"... [Dr. Kristen B. Silvia tells meth addicts], an individual’s dopamine levels could rise to, say, 50. 'If you have the best meal ever, the best sex ever, the best day of your life, you can get your levels up to 100.' When someone uses crack... within seconds their levels rise to 300, she continues, 'or three times the best day of your life. 'But on meth, dopamine levels skyrocket to 1,000 and can remain there for hours: 'No medication can safely compete with that.'..."
From
"Upended by Meth, Some Communities Are Paying Users to Quit/Unlike with opioids, there is no medication to suppress cravings for meth and other stimulants. As use soars, hundreds of clinics are trying a radically different approach" (NYT).
"[A]ddiction experts worry that under the Trump administration, CM programs will be difficult to sustain, much less expand to meet the need. Many believe that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, who overcame his heroin addiction with a 12-step program and has praised approaches that threaten to jail people who refuse treatment, would be unlikely to endorse a financial rewards-based strategy...."
It's hard for me to imagine feeling 10 times as good as I have ever felt. I might have 10 times as much of what you're calling "the feel-good neurotransmitter," but that doesn't mean the goodness of the feeling will be multiplied by 10. I don't think feeling good works like that! I once heard someone describe the experience of parachuting from a plane as like having 1,000 orgasms all at once. She was quite enthused, and I immediately said that sounds horrible.
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31 comments:
..."Many believe that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.....would be unlikely to endorse a financial rewards-based strategy...."
Were the 'many' all experts, too? It's much better when you say 'Experts believe....'. In the meantime, I'm not going to worry too much about something that 'might happen if somebody doesn't do something we specify (and we're hoping he doesn't for political reasons)'.
“No medication can safely compete with that“
Key word: safely
I'm curious as to whether the pleasure metric is additive. Like if sky diving is 100, and an orgasm 75, is sex while skydiving a 175 ? What if you did it while on Meth ?
There is probably diminishing return of "good feeling" in relation to dopamine levels. In other words, it is unlikely that you feel 10 times better at 1000 than at 100.
I can see the problem from a statistical viewpoint. Once your range of happiness is expanded from an ordinary 1 to 50, or maybe even 1 to 100, out to something like 1 to 1000; those mild events of joy that previously gave you a material 30 amount of joy seem rather unimportant. Even if you only ever experience a max 50, your routine 30s and 40s will seem so much better for you.
As for paying addicts to stop, how do you prevent gaming of the system? It seems a no-go from that standpoint already.
“how do you prevent gaming of the system?”
THE essential question for every single government benefit.
I hate the game, not the players.
“It's hard for me to imagine feeling 10 times as good as I have ever felt.”
Same here. In fact, just feelin’ good x1 is more than good enough for me. And don’t even get me started about Bobby McGee.
Its a little like getting drunk. If your BAC rises from .06 to 1.8 you will feel better, but not 3x better. If your dophomine level goes up by 10x, that doesn't mean you feel 10x better. Once you go past a certain euphoric level, its hard to go past that.
Money Manger said...I'm curious as to whether the pleasure metric is additive. Like if sky diving is 100, and an orgasm 75, is sex while skydiving a 175 ?
In this example, it's more likely subtractive. Sex while skydiving is a 25.
unlikely to endorse a financial rewards-based strategy.
There are a lot of reasons why paying addicts to not get high is a bad idea. What do you think they are most likely to do with the money?
stop
"It's hard for me to imagine feeling 10 times as good as I have ever felt. I might have 10 times as much of what you're calling "the feel-good neurotransmitter," but that doesn't mean the goodness of the feeling will be multiplied by 10. I don't think feeling good works like that!"
LOT'S of people have said that exact thing..
THEN, they've tried meth (or coke)..
THEN, they become customers.
" If your dophomine level goes up by 10x, that doesn't mean you feel 10x better. Once you go past a certain euphoric level, its hard to go past that."
NOPE, the good part is:
once you're getting 10x dopamine..
1x will NOT be enough.. SOON, it will be drugs or misery
It's not giving up the high that is the biggest problem with quitting meth. The problem is that everything becomes either bland or impossible for a very long time after quitting. Some semblance of normality and even joy does return after quitting long term use, but it can take years, and I'm not sure (who can tell?) if "normality" ever quite returns. It is not worth it.
Cold turkey for cash? What could possibly go wrong????
Yancey Ward said...
There is probably diminishing return of "good feeling" in relation to dopamine levels.
This is very true. You simply require the elevated levels to feel "normal". Everything comes with a cost, and with meth the cost is very high indeed.
"I once heard someone describe the experience of parachuting from a plane as like having 1,000 orgasms all at once. She was quite enthused, and I immediately said that sounds horrible."
Perhaps she swore of dudes post-jump but man...I would hate to have to be the dude that had to compete with that!
off
Robert Palmer - Addicted To Love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcATvu5f9vE&ab_channel=RobertPalmerVEVO
Dopamine receptors are finite and once you are saturated you don’t get further effects, except bad ones where eventually your number of receptors drops and you need the drug to feel any pleasure at all. Don’t do drugs.
There must be a reason that people take meth even though their teeth are falling out.
”I once heard someone describe the experience of parachuting from a plane as like having 1,000 orgasms all at once.”
I don’t believe men can use that metaphor… think of the mess!
Is this another crisis the government has failed to solve?
What's the problem?
Yeah--give financial rewards to meth addicts if they "quit." Hard to see how anything could go wrong with that program.
Seen elsewhere on the net:
"In Saudi Arabia they've increased the number of executions for drug offenses to its highest level in decades. Saudi Arabia has a lot of problems, but you know what problem Saudi Arabia doesn't have? A drug problem."
“addiction experts”?
Sounds like a moneymaker! No wonder they’re afraid of the money flow drying up.
So, is it deterrent effect . . . or just that there ain't nigh as many of'em as there was awhile ago?: ""In Saudi Arabia they've increased the number of executions for drug offenses to its highest level in decades. Saudi Arabia has a lot of problems, but you know what problem Saudi Arabia doesn't have? A drug problem."
Perhaps what they meant was that Saudi Arabia's drug problem - when it exists - exists for an incredibly small period of time between the time it manifests to the time a shamshir severs the head from the manifester's body in "chop-chop" plaza.
Therefore, one could say that Saudi Arabia's drug problem is impermanent, whereas ours is chronic bordering on terminal.
Citing another example, for a solid 100 years, possibly as much as half of China's population was addicted to opium. This is no longer the case because towards the end of that period most of China's drug problem was buried in mass graves in every province and can still be found with motivation.
I once heard someone describe the experience of parachuting from a plane as like having 1,000 orgasms all at once. She was quite enthused, and I immediately said that sounds horrible.
Likewise, even the woman who promote their being on the receiving end of a gang bang don’t seem happy.
Not to mention that meth causes ED.
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