At 8PM on Tuesday, January 29th of this year, in a suburb of our nation’s capitol, when most East Coast morning newspapers had gone to press, the U.S. wire services’ domestic desks were on their reduced night crew, and the TV and cable news departments had gone home or were reviewing already-reported stories, a press release from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) had its embargo lifted. Its headline was not exciting; no presses would come to a screeching halt as some harried night desk editor yelled across an almost-empty newsroom, “SOMEBODY GET ME RE-WRITE!”

This press release spoke in the detached-but-thoughtful voice of a philosopher posing a question to no one in particular. Mind you, I found it to be an interesting question, intriguing, even, when it showed up in my email the next morning:

“Does the Desire for Drugs Begin
Outside Awareness?”
It continued with an italicized observation [Underline added]:
“NIDA Research Reveals Subconscious Signals Can Trigger Drug Craving Circuits.”

Having been a government agency press officer, I knew that the choice of verbs was telling a little story. Its author, Dorie Hightower, could have written, “NIDA Research Suggests…” or, “Shows,” or, “Finds.” When a federal agency decides to “reveal” something, it has the sexy sound of the rustle and snap of a well-deployed toreador’s cape daring now-excited editors and reporters to come closer.

The press release was an excellent synopsis of a research study published that morning (Jan. 30th) in a scientific journal. It reported that when detoxified cocaine patients in a residential program were hooked up to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) equipment and exposed to photographs related to drug use at a subliminal rate (33 milliseconds) – meaning they were not conscious of having seen anything, their limbic systems went into a state of excitement that not only triggered cravings, but would have lead to drug-seeking behavior under less restrictive circumstances.

The limbic system’s physical response was immediate and intense while the test subjects were unaware of what their eyes had technically “seen!” Furthermore, the effects seemed to persist. Two days later, the same group of patients were retested using a different set of photographs depicting drug use, but with one difference: the images were projected just long enough to cross their perceptual threshold. Those who’d had the strongest reaction to the subliminal images also had the most intense excitement in the limbic system of the brain when consciously glimpsing the second set of pictures.

In other words, “OUT OF SIGHT IS OUT OF MIND;” but only if it is physically 100% absent. The mind is slower than the brain in bringing its attention to something. You can, literally, hide something in plain sight of the mind – but not, apparently, the brain!

Addicts’ brains will be aroused by a 33-millisecond exposure to an image of the craved substance without their minds knowing it! To the addicts, the craving seems to appear “out of nowhere,” pushing them to the brink of relapse! Fortunately for the test subjects, they were treated and the protocol explained to them.

But what about you and me? We struggle to lose weight, give up cigarettes, stop gambling, or avoid budget-wrecking impulse shopping out here, in the real world. No one is sending us subliminal images or audio messages (thanks to a ruling by the FCC in 1956). No one is even “flashing” us seductive glimpses in an organized effort to turn us into zombified consumers of harmful substances or activities.

It’s worse. We move through environments that are so totally saturated with mediated messages and images that we’ve learned how to “turn off” our conscious awareness of them. We think that by mastering the ability to “tune out” advertising “clutter” we have succeeded in protecting ourselves from temptation. In seeming defiance of the to-be-expected data showing that productivity and satisfaction plummet in inverse proportion to the number of actions we think we can complete at the same time, our minds have acquired a taste for multi-tasking. This is analogous to sitting our brains down in front of the TV set so we can pay our bills, microwave dinner and put the laundry in the dryer. But here’s the kicker: unless you’re in four-point restraints in a rubber-padded isolation room, your brain is catching sight of all kinds of crave-inducing images and messages that you are completely unaware of as you struggle to keep up your willpower defenses and “hold the line” in a war that you literally cannot imagine ever ends!

What army, what warrior is capable of standing their ground in battle indefinitely, much less advance to achieve their objectives? Of course relapse is to be expected!

These findings encouraged the researchers to look for treatment protocols that will make relapse less likely. Next month, I’ll tell you what conclusions these researchers drew from the data on how to treat the limbic system’s excitabilility, in Part 2: “Call of the Wild: When Your Brain has a Mind of Its Own!”

To learn more about Lauralyn Bellamy, her coaching program, her art workshops, spiritual development coaching, and more! Visit: www.embodysuccess.spaces.live.com  www.yourchaplain.com/yourspirituality.htm www.yourchaplain.com/workshops.htm
& www.lbellamy.dreamcoach.com