Why we are better served thinking about addiction as accelerated learning rather than as disease.

1. The Enchanted Loom
Teasing sturdy threads from
neuroscience masterworks

2. Teasing 10
threads from
Marc Lewis’s…

3. Thread 1:
The brain grows through the bountiful
heart of the feedback loop. Feedback loops
are just about
the most pow-
erful things in
the world.
Feedback
makes things
grow. It cares
not what.
(pg. 35)

4. Thread 2:
A major upgrade to the geography of the
brain was the circuits for wanting and
liking. Most of
the striatum is
in the business
of wanting.
Only a small
area produces
the sensation
of liking.
(pg. 58)

5. Thread 3:
Brain flesh remains mutable throughout
our lives. After 6 months of abstinence
gray matter lost to
addiction returns
to baseline levels.
Gray matter then
grows beyond
baseline com-
pared to non-
addicts !
(pg. 137)

6. Thread 4:
The cornerstone of addiction is “now”
appeal in relation to narrowly defined
rewards; ego fatigue arising from attempts
to resist tempt-
ation; and the
ongoing stream
of change and
stability in
individual
minds.
(pg. 198)

7. Thread 5:
Cognitive control is a regulating signal
that emerges from many parts of the brain.
Ego fatigue
disrupts that
signal and
results in
the loss of
volitional
behavior.
(pg. 156)

8. Thread 6:
Experiences that actually change synapses
are those
that are most
compelling.
Desire is
evolution’s
agent for
getting us to
pursue goals
repeatedly.
(pg. 208)

9. Thread 7:
Real-life narratives can’t be held in mind
without the
feelings that
give them
shape.
Desire
is the most
potent of
those
feelings.
(pg. 178)

10. Thread 8:
To me the message
is clear: humans
need to be able to
see their own lives
progressing, moving,
from a meaningful
past to a viable fu-
ture. They need to
see themselves as
going somewhere.
(pg. 204)

11. Thread 9:
Personality is little more than the laying
down of habits for getting along in the
world: habits of attraction, habits of self-
regulation,
habits for
avoiding
the rough
edges of
our lives.
(pg. 178)

12. Thread 10:
The take home message here is simple:
recovery involves major changes in
thought and be-
havior, and such
changes require
ongoing neural
development –
a change in
synaptic
patterns.
(pg. 197)

13. Image Credits:
Title Page: http://www.rappler.com/science-nature/23193-personality-traits-brain-scans
Slide 3 - http://www.deviantart.com/art/Feedback-Loop-68547735
Slide 12 - http://bit.ly/1g5i1cW
Slide 2 - http://www.thefix.com/content/interview-Marc-Lewis-addicted-brain8090?page=all
Slide 6 - http://www.deviantart.com/art/Temptation-77022062
Slide 5 - http://rachapunk.deviantart.com/art/Vegetation-II-84456285
Slide 11 - http://bit.ly/1foqgjf
Slide 10 - http://www.deviantart.com/art/The-Journey-147082257
Slide 14 - http://www.rappler.com/science-nature/23193-personality-traits-brain-scans
Slide 9 - http://www.deviantart.com/art/DESIRE-149145056
Slide 8 - http://www.deviantart.com/art/Desire-302267921
Slide 7 - http://bit.ly/1CVmmct
Slide 4 - http://meditationtime.grou.ps/talks/6525601

14. Mark Brady, PhD
TheEnchantedLoom@gmail.com
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