What is going on in my brain? What is the chemical mechanism? Why cant I just tell my brain to stop craving the substance? Why is the addiction removing all of my inhibitions?
This is hell.
In: Biology
You have neurotransmitters in your brain that exchange signal molecules. These regulate your mood and emotions. The molecule fits into the designated hole, and your brain fires off a signal that makes you feel happy or whatever. Sometimes a hole is filled, sometimes it is not, so sometimes you feel happy and sometimes you don’t.
Imagine you have ten radios and ten electrical sockets. You plug a radio into a socket and you hear some music. You think this is pleasant. But what happens if you plug all ten radios into all ten sockets? Now you have the most amazing rock and roll experience ever.
That’s what the addictive chemical is doing. It’s plugging all of those holes, so every transmitter is firing all the time.
The problem is, over time your brain starts to think this is normal. You have ten radios plugged in, and you forgot what it was like to only have one radio. You forgot that listening to one radio at a time was *normal.*
Eventually you stop taking the substance. Those holes are no longer filled. Those signals are no longer transmitting. Your brain starts screaming, “Why is it so quiet? What happened to all the signals? Why do I only have one radio when I used to have all ten?” It assumes something must be wrong. So your brain makes you feel like crap, because it has to re-adjust to the fact that it no longer gets to have all ten radios going all the time.
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