Caution in Regard to an Addict's Perspective on Choices, Causation, and Time

I'm thinking in damaged and/or addiction brains, about an interesting phenomenon that IS related to psychological time. After reading about the insular cortex and meditating on my experiences with addicts and addiction I feel like its helpful to thinking about a certain difficulty that is probably not usually approached properly by external “help” (ie friends and family members wishing to talk the addict into making reasoned choices and responses).

The addict seems to have a difficulty reflecting on, and addressing, the disparity between the predicted outcomes and the actual outcomes. This would obviously ring true with the gambling addict but I think its just as important to understand this problem in regard to a drug user etc.

I think this attitude is apparent and memorable for any family member that tried to set their loved one straight with a dose of reality, no matter how softly they tried to point out that poor choices led to predictable poor consequences, “Do you see where your choices led you? How about we make a different choice next time?”

This problem, tackled from this angle, creates its own difficulty that the general propriety is bound and destined not to recognize (at least partially because it is our general ignorance that causes such disorders in the first place). A person afflicted with such a weakness of the mind is going to be very inclined to get emotional and we can expect a very accelerated movement towards their fight or flight mechanism.

I think for families that have lost everything trying to help and support their loved one's, this observation might help them take a breathe of fresh air. The confusion of not being able to help our loved one's is enough to drive a person or a whole family “mad”. Not understanding why an otherwise rational person can't make a simple observation on how a certain choice had an obvious high probability of leading to an unfavorable outcome, can be very unnerving (and downright scary to witness).

The addict is functioning with the equivalent of a new set of core beliefs. These beliefs cannot solve problems in the same context as the non-addicts perspective can. The addict, going through the trauma and physiological change they have endured, cannot re-solve their choices and outcomes in the same way that a normal healthy mind can.

We tend to want to “wake up” our loved one's, like an intellectual intervention, but in this case trying to get the disordered brain to reflect properly on choice and causation will very often send the person into a defensive state. I have found this to be true regardless of the tone and caution used. That is to say it is better, it seems, to avoid this part of the mind and the thinking processes associated.

This leaves the difficult to watch circumstance of our loved one operating without a proper caution system, however, continually sending them into a fight or flight state seems like a much worse alternative.

There is an implication that non-family members, or those without an emotional attachment, would generally be able to interact with such disordered minds without disturbing their stability near as much.