinal and spiritual purposes.
Ibogaine is another plant-based medicine that some experts believe is very effective for treating addiction. Ibogaine is a psychoactive alkaloid that occurs naturally in the West African shrub iboga. In small doses, it’s a mild stimulant, but in larger doses, it induces a profound psychedelic state, which can be useful for interrupting addictions and even more efficient for breaking destructive habits and behaviour patterns.
Those who support the use of plant-based medicines to treat addictions believe it’s a better alternative because it frees the addict from drugs of all kinds instead of prescribing a legal drug to replace the illicit one.