Last week I was trying to think like a Buddhist, in preparation… I thought about the self-reinforcing nature of “attachment” (à la Buddhism) and the self-reinforcing nature of addiction (which we all know about from our, ahem, independent research). What Buddhists describe as the lynchpin of human suffering, the one thing that keeps us mired in our attachments, unable to free ourselves, is exactly the same thing that keeps us addicted. The culprit is craving and its relentless progression to grasping.
The cycle of human attachment is represented in Buddhism by a wheel that keeps on turning. First comes emptiness or loss, then we see something attractive outside ourselves that promises to fill that loss, then we crave — a state we all know and love. Craving seems to be a universal form of anxiety, focused on a goal rather than a threat. So we crave and crave, and here comes the clincher: the next thing we do is grasp — reach for it. That’s what keeps the whole wheel spinning, like a merry-go-round you can’t stop. Grasping of course leads to getting. Getting leads to more attachment. Attachment leads to more emptiness and loss, because the thing we’ve attached ourselves to is never enough to fill the void. And so we’re embarked on the next revolution of the wheel — searching for something outside ourselves.
The parallels with addiction are so obvious, I won’t bother to list them. I guess the only thing that’s special about addiction is that we keep grasping for the same thing again and again. There are good neural reasons for that — reasons the Buddhists may not have appreciated. Each cycle of craving, grasping, and loss leaves its trace on the synaptic architecture of our brain. The synapses that represent the addictive substance or behaviour, the getting or doing it, and the expected relief become increasingly reinforced each time they are activated. “What fires together 
wires together.”
As far as I know, Buddhist common sense recommends breaking the cycle between craving and grasping. Is it possible to remain in a state of craving without going after it — the thing you so badly want? Of course it’s possible, but it ain’t easy.
A paper published by Kuhn, Gevers, and Brass (2009, Journal of Neurophysiology) reports on a neat experiment. These guys measured electrical activity in the area of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (the dACC: the region responsible for effortful self-control), using brain wave signatures called event-related potentials. On most trials, the subjects were instructed to press one or two buttons in response to a pattern on the screen (called the “instructed Go” condition). But on some trials they were told not press the button (to withhold the action, called “instructed NoGo”). And on other trials, they were free to press or not press, according to their own whims (called “free Go” and “free NoGo”). Given this design, the researchers were able to compare the level of brain activity (in the region of the dACC) between instructed actions, free actions, instructed non-actions, and free non-actions.
The point is that instructed non-actions (“instructed NoGo’s”) are exactly what we face when we tell ourselves NOT to grasp, not to go for another drink, another bite, another pill or whatever. When you hold in mind the “instruction” not to do something, and you successfully obey your own instruction, then you’ve broken the cycle, at least for now. You’ve refrained from doing something you were just about to do: that’s craving without grasping.
The diagram showing the results of the experiment gives voltage values for different brain regions in each of the four conditions. In the second row, the “N2” tells the whole story. The N2 is considered a measure of self-control, and the N2 shows the maximum voltage (blue colour, because the voltage is negative rather than positive) in the “instructed NoGo” condition, not the “instructed Go” condition or either of the “free” conditions. So your brain, and specifically your dACC, is working hardest when it’s trying to refrain from doing something — harder than when it’s trying to do something. In Buddhist terms, it’s a lot easier to grasp than to refrain from grasping. And if you’ve been following my previous posts, you know where that self-restraint can lead: ego fatigue! Your dACC can’t take the strain and sooner or later gives up.
So here’s an instance where neuroscience and Buddhism tell us complementary aspects of the same story. Neuroscience tells us how hard it is to intentionally refrain from something you’re about to do. Buddhism tells us: Yes, it’s hard, but do it anyway! And you’ll be glad you did… That makes sense to me. If you can let yourself crave without grasping, even a few times, then you start to break down that automatic progression — that compelling momentum — that keeps the wheel going round and round. And after a while craving itself begins to diminish, because it’s got nowhere to go.
My family and I are going back to Toronto for two weeks to meet up with friends and family. So I may take a break from blogging — unless something really interesting comes along. Meanwhile, Happy Holidays to all of you! And thanks again for your warm good wishes last week — That’s the best present I could have wished for.
Informed by unparalleled neuroscientific insight and written with his usual flare, Marc Lewis’s The Biology of Desire effectively refutes the medical view of addiction as a brain disease. A bracing and informative corrective to the muddle that now characterizes public and professional discourse on this topic.” —Gabor Maté, M.D., author of In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction
If “[e]ach cycle of craving, grasping, and loss leaves its trace on the synaptic architecture of our brain,” then surely each cycle of craving and NOT grasping leaves its trace, as well. And so eventually becomes easier.
Happiest of holidays to you, too, Marc.
Exactly so, Carolyn. I should have made that more explicit. A couple of posts ago I borrowed a line I read in Barbara Arrowsmith-Young: What fires together wires together, and what fires apart wires apart. And I mentioned that experiment about the neural changes that happen when people with webbed fingers have them surgically separated. In a way it’s really simple.
