Maia Szalavitz on Addiction - Re-Release
Maia Szalavitz is an American reporter and author who has focused much of her work on the topic of addiction. She is the co-author of Born for Love and The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, both with Dr. Bruce D. Perry. Her latest book is Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction
In this paradigm-shifting interview, Maia Szalavitz explains that addiction is a learning disorder, a developmental disorder, which is a different way of thinking of addiction than it being a disease or a moral failing.
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In This Interview, Maia Szalavitz and I Discuss…
Her book, Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding AddictionThat your brain becomes what it does – that the more you repeat an activity, the easier it becomesHow addiction is a developmental disorder and how learning is critical to addictionThe problems with discussion about addiction as a diseaseArguing that addiction is a disease and then treating it like a moral failingAddiction resets your priorities and causes one to make different decisionsAddiction = compulsive behavior that continues despite negative consequencesHow illogical it is then to try and address addiction by focusing on implementing additional negative consequencesThe complexity of addiction, genes + culture + timingThe developmental history that gets you to addictionHow the drug isn’t the problem and our efforts to get rid of it isn’t a helpful solutionAddiction as a learning disorder that is characterized by a resistance to punishmentThe problem with “rock bottom” is it’s not helpful scientifically, and it implies a moral component of having to reach a point of extreme degradation before you can stop.What the motivation is that turns people to recoveryHow addicts keep using because they can’t see how they can survive any other wayRecovery begins when you start to see that there are other optionsPeople with addiction are living at a point of learned helplessnessThe role of hope and other ways of managing their lifeAddiction as a coping mechanismThe pleasures of the hunt vs the pleasures of the feastWanting vs LikingDifferent motivational statesAddiction as escalating wantingStimulants and chasing that satisfactionThe effectiveness and usefulness of 12 Step ProgramsThe role of medicine in a developmental disorderLooking at addicts as students who need to learn better coping skills rather than sinners who need to be forced to repent.Maia Szalavitz Links:
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