My experience is that NA is the 12 step fellowship where you find a significant amount of semi-organized opposition to MAT among sponsors. Sponsors in AA are much more likely to treat this as an outside issue. As a therapist, and a recovering person myself, I am ambivalent. Our first obligation is to keep people alive and on that score it seems that MAT is definitely a real help. I am concerned however, about long-term use. It seems lots of people settle into a lifestyle that is so much less than what a good recovery program has to offer. Suboxone supplemented by lots of weed and possibly cocaine too. Do you have any idea how common this is? Finally, I might agree with you that the value of 12 steps is primarily social, but I don’t think it’s the meetings. I think the most meaningful activity, and social activity, is doing the step work and sharing it with another human being. That’s where the real magic is.
I can do to give you my thoughts and my experience. I’ve used buprenorphine for well over for close to 20 years. If people wanted to go to 12 steps I had no problem but it was not a requirement. A lot of doctors make it a requirement which I think is ridiculous.
To get to the point I appreciate your experience and where you’re coming from.
No medication is perfect and buprenorphine has its problems. That said many medication‘s have their problems but they keep people alive. We do want to keep people alive. On average people have been with me for five years and do fine they get their life together. Having the ability to prescribe this I’m not going to not prescribe it and say hey why don’t you just tough it out and will your way to it being healthy? Risking them relapsing and dying of fentanyl.
Two points:
The mind and body are not two separate things. Biochemistry and physiology and mental are moving at breakneck speed, at least in the lab. I firmly feel that it is matter over mind not mind over matter. Precisely because there’s no difference between mind and matter, it is all matter. We are driven by tiny molecules. Human beings have a vested interest in defending sunk costs Invested in this belief that willpower has much to do with anything.
Which goes to our comments about socialization.
If you’re able you might visit my Affect Psychology Facebook Group.
There we explore the embodiment of our emotional system called the affect system. For me the crown jewel of that system is interest. Interest is an emotion that is right in front of us. It had always been there but we don’t appreciate it. Next, there are the other feelings: anger, fear, distress, and shame, among others that are expressed on our face before we know it and most of our communication, when we are face-to-face, takes place subliminally through sharing the facial expressions of emotion
Our cognitions and the transmission of those cognitions via speech are just icing on the cake. When we are face-to-face communicating that we are interested in each other is the healing ingredient to the sauce
I picked up your book in the St John’s College bookstore a couple months ago, I’m not a Johnnie just an interested community member. It is also interesting, though I’ve just scanned it at this point.
I’m interested (lol) in what we can do to increase the frequency and intensity of positive emotions and decrease the persistence of negative ones. And if willpower is ineffectual and beside the point in that project, then I need to know what is necessary instead of willpower. My experience which is very 12 step oriented is that I feel better and experience more positive emotion when I “do the next right thing” as I understand it to be. I also feel better when I reach out to another human being and express interest in what they are going through. If they express similar interest in me, that’s super excellent, but honestly, it’s not essential. what’s essential is that I get out of my own head! Talk less to self; talk to and, most importantly, listen more to others.
I am interested in your ideas and I will try to find your group on Facebook. I hope you have a great weekend.
Thanks so much for the comment. I probably don’t need to publicize this but I had no idea that my book was still in the bookstore at Saint John's.
I’ve been presenting this material to the school for years off and on. I think if the school continues to exist someday the progenitor of this psychology “Affect Psychology” will be read at the college, I.e. added to “The Program.” I’m from Chicago I “make no little plans.”
As far as increasing positive affect it can be approached in several ways. What I noticed over the years, going back maybe 10 years or more, this area has focused just on various ways of articulating positive affect.
I’m sure you appreciate that covering it all here is difficult. But again, interest is not well appreciated. And you will find if you search high and low that you will not find much on interest. I haven’t looked lately but a long time ago I found one book dedicated to interest outside of Affect Psychology.
One way we articulate positive affect is we want to promote and enhance “good scenes.” Basically accentuate the positive as much as possibly possible. Modern theory doesn’t tell you how you get to joy. When you understand how interest works you understand where joy comes from.
At the same time, we want to continually assess our unpleasant feelings of anger, fear, distress, disgust, contempt, and shame.
We want to do an inventory of how we’re feeling and identify each of these feelings. A good way to do this is to rate them on a scale of 0 to 10. Then through meditation try to figure out what’s causing high feelings.
All of this is in my book. Doing such an exercise is a rough way of getting a hold on how you’re feeling rather than just saying that you’re anxious or depressed. Now it doesn’t mean you’re going to get to do away with those feelings because, at a low level, they are important. If you’re angry you’re angry about something and you should take care of that before it gets out of hand. If you’re fearful at a 1 to 5 then before it gets out of hand and you freeze and can’t react you should be doing something about it.