Happy holidays to you too!
He who binds to himself a joy
Doth the winged life destroy
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sunrise.
William Blake
Nice.
Thanks! Marc!
I am a fan of Face Book and have many followers, with your help, people have received the knowledge and help threw me from all what I have personnel y experienced and all the you have shared on your posts.
I recognize this theory when it comes to smoking, it seems easier when you have a cigarette in your pocket, as an option to smoke, if you find you really need it, as appose to not having one at all.
I guess some how it shortens that distance between craving and grasping which makes it easier to let go of the cravings and put it a bay, a free no-go.
I wonder if their is any relationship to my up bringing or childhood? as I grew up, if someone told me not to do it, I did it, this a instructed no-go, and being part of the A.D.H.D club no,no,no, turns to yes, I think, and like your diagram shows, the over working of the brain that leads from not a graving but a instruction that overwhelms the mind so in turn, I do it. I wonder if this is a merry-go-round I started many years ago, and has filtered into my addiction to drugs and alcohol? I find the easiest way to deal with cravings today is a forced no-go with no option of a go. It set the mind at rest with no options to dabble about. Options become key to cravings, no option no craving…
Well I could brain storm about this all day, hahaha…
Happy Holidays to you and you family Marc
Regards Richard
I didn’t think of it, but you’re right. When someone else tells you NOT to, then, if you happen to be a bit naughty or independent or rebellious (as most of us were during adolescence at least), the effort to obey is particularly challenging. So much easier to make it a “free Go” than an “instructed NoGo”, by telling yourself you’re free to ignore instructions. I was certainly like that as an adolescent. Unfortunately, it put me in good practice to ignore any and all instructions to stop, think, refrain, etc. — even my own, especially my own. That was a real springboard to becoming a druggie.
I also agree that giving yourself NO options can be VERY effective. Then it’s not a “NoGo” at all — it’s the only game in town.
Happy holidays to you too, Richard.
Sapolsky talks about that backwiring from the pfc to inhibit emotional and impulsive centers as “doing the harder thing when it’s the right thing to do.” It’s the ‘pause’ button that enables us to look before we leap that’s bypassed in active addiction and hasn’t hooked up yet in adolescence. This is the ‘higher self’ that permits detachment.
Absolutely! And there are two main models that I know of. One is that dorsal PFC (especially the dorsal ACC) monitors and/or inhibits more ventral regions, like the OFC or vmPFC — which get dragged along by the amygdala and therefore appraise matters based on motivational biases, etc. And the other is that the left PFC regulates and inhibits the right — work by Davidson and colleagues. These guys find that depressives have greater right PFC activation, whereas non-depressed people and — get this — experienced meditators get more left-hemisphere activation — relatively speaking. I don’t think I buy Davidson’s model — it’s pretty simplistic and the evidence is very narrow. But I like the dorsal/ventral model. And regions like the dorsal ACC are among the slowest to mature (prune) during adolescence. So it makes sense that the same regions would be the weak link in the chain when it comes to self-control.
Anyway, thanks for mentioning Sapolsky. His name keeps popping up but I hardly know his work at all.
What an excellent comparison, Marc, between the Buddhists’ concept of attachment and the neurological aspect of addiction. I don’t know much about Buddhism, but I’d heard about the attachment idea, and it fits your neurological theories perfectly.
You must be so excited about your trip to Dharamsala and the chance to share your ideas with like-minded people in that rarefied atmosphere. Since the recent Connecticut shootings, now, more than ever, the Western world needs to focus on mental health issues, including addiction, and stop burying our heads in the sand.
Welcome back to Canada for the holidays, and have a wonderful Christmas season with your family!
I have the fantasy that serious Buddhists would see addiction as a slightly nastier version of the hell most “normal” people live with — the constant seeking of fulfillment through attachments, habits, material connections, etc, in the face of repeated lessons that, hey! this just isn’t working.
Yes, I’m very excited about meeting HH and talking with people whom the people connected with him might be connected with. In other words, what kind of group will this be, and what will they have to say?
Thanks for the welcome back. Still feels like home in a lot of ways.
Love the article! I’m a big fan of neurology and Buddhism, the perspectives they offer and ways they often seem to complement each other. I found this profoundly helpful and meaningful, and a great pleasure to read besides. I also like your fancy of how addiction seems so archetypally similar to a Buddhist concept of hell, only nastier.
I’m reminded of the ‘Hungry Ghost’ in Chinese mythology and ‘Preta’ in Buddhist philosophy, both depictions of a being driven by intense animalistic hungers and needs, or cravings for a particular substance or object. Not necessarily dead in the basest sense but unable to live fully and in the moment.
Thanks for a satisfying, intriguing read. I hope you enjoy (enjoyed?) your trip.
~Kassi
Thanks, Kassi. Three things come straight to mind:
1. The title of Gabor Mate’s book about addicts: “In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts” (http://www.amazon.ca/Realm-Hungry-Ghosts-Encounters-Addiction/dp/0676977405). I didn’t know the source of this phrase — now I get it!
