The nervous system in the brain is complex and is very different in children and adults. The nervous system has a huge impact on addiction, regardless of age. Understanding the spinal cord, brain components, and memory function can help you understand how addiction works and how you can influence your brain to recover from substance abuse.
Your brain is the control room for memory, impulses, and expressing emotions. It also controls how you move, talk, and even digest food. The brain is like a computer in your body. It allows you to do everything you do through connections throughout the rest of your body, called the nervous system.
Your spinal cord is like the messenger between brain and body. When your nervous system feels or wants to do something, it sends a message through your spinal cord to your brain. The brain reacts like a computer and sends a message back down through the spinal cord to allow your body to react.
For example, when you want to tap your foot, your brain sends a message down to your foot through the spinal cord and nervous system, telling the muscles to move up and down. This relay happens almost instantaneously.
The brain and spinal cord are considered the centralized system components. The other nerves going through the body are called peripheral nervous systems. Both systems are essential to the function of your body; when one is not intact, the other can have health consequences or functional issues.
As a child, your brain is only starting to learn how to control your body and develop cognitive awareness to react to your nervous system. As an adult, these systems have been learned, and you are in full control of them.
For example, as a child, you may not know that touching hot objects will hurt. You have to do it — or be explicitly told not to — to understand this concept. As an adult, you've had experience with hot objects and know to stay away from them or take preventative measures around them. The messages inside your neurological system have to be developed as a child to implement them as an adult.
Children are born with the essential workings of nervous system control but often do not have concrete knowledge to address specific situations. The nervous system has to learn through guidance or trial and error. When a parent teaches the child not to touch the hot object, they process this information so that, as they grow, they know how to handle hot objects.
This concept works for negative behaviors as well. If a child is exposed through a parent to drugs or alcohol, their impressionable minds may learn that those substances are okay because their parent uses them. This can lead to future substance use issues.
In addiction recovery, mastering new tactics and coping mechanisms requires learned processing. When you first enter addiction recovery, you may not know how to change a habit or a specific behavior pattern.
Your brain is almost like a child's: if you don’t have the proper guidance, you may not have the right tools to understand the damage substance abuse causes and prevent it from happening again in the future. Scientists believe that understanding the interplay between the nervous system, spinal cord, and brain and how the messages passed between them works can help you make better cost-benefit analyses in terms of substance use. Put simply, understanding how your body works can help you get to the root cause of substance use and put it to rest.
The nervous system requires you to make healthy choices to remain fully operational. When you introduce harmful substances into your body, your nervous system is damaged and can't relay messages properly. For example, if something scares you, a healthy nervous system will react by releasing a hormone that triggers the flight or fight response. When it cannot be produced, as what can happen when an individual struggles with substance use, the process cannot be conveyed throughout the body correctly.
Understanding this process can help you take steps toward making healthier decisions. When you know what's at stake—your body and brain failing to communicate properly—you're more likely to get help to heal your addiction and put your body back to rights.
Knowing how children have to learn about harmful or helpful things through compassionate guidance gives you insight into addiction recovery methods. Children have to be taught to develop connections between the nervous system and brain through building cognitive reasoning to avoid dangerous situations. People who struggle with substance use must be shown ways to avoid the dangerous situation of abusing drugs or alcohol.
At NorthStar Transitions, we believe individuals with substance use disorder need to be taught professional and accurate coping mechanisms to develop natural healthy habits to stay away from substances now and in the future. NorthStar Transitions provides quality substance use recovery options for many individuals in Boulder, Colorado. We utilize evidence-based practices and will educate you on substance use and the interference it has with the brain so that you can make a healthy change. If you or your loved one struggle with substance use, learning about how substances influence logical decisions is a great way to begin the journey of a healthier lifestyle. Professional healthcare providers can guide you through building new habits and gaining understanding like a parent does a child so that substance use can become a thing of the past. To find out more about brain development and substance use, or to hear about treatment options, reach out to NorthStar Transitions at (303) 558-6400.