Obviously, if you’re fearful or angry and you take care of the problem you feel good. And one of the most important things I learned is that the experience of joy is a —decrease— in intensity. All of the other feelings are an increase in intensity or a steady state. Joy comes when we are relaxed after the intense moment has gone away and this is true for interest also. Interest is a continuum from interest to excitement. That continuum is very important in our culture. A culture that tends to be addicted to excitement. Joy comes when the excitement ends. We are happy after experiencing the excitement of a 90 yard punt return. Excitement- excitement excitement -and then joy. So I’ll stop there instead of rewriting the book
When I say there is much willpower I mean that I think we are ensconced in a bubble of consciousness and we live in an illusion of free will. That’s what it is to be alive and to be human and to commune with others. But stepping outside that I think the only conclusion is a determinist viewpoint. Einstein was very much of this ilk.
Otherwise, life is organic. We move through space and time based on our biography. Based on the memory that we have accumulated. Memory is everything, we can’t do anything without memory and memory only comes from our lived experience.
One of the most famous quotes of Silvan Tomkins is:
“The world we perceive is a dream we learn to have from a script we have not written.”
It is an organic process: we live into the world and at each moment we are constantly being stimulated externally and internally processing those stimuli via previous experience and memory. And somehow we are conscious of that phenomenon.
I’m going to be reading your book. In search of answer to one major question: how do I balance, my “interest“ in losing 50 pounds, with my interest in eating that piece of cheesecake at 12 midnight? I am “interested“ in both I have a greater interest in one, the “wrong“ one. So, who can help me gain sufficient interest in losing 50 pounds, enough to avoid that cheesecake tonight? And tomorrow night. Because if I can do that, I will experience great joy, and I dare say freedom.
It's a double edge sword, but iv been researching and found Dr.Robert Beck..he had made magnetic electrical zapers,etc..which electrical current pulses to the brain stop withdrawal and having the will to not want it..the drummer from the band WHO ,went on rhe same electrical pulses and was able to stop using .actually dr.beck said all elements from pur body can be hesled.
My experience is that NA is the 12 step fellowship where you find a significant amount of semi-organized opposition to MAT among sponsors. Sponsors in AA are much more likely to treat this as an outside issue. As a therapist, and a recovering person myself, I am ambivalent. Our first obligation is to keep people alive and on that score it seems that MAT is definitely a real help. I am concerned however, about long-term use. It seems lots of people settle into a lifestyle that is so much less than what a good recovery program has to offer. Suboxone supplemented by lots of weed and possibly cocaine too. Do you have any idea how common this is? Finally, I might agree with you that the value of 12 steps is primarily social, but I don’t think it’s the meetings. I think the most meaningful activity, and social activity, is doing the step work and sharing it with another human being. That’s where the real magic is.
I can do to give you my thoughts and my experience. I’ve used buprenorphine for well over for close to 20 years. If people wanted to go to 12 steps I had no problem but it was not a requirement. A lot of doctors make it a requirement which I think is ridiculous.
To get to the point I appreciate your experience and where you’re coming from.
No medication is perfect and buprenorphine has its problems. That said many medication‘s have their problems but they keep people alive. We do want to keep people alive. On average people have been with me for five years and do fine they get their life together. Having the ability to prescribe this I’m not going to not prescribe it and say hey why don’t you just tough it out and will your way to it being healthy? Risking them relapsing and dying of fentanyl.
Two points:
The mind and body are not two separate things. Biochemistry and physiology and mental are moving at breakneck speed, at least in the lab. I firmly feel that it is matter over mind not mind over matter. Precisely because there’s no difference between mind and matter, it is all matter. We are driven by tiny molecules. Human beings have a vested interest in defending sunk costs Invested in this belief that willpower has much to do with anything.
Which goes to our comments about socialization.
If you’re able you might visit my Affect Psychology Facebook Group.
There we explore the embodiment of our emotional system called the affect system. For me the crown jewel of that system is interest. Interest is an emotion that is right in front of us. It had always been there but we don’t appreciate it. Next, there are the other feelings: anger, fear, distress, and shame, among others that are expressed on our face before we know it and most of our communication, when we are face-to-face, takes place subliminally through sharing the facial expressions of emotion
Our cognitions and the transmission of those cognitions via speech are just icing on the cake. When we are face-to-face communicating that we are interested in each other is the healing ingredient to the sauce
interest is the impediment to ongoing pain.
Thank you for the comment.
I appreciate your reply. It’s, uh, interesting.
I picked up your book in the St John’s College bookstore a couple months ago, I’m not a Johnnie just an interested community member. It is also interesting, though I’ve just scanned it at this point.
