Addiction

​Val's Take:  U2's "Bad" is from 1984.  I actually didn't hear it until working on it this past year with the Ukulele and Percussion Ensemble at Swallow Hill Music in Denver.

It meant a lot more to me now than I think it would have meant to me in 1984.

It is about Addiction and how morally implicated and powerless the people witnessing that feel.  You know you're not helping or solving things --- but you don't know what to do and there is GUILT.

To make matters even more morally fraught, it is not just you or Bono who are lamenting, "If I could, yes I would. If I could, I would" --- it is often the person themselves.

Further, you are NOT PERFECT --- maybe you don't have an illegal substance problem -- as you're guzzling your 7th Diet Coke of the day.

Further, your intended recipient of this angst might be grateful they don't have some of your problems -- "There but for the grace of God go I."

At the end of the day, this is about IMPERFECT PEOPLE HELPING IMPERFECT PEOPLE.

Dr. Mizra talks about the connection between ADHD & Substance Use Issues.

Dr. Sulman Aziz Mirza, MD is Board Certified physician in Adult Psychiatry, Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine.

Val's Take:  Just as I think it is important to recognize the NEURO-DEVELOPMENTAL/PSYCHIATRIC CONTINUUM --- it is important to include SUBSTANCE USE ISSUES.

There are many aspects to that.  Two of those aspects seem to include:

• having enough ENERGY to run the brain and the synapses; and
• dealing with AFFECTIVE PAIN that may be HIGHLY DYSREGULATED.

​This is Neurobiologist David Anderson's 2013 TedTalk.  He has a lab at Caltech bearing his name.

He is an amazingly accomplished researcher.  

I've posted this video on Orchid several times for various purposes.

Here, he makes many salient points, including:

• we need psychiatric medications that are precise and do not affect the brain globally.
• Additionally, we need to understand the specific biology of various components of these disorders --- because they don't always go together.