{"id":2321,"date":"2012-11-03T22:51:39","date_gmt":"2012-11-04T02:51:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/?p=2321"},"modified":"2012-11-04T13:35:42","modified_gmt":"2012-11-04T18:35:42","slug":"a-split-second-in-the-mind-of-an-addict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/?p=2321","title":{"rendered":"A Split Second in the Mind of an Addict"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Located in the area of the brain commonly know as the &#8220;mid brain&#8221; swirls the thoughts of survival. \u00a0Have you ever put your hand on a hot stove or pot?\u00a0 Did you think to yourself, \u201cGee, this is hot, I should pull my hand away before I get burned\u201d? \u00a0Of course you didn\u2019t. Your hand was flying back and away from that pot before you were even aware it was hot.\u00a0 This is your mid brain functioning to keep you safe, providing for your survival.<\/p>\n<p>In the mind of the person with a spiritual deficiency disorder, also know as addiction, the act of taking a drink or a drug or placing a bet or having risky sex or exerting power over another human being is happening before the person can rationalize that what they are doing is harmful. \u00a0This is how a perversion of the mid brain function takes over a person&#8217;s life.<\/p>\n<p>Here is the hope for those afflicted: \u00a0There is always a pause. There is always an opening for recovery to happen.\u00a0 The alcoholic eventually sleeps after a long night drinking; \u00a0the sex addict feels deep shame after their binge, and when he awakens, he is momentarily able to consider the magnitude of his powerlessness.\u00a0 Many will cry out, \u201cI will never do that again,\u201d only to find themselves right back in the same pattern only hours later.<\/p>\n<p>Without a spiritual connection, a healthy coping response is virtually impossible.\u00a0 The addict has no power over what is taking place in the mid brain when the reward chemicals are flowing.\u00a0 The possibility for change without outside intervention is\u00a0minuscule.\u00a0\u00a0 For recovery to take place, something or someone must take advantage of the \u201cwindow of opportunity\u201d as it opens.\u00a0 Being aware and present for that brief moment is a difficult task, and the closest friends or family members are rarely capable of providing the help needed.<\/p>\n<p>I have had the experience of the \u201cwindow or opportunity\u201d opening and feel very fortunate to have had support in getting the help I needed.\u00a0 I look back now and see how it was truly a Divine intervention that had occurred.\u00a0 All of the exact right things lined up at exactly the right time, and I said exactly the right words to the right person: \u00a0\u201cDad, I am ready for help.\u201d\u00a0 Three hours later, I was in a detox ward at a local hospital.<\/p>\n<p>Most would say we have no control over the autonomic system and would use the argument that you can not consciously stop yourself from breathing.\u00a0 This would indicate that we have no power over our survival mechanism.\u00a0 Is it true, however, that we actually can stop ourselves from breathing by other means &#8212; for example, strangulation.\u00a0 In this example, we used a deductive reasoning to work around a built-in safeguard, effectively achieving the same outcome: \u00a0our death.<\/p>\n<p>There is much we do not know about the brain and what it is up to most of the time.\u00a0 Some have said that we only use 10% of our brains at any given time.\u00a0 So the possibility exists that somewhere in the brain there is a connection to the divine, a WiFi, if you will.\u00a0 It has been written in many religious and spiritual books &#8220;Through Him all things are possible.\u201d\u00a0 I take this to mean that<em> nothing<\/em> is out of our reach, and<em> nobody<\/em> is beyond help.<\/p>\n<p>The right brain is known as the intuitive, holistic, spiritual side of the brain.\u00a0 The left side is the logical, rational, thinking side of the brain.\u00a0 There is a super highway, so to speak, that connects these two sides, and it is called the corpus callosum.\u00a0 It is my theory that this highway could be the highway to heaven and that our greatest mystery is happening along that stretch of road.\u00a0 When we ask for help sincerely, powerfully, passionately, the Spirit crosses over from the right side of the brain to the left and infuses our decision-making with healthy, positive, and Holy energy.<\/p>\n<p>This may be an oversimplification of our brain functioning, and I am sure there are many scientists that would rebuke my analogy.\u00a0 The statement I find true is, \u201cNo prayer goes unanswered.\u201d \u00a0We may not listen, we may not always hear, but the fact remains that the request has been answered. \u00a0It is entirely up to us to listen and acknowledge the presence of God in our lives.<\/p>\n<p><em>(Kevin McCormack is a &#8220;Conversations with God&#8221; Life Coach, a Spiritual Helper on <span style=\"color: #333399;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.changingchange.net\/\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">www.changingchange.net<\/span><\/a><\/span>, and an Addictions Recovery Advisor.\u00a0 To connect with Kevin, please email him at <span style=\"color: #333399;\"><a title=\"Kevin@TheGlobalConversation.com\" href=\"mailto;kevin@theglobalconversation.com\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">Kevin@theglobalconversation.com<\/span><\/a><\/span>)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Located in the area of the brain commonly know as the &#8220;mid brain&#8221; swirls the thoughts of survival. \u00a0Have you ever put your hand on a hot stove or pot?\u00a0 Did you think to yourself, \u201cGee, this is hot, I should pull my hand away before I get burned\u201d? \u00a0Of course you didn\u2019t. Your hand [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[159],"tags":[185,480,479,186,481],"class_list":["post-2321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-addiction-and-recovery","tag-addiction","tag-corpus-callosum","tag-mid-brain-function","tag-recovery","tag-spirtiual-super-highway"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2321"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2325,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321\/revisions\/2325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}