Enrich and live
HOW much are mental health problems, such as addiction, influenced by our social environment? I think we tend to underestimate the impact of our social world.
I recently learnt some astonishing findings from two very different studies on addiction from my son, Rowan, who brought them to my attention on a recent episode on addiction from our podcast, Psych Spiels and Silver Linings. On the podcast we explore mental health issues from an optimistic and crossgenerational perspective.
In his Rat Park experiments in the 1970s, the Canadian psychologist Bruce Alexander explored the extent to which rats in a cage would choose water laced with narcotic drugs, including morphine, over plain drinking water. I would have assumed the rats exposed to morphine would repeatedly favour the morphine water owing to its powerfully addictive nature. This was, in fact, what happened when the rats were kept on their own in small bare cages, a standard environment for most such studies. The rats then typically overdosed on the morphine-laced water and died.
However, Dr Alexander wondered whether the rats would still show this preference if they were caged in more enriched and spacious environment. He placed them in a “Rat Park”, a much larger area with play equipment and numerous other rats with whom they could play and mate.
Remarkably, in this enriched environment, the rats continued to choose the plain drinking water even if they had previously been exposed only to morphine water for an extended period. None of those rats overdosed.
The implications of this seem profound. How much should we attribute adult drug addictions to criminal orientation and compromised motivation as opposed to people living in more depleted environments? This at least points to the importance of helping to enrich environments where there is much drug abuse in the context of social disadvantage.
These findings might also give encouragement for those seeking to overcome addiction. Maybe even the most powerful drugs are not quite so powerful as we thought. The Rat Park experiments suggested even addicted rats would often be able to resist the narcotic drug if they had enough available means in their environment to obtain more naturally acquired pleasure and reward.
A second fascinating study suggested that addicted humans might be more readily able to resist a narcotic addiction than commonly thought. It related to a 1974 Washington University study of narcotic drug use in returning Vietnam veterans. In a random sample of 470 returning veterans, 43 per cent acknowledged using narcotic drugs such as heroin and opium while in Vietnam. Almost half of those soldiers acknowledged having developed an addiction to narcotics while in Vietnam. However, the vast majority of previously addicted soldiers, about 80 per cent, discontinued their narcotic use on return. Only 1 per cent of the returned soldiers were found to be still being addicted 10 months after their return.
This suggests the normal response to addiction when returning to a presumably more enriched environment was to quit. It seems the majority of formerly addicted veterans found there was enough in their world to find sufficient pleasure and reward to not require the artificial impact of narcotics.
This is not to suggest quitting any addiction might be easy. From my experience, many Vietnam veterans suffering post-traumatic stress disorder were addicted to alcohol decades later.
People suffering post-traumatic stress are typically about four times more likely to be addicted to alcohol or other drugs. Sometimes addressing the trauma reactions is an important step in addressing the addiction.
Addiction is a complex process with many interacting influences. Helping ensure as many people as possible can enjoy safe and enriched social environments is an important step in prevention as well as cure. Psychological therapies can help greatly to gain more insight and motivation to deal with addictions, helping sufferers ride out the urges and bolstering alternate healthy ways to seek pleasure and reward.
A key psychological factor in overcoming an addiction is our confidence in overcoming it. From these studies we might more readily appreciate that, even if addicted, no drug need have a permanent hold on us. Hopefully this can increase confidence in taking the positive next steps, including choosing positive environments where we can.
Chris Mackey is a principal psychologist at Chris Mackey and Associates, Geelong. Find tips about mental health and wellbeing, including the Psych Spiels podcast, at chrismackey.com.au/resources