Our Happy Chemicals

Happy Chemicals

01 08 24 “Our Happy Chemicals: Where do they come from and what do they have to do with why we use drugs, the opiate epidemic and toxic drug overdose catastrophe?”
 
Recently this meme was posted by the Port Alberni Community Action Team. The team is making huge efforts in an attempt to de-stigmatize addiction and substance use. Highlighted in the meme are the chemicals in the brain that are linked with happiness. It included dopamine which affects rewards, serotonin which affects mood; endorphins which affect pain management; and oxytocin which affects love. This is a very simple and to-the-point understanding of these naturally occurring chemicals and their roles in our overall nervous system.

The next sentence in the meme states: “Surprise - Unregulated drugs dramatically increase one or more of these”.

This was the comment that also accompanied the meme.

“We shouldn't be surprised when people who have unresolved trauma and are in pain emotionally or otherwise go looking for relief. One of the solutions to the poison drug catastrophe is increasing the support systems we have for people with trauma. (especially beginning with youth)”

That statement is also correct. Unregulated drugs dramatically increase the activity and quantity of these chemicals, also known as neurotransmitters in the brain.

There isn’t enough room in this meme to explore the rest of the story. However, we can in this article. All drugs and substances that enter our bodies affect neurotransmitters in various ways - whether they are regulated or not. Substances such as alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, amphetamine (cough syrups, inhalers, etc.); and pain killers such as acetaminophen, Ibuprofen, codeine, fentanyl, oxycodone etc.

Not only substances, but food can regulate neurotransmitter activity. For instance, apples, avocados, beets, chocolate (milk and dark), coffee, dairy products, and eggs, all boost dopamine activity. Certain foods like turkey, salmon, eggs, seeds and so on help boost serotonin. Basically, all of our neural receptors are matched with the ingredients found all through nature.

Certain behaviours can impact the activity of neurotransmitters as well. Things like, sex, gambling, pornography. Even that dreaded activity known as exercise increases serotonin rates in the brain. Some of us are so addicted to the rush that exercise gives us, that we utilize every possible opportunity to work out.

Here are some graphs showing dopamine levels linked to certain drugs, food and physical activity.

These graphs show the various levels of dopamine spikes after a substance or food is taken. Note the peaks. Nicotine peaks higher than sex in these charts. More recently dopamine is more linked with motivation than pleasure.

One of the other main points of the meme is that we need to look at how these neurotransmitters can play a role in healing trauma. Healing trauma is one of the most important considerations in the development of addiction/substance use disorder. Further, the meme suggests that addressing the healing will help in addressing the overdose/toxic drug poisoning crisis - and it will. However, that’s not the whole story. So far, increased access to treatment beds has had very little impact on the number of overdose deaths due to toxic drug poisoning. The reasons for this are again beyond the scope of this article but again, plenty of resources are available to learn.

One of the main objectives of advocacy groups such as the province-wide community action groups is to address what we term the overdose crisis or the opioid epidemic/crisis. Overall we tend to group some drugs in a category that suggests that they are more damaging than other drugs. What this has accomplished is that it has allowed most of us to rationalise criminalizing them, thinking that criminalization will deter anyone from buying or using these illegal and unregulated drugs. Unfortunately, the exact opposite has occurred.

One of the reasons for this is how we as a society talk about drugs and how we view and talk about addiction to drugs. The challenge for all of us is understanding that addiction can occur with virtually every drug. It occurs most with those who have or are experiencing trauma in their lives. In other words, the cause is not really the drugs, it is the need to address physical and emotional pain. The drugs become the band-aids. We need to transition from band-aids to long-term relief.

Dependence on the other hand may only occur with some drugs. Alcohol, nicotine, opiates, caffeine, and various stimulants are examples of drugs we can develop a physical dependence on. What do you notice about this list?

Not all of them are unregulated or illegal. Alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, and some stimulants are regulated and legal. Opiates and other stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamine are not regulated nor are they legal. Because of this lack of regulation, these drugs are subject to the whims of black market producers and business models. It is these models that are creating an ever-increasing environment of toxic drug cocktails for the sake of profit and ease of production and distribution.

Otherwise, those drugs that are not regulated pose similar dangers as alcohol and nicotine. But the regulated substances are not subject to being poisoned by those who have no interest in anything other than black market profit.

There is a very long story of how some drugs became criminalized and others did not. Valid information on how criminalization occurred is readily available online. You’ll also find some excellent articles here on the Learning Moment site. Just search or look up the War on Drugs in the search bar.

While unregulated drugs do affect functioning in the brain, so do regulated drugs, exercise, food, and other habit-forming activities. Almost all Canadians consume one substance or another at least once in their life and well over half of us use substances continually or for long periods throughout our lives.

Too many of us rely on substances including regulated and unregulated drugs, food and other habit-forming activities to cope and deal with daily stress and mental health concerns that are increasing in this society. That coping style becomes hardwired and feeds addiction in our society.

Those who suffer from substance use disorder (addiction) rely so heavily on substances and other coping mechanisms that it feels hopeless and alien to stop and suddenly try other ways of coping.

We must always be mindful of what we consume, what we do and how we behave. We can have fun, take some risks, gorge ourselves at thanksgiving get a little tipsy at the local bar. However, as we all know, moderation right?

Now what if we have to access the black market to obtain our “medicine”? Our chances of survival have dropped to such low levels if our drug of choice happens to be unregulated. A safer supply would at least give us the chance to live to see a time when we could begin to heal from our trauma.

Learning Moments are written to foster understanding of all aspects of substance or mental health disorders  - It is an initiative of the Port Alberni Community Action Team - Families Helping Families

Ben Goerner is a retired mental health and substance use clinician with well over 30 years of experience. He also has learned from his own lived experience with substance use.

Resources:

Young SN. How to increase serotonin in the human brain without drugs. J Psychiatry Neurosci. 2007 Nov;32(6):394-9. PMID: 18043762; PMCID: PMC2077351.

Lin TW, Kuo YM. Exercise benefits brain function: the monoamine connection. Brain Sci. 2013 Jan 11;3(1):39-53. doi: 10.3390/brainsci3010039. PMID: 24961306; PMCID: PMC4061837.

Mate, G., M.D.  (2012) “In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts; Close Encounters with Addiction”. Vintage Canada.

https://www.ccsa.ca/canadian-drug-trends

https://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/pop/pop_plan/plan_a.html

Pollan Michael, “This is Your Mind on Plants” (2021), Penguin Books, USA.

Baluska F. Recent surprising similarities between plant cells and neurons. Plant Signal Behav. 2010 Feb;5(2):87-9. doi: 10.4161/psb.5.2.11237. Epub 2010 Feb 19. PMID: 20150757; PMCID: PMC2884105.

Lin TW, Kuo YM. Exercise benefits brain function: the monoamine connection. Brain Sci. 2013 Jan 11;3(1):39-53. doi: 10.3390/brainsci3010039. PMID: 24961306; PMCID: PMC4061837

Bromberg-Martin ES, Matsumoto M, Hikosaka O. Dopamine in motivational control: rewarding, aversive, and alerting. Neuron. 2010 Dec 9;68(5):815-34. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2010.11.022. PMID: 21144997; PMCID: PMC3032992.