I’m interested (lol) in what we can do to increase the frequency and intensity of positive emotions and decrease the persistence of negative ones. And if willpower is ineffectual and beside the point in that project, then I need to know what is necessary instead of willpower. My experience which is very 12 step oriented is that I feel better and experience more positive emotion when I “do the next right thing” as I understand it to be. I also feel better when I reach out to another human being and express interest in what they are going through. If they express similar interest in me, that’s super excellent, but honestly, it’s not essential. what’s essential is that I get out of my own head! Talk less to self; talk to and, most importantly, listen more to others.
I am interested in your ideas and I will try to find your group on Facebook. I hope you have a great weekend.
Thanks so much for the comment. I probably don’t need to publicize this but I had no idea that my book was still in the bookstore at Saint John's.
I’ve been presenting this material to the school for years off and on. I think if the school continues to exist someday the progenitor of this psychology “Affect Psychology” will be read at the college, I.e. added to “The Program.” I’m from Chicago I “make no little plans.”
As far as increasing positive affect it can be approached in several ways. What I noticed over the years, going back maybe 10 years or more, this area has focused just on various ways of articulating positive affect.
I’m sure you appreciate that covering it all here is difficult. But again, interest is not well appreciated. And you will find if you search high and low that you will not find much on interest. I haven’t looked lately but a long time ago I found one book dedicated to interest outside of Affect Psychology.
One way we articulate positive affect is we want to promote and enhance “good scenes.” Basically accentuate the positive as much as possibly possible. Modern theory doesn’t tell you how you get to joy. When you understand how interest works you understand where joy comes from.
At the same time, we want to continually assess our unpleasant feelings of anger, fear, distress, disgust, contempt, and shame.
We want to do an inventory of how we’re feeling and identify each of these feelings. A good way to do this is to rate them on a scale of 0 to 10. Then through meditation try to figure out what’s causing high feelings.
All of this is in my book. Doing such an exercise is a rough way of getting a hold on how you’re feeling rather than just saying that you’re anxious or depressed. Now it doesn’t mean you’re going to get to do away with those feelings because, at a low level, they are important. If you’re angry you’re angry about something and you should take care of that before it gets out of hand. If you’re fearful at a 1 to 5 then before it gets out of hand and you freeze and can’t react you should be doing something about it.
Obviously, if you’re fearful or angry and you take care of the problem you feel good. And one of the most important things I learned is that the experience of joy is a —decrease— in intensity. All of the other feelings are an increase in intensity or a steady state. Joy comes when we are relaxed after the intense moment has gone away and this is true for interest also. Interest is a continuum from interest to excitement. That continuum is very important in our culture. A culture that tends to be addicted to excitement. Joy comes when the excitement ends. We are happy after experiencing the excitement of a 90 yard punt return. Excitement- excitement excitement -and then joy. So I’ll stop there instead of rewriting the book
When I say there is much willpower I mean that I think we are ensconced in a bubble of consciousness and we live in an illusion of free will. That’s what it is to be alive and to be human and to commune with others. But stepping outside that I think the only conclusion is a determinist viewpoint. Einstein was very much of this ilk.
Otherwise, life is organic. We move through space and time based on our biography. Based on the memory that we have accumulated. Memory is everything, we can’t do anything without memory and memory only comes from our lived experience.
One of the most famous quotes of Silvan Tomkins is:
“The world we perceive is a dream we learn to have from a script we have not written.”
It is an organic process: we live into the world and at each moment we are constantly being stimulated externally and internally processing those stimuli via previous experience and memory. And somehow we are conscious of that phenomenon.
12 steps to emotional health👇
See: https://brianlynchmd.substack.com/p/twelve-steps-to-emotional-health
Of course, these are the basis of my book. I felt the 12-step format was an excellent way to summarize the whole psychology.
 thanks for the input and I hope to continue the conversation.
I’m going to be reading your book. In search of answer to one major question: how do I balance, my “interest“ in losing 50 pounds, with my interest in eating that piece of cheesecake at 12 midnight? I am “interested“ in both I have a greater interest in one, the “wrong“ one. So, who can help me gain sufficient interest in losing 50 pounds, enough to avoid that cheesecake tonight? And tomorrow night. Because if I can do that, I will experience great joy, and I dare say freedom.
It's a double edge sword, but iv been researching and found Dr.Robert Beck..he had made magnetic electrical zapers,etc..which electrical current pulses to the brain stop withdrawal and having the will to not want it..the drummer from the band WHO ,went on rhe same electrical pulses and was able to stop using .actually dr.beck said all elements from pur body can be hesled.
Thank you for your thoughts.
It seems to me that this area of using magnetic fields is new. We have to be careful. It seems to be useful in some cases but here are a few articles.
https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12910-022-00760-5
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6592198/
Thanks again please continue to share your thoughts.