Month: April 2023

Dopamine puts people in chokeholds and shrieks, “eff you and your values!”

Posted on by Jessica Duenas in Current Recovery Challenges, Written by Jessica

“Dopamine pursues more, not morality; to dopamine, force and fraud are nothing more than tools.” – Daniel Z. Lieberman, MD and Michael E. Long in The Molecule of More.

The Reframe Book Club I facilitate is currently reading The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity—and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race, and the third chapter, called Domination, covers dopamine-fueled behaviors at length. 

What is fascinating to read in this chapter is that humans can disconnect from their emotions driven by neurotransmitters that are not dopamine in search of dopamine hits. What is difficult for us as individuals in recovery is when we face the fact that many of the things we did to pursue these dopamine hits left us feeling like awful human beings. 

The science in the text explains that when detached from those emotions that foster connection and relationship building, people are susceptible to doing just about anything to reach their next goal, including lying and other harmful behaviors. That is how potent dopamine is. Dopamine puts people in chokeholds and shrieks, “eff you and your values!”

This might look like:

  • Skipping meals so you can “enjoy” your drinks. 
  • Lying to your partner about running an errand so you can buy liquor.
  • The mom sneaking wine in her to-go cup and driving her kids around. 
  • Pouring extra drinks when no one is looking, knowing damn well that if you get caught, you’ll have to awkwardly explain what the hell you were doing.
  • Stealing from people’s liquor cabinets.
  • Spending time with shady people because they give you easy access to whatever you want to consume. 
  • Telling yourself you’re not going to drink, only to find yourself an hour later in line at the store. 
  • Anything that you look back on and want to facepalm over, I could go on forever, but I decided to stop here. 

By the way, I’ve done most items on this list. Sharing just in case reading that list made you feel sick. I get it. I’ve been there. I still cringe sometimes and do self-coaching to remind myself that I’m not still there. I also create new thoughts to help me overcome the discomfort.

These new, more helpful thoughts include, My addictive behaviors resulted from my brain responding appropriately to an addictive substance. The second thought is the saying, I know better, so now I can do better. When shame and guilt over your prior poor decision-making come up for you, what are some thought statements you can tell yourself?

For my visual learners, a YouTube video linked here does an excellent job of visualizing how dopamine hijacks the brain. It tricks people with addiction into thinking they need more of their substance of choice when they might need food, a hug, or a nap. This is why I always prompt my clients who are in early recovery to eat well, rest, work on tools to manage their emotions and connect with others. The more thoroughly you meet your actual needs, the better your body and brain will be to manage triggers. 

Be kind to yourself. Eat well, nap, and stay connected. Schedule a free coaching consultation with me for additional support if you need it.

Grow your writing with me! Sign up for my Six-Week Writing for Healing Program starting May 10th! Details here!

There is no right way to grieve the dead. 

Posted on by Jessica Dueñas in About a Loved One, Current Recovery Challenges, Written by Jessica

I used to shame myself because how I dealt with the grief from my father’s death (5 years ago today) was different from how I managed my boyfriend’s death (3 years ago tomorrow.)

My father lived a full life. He came to the US from Cuba to pursue freedom after having cut sugar cane for two years in Cuba without pay for asking permission to leave Cuba in the late 1960s. Shortly after coming to the United States, he met my mother. Together they set up a small store in Brooklyn for people from the community to shop for their Santeria practices that they brought to the US from whatever countries they came from. 

People in the community grew to love my father, and though he was strict with us, he was incredibly charming, and he was big fan of enjoying life, a trait that I have as well but took to an extreme and found myself struggling with addiction. Yikes. But back to my father, if there was ever music playing, he was the first to get up and dance, even as he became an older man with crippling knee pain, and then he would follow up that movement with a voracious appetite to eat any and all the good food. 

So when he died at age 90, though I was pained to see his journey with us end, I also processed his death as a natural occurrence. My father had the privilege of aging surrounded by loved ones. He danced through his final years and traveled and saw the world. It was a natural ending to a well-lived life when he died on April 27, 2018.

My boyfriend, Ian, and his death nearly crushed me. Ian was in recovery from addiction to opiates, and as happened to so many others getting clean and sober, the pandemic ripped people from their support systems. Ian relapsed, and within days he was gone. I was devasted because I had already seen myself in Ian’s future. We talked about love, marriage, kids, and where we would live and travel to. We spent so much time making plans that the moment he passed, it was like, not only was his life cut short, but my mind had also interpreted his death as equivalent to my future being ruined and deemed hopeless. 

Imagine looking down a brightly lit hallway where you can see every part of your future that you’re excited to walk toward, and as you start confidently making strides, the power goes out. You can’t see anything, and you think the lights will never come back on. That’s what life was like until I got sober and started working around my grief. 

Today I understand why one death hit me differently than the other and that it’s okay that they were different experiences. I know that there is no letter of approval that the universe will send me to tell me that I have been grieving the “right” way, and if you’re missing a loved one, this is your reminder of that, too. Stop waiting for an external sign that you’re doing it “right” because that sign only comes from within.

If you need support navigating loss, don’t hesitate to reach out.

One helpful strategy to work through grief is to write about it, so I welcome you to check out my free writing workshop if you want to take a baby step toward telling your story of a lost loved one.