Trauma

Trauma stimulates the fight-flight-or-freeze response, much like anger, fear and anxiety.
This is great – when your life is in danger! As cortisol & adrenaline are released, they prepare your body to protect itself… to run away or to stand your ground & fight. However, this becomes self-defeating when it’s not a life or death situation. For instance when someone raises their voice or challenges you, or there is a trigger for your drug addiction. Drugs affect the brain in a similar manner – when you are craving, your rational brain shuts down, and your survival impulses take control.
You REACT instead of RESPONDING and its usually due to self-defeating defence mechanisms which result in the opposite of what you are trying to achieve.
When a traumatic memory is triggered (or a trigger for drug use), the emotional brain (primitive limbic system) takes control and the rational (neocortex or higher brain) shuts down. This is why we react on a survival impulse instead of thinking through the consequences.
Images of brain scans taken while addicts are showed images of drug use or of traumatic triggers actually showed dissociation happen in the brain.
When they remembered a traumatic event, the left frontal cortex shut down, particularly Broca's area (the centre for speech).
But areas of the right hemisphere, associated with emotional states and autonomic arousal, lit up, particularly the area around the amygdala, which might be called the brain's "smoke detector".
This suggests that when people relive their traumatic experiences, the frontal lobes become impaired and, as a result, they have trouble thinking and speaking.
The same thing happens in the brains of drug users exposed to stimuli – the amygdala lights up, showing that the fight-or-flight response is triggered.
That’s why it feels like you HAVE to use… or you’ll die. It’s a survival response… but it’s a lie! Cravings generally only last 45 seconds, if you don’t feed into them.
The good news is that our rational brains have not left the building – we just need to learn how to re-engage them. We can do this by engaging techniques like mindfulness, deep breathing, & visualisation. Anger & anxiety management techniques work, as they reduce the physical symptoms triggered by the fight-or-flight response, like heart palpitations and increased respiration.
We also discussed different types of trauma, and how these can affect us differently.
Hormones involved in stress also play a role, as do all the neurotransmitters in the brain, like dopamine and serotonin. Intense repressed trauma weakens the immune system over time, as the body is in a continual state of stress.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is based on the belief that crises are rooted in faulty thinking about an event (eg blaming oneself) rather than event itself
Awareness of the beliefs surrounding an event include recognizing irrational self-defeating cognitions (thought patterns). This is partially what we are doing through the stepwork process. Challenging and disputing these flawed beliefs will have a subsequent effect on behaviour, which assists in regaining control of life.
We can change how we feel and how we act by changing our thoughts.
We can learn to re-evaluate situations and replace flawed beliefs with more rational thoughts, positive affirmations or with Scripture.
The brain is remarkable as we can heal around damaged areas – due to neural plasticity, we have the ability to form new neural pathways. There is hope!