2. There’s a beautiful movie — all animation, very Japanese — about a land of ghosts that waits very close to “our” world. The little girl who is the protagonist finds that her parents have joined the ghost world, much to her horror and theirs. How? By “pigging out” — gorging on food. It fits!
3. The ventral striatum has been around for 100s of millions of years. It is indeed animalistic, and it’s the driver in addiction.
Okay, and here’s #4, a bonus: Given your interests, check out the Mind and Life Institute — http://www.mindandlife.org/. They regularly host conferences that explore the interface between contemporary neuroscience and classical (and not-so-classical) Buddhism. (And they’re the ones who invited me to this meeting with the Dalai Lama next October.) Speakers at the conferences (called “summer research institutes”) are neuroscientists, Buddhist scholars/contemplatives/teachers, and combinations thereof. And there’s a fair bit of guided meditation as well. I went a few years ago, and I’ll probably go to the next conference, in June, somewhere north of NYC (http://www.mindandlife.org/sri/sri13/) See you there?
So what do we do? How do we break the cycle? How do we stop the urge in midstream before we reach out to grab? How do we retrain the brain? Cognitive behavioral therapy? REBT? Suggestions anyone? Has anyone used any little tricks of mind on themselves?
Don’t laugh but I had one that involved cartoons (I’m a fan of animation, particularly the old hand drawn kind). I would think of myself as being in one of the old cartoons from the 1940s, where the little devil is on one shoulder telling me to DRINK, DRINK. And the little angel was on the other shoulder saying DON’T DO IT. I would stop and visualize that, it would make me laugh, and then I’d be over it.
I would love to hear any suggestions or experiences that I can share with my SOS Group.
Well I don’t think you have to stop the urge in midstream so much as watch it, maybe with this quizzical expression (as per your cartoon imagery) as if to say: oh, that’s interesting. You really really want it bad, don’t you? Well let’s see how long that lasts. Bet you can’t keep it up. I’ll bet that if the cake stays in the fridge for another half hour you’ll stop barking and jumping up and down. Let’s see…
There are a lot of variations, of course. I once had a therapist whose one classical expression was “Let’s be interested in that.” It works pretty well as a centering sort of mantra in meditation. And sure, CBT, when applied creatively, should be about exploring ways to think flexibly in a context where you usually think about things in a rigidly habitual way.
For me, personally, one way to break the cycle is to remember how to be friends with myself. Put my own hand on my shoulder, as it were, and say, hey, it’s okay, go easy on yourself. You’re not evil just because you have some cravings.
Donna, I do not know if this would help at all, as I can only share my personal experiences. For me it was recognizing that the grasping was causing harm (anxiety, generally) after getting clean. I just did a full stop, realizing that I had to change my mindset completely. I was lucky in that I got to finally take a break from many of life’s stresses, but I just decided to be happy with what I had. When I grew anxious, I would just lace my shoes and go walking to rediscover the beauty of the world around me. I found a few items of clothing I liked and promptly bought 10-14 of each, so that I no longer even had to think about what to wear, it was always the same. I locked out people who had caused me harm or stress, and left behind the ceaseless striving for certain successes I had been clinging to (grasping for, really). It was my own form of asceticism in a way.
I’m sure it’s not for everyone, and I can tell you that when I dove back into life and started having desires again I became very quickly overwhelmed, and am in the process of trying again to shed the grasping, so to speak. I’m forever a victim of my own perfectionism–if I let myself be, and had to learn to just let it go and orient towards goals that don’t trigger my perfectionist streak, or at least trigger it in a healthy way.
Beautifully said. Indeed grasping is not reserved for just one thing, even for addicts. Grasping may be like a motor that can get warmed up in any number of ways. Then it finds a target….and off you go!
Good luck with your anti-grasping campaign.
BTW…I do lots of grasping in my world. When I do, I just try to remind myself that it’s ok, just watch it, don’t get all weirded out about it, as in: it’s ok boy, grasp away! You may not catch anything (as in fishing) but of course you’re going to try…
Aww, I’m not anti-grasping, I just envy people who can keep it up without it causing problems. I had to learn how to just “be” before I realized when I was or wasn’t grasping too much. Since it tends to coincide with these drops in ability to my ability to sleep for more than two hours, I decided to lay off a bit.
But grasp on, brother, grasp on.
Marc – I enjoy your writing and always come away with some little gem. This post reminded me of the this quote:
“Be Content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.”
– Lao Tzu
Enjoy the Season.
Lovely! Thanks for such a great….reminder.
Brenda, I have long loved that quote, but have only recently understood it on a deeper level. Thanks for the reminder!
Marc, I have been thinking so much about this amazing post. I’ve been aware of the strains of Buddhist philosophy in much of what I have been doing with my life post-addiction, but have resisted researching it much. Your article outlines it so perfectly that if there were to be a master guidebook to overcoming addiction, I would consider this post to be a mandatory bit of reading! Please excuse me for having waiting so long to say so.
Thanks, Persephone. I’ll take compliments whenever they come. Getting without grasping is a bonus!
LOL Marc!