Many recovering addicts’ new addiction to drama can be difficult for their family and friends to live with. What creates this need for attention and being center stage all the time? Why is every small event magnified and processed as if it were truly life and death? Is this something that just happens with recovering addicts, or do we all have a tendency to dramatize our lives?
How does this almost need for drama impact recovering addicts and why? It is known that the chemical receptors in the pleasure center of the brain are heavily influenced with most substances of abuse. As these chemicals are pumped into the brain, addictive patterns begin to form for the addict. As they become more and more dependent upon the substance, they also form patterns of habit in their brain synapses. This combination becomes habit after some time, and then becomes addiction. Depending on the substance, it can happen quite rapidly for many who begin to use and then abuse the substance.
Those who begin with abusing one substance may believe that the particular drug is the problem and often switch to another one and another one, switching drugs to end their dependency on any. This phenomenon may also be seen in recovery settings, where addiction to alcohol becomes an addiction to sugar, an equally damaging substance that may continue to damage the blood sugar system of the abuser. The brain is producing much the same effect from the sugar as it did with the alcohol, thus allowing the reward system to mimic the chemicals produced by drinking.
Other behaviors may stimulate the production of dopamine and give the recovering addict a
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