By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.
“First of all, though it may seem paradoxical, by increasing your ability to accept and tolerate the present moment, you become more able to make needed changes in your life. This is due to your learning to deal with uncomfortable feelings that might accompany modified behaviors, rather than reacting on automatic pilot. Also, practicing balanced emotional responses can reduce your stress level, and anxiety and stress are often triggers for substance abuse and addictive behavior. In addition, when you choose a neutral rather than a judgmental response to your thoughts and feelings, you can increase your sense of self-compassion rather than beating yourself up, which is often associated with addictive behaviors.” – Rachel Fintzy
We typically think of drug abuse as being focused on a single substance, e.g. cocaine, alcohol, opiates, etc. Many addicts, however, abuse multiple drugs, obtaining whatever is least expensive and most easily available. Some addicts combine drugs to produce a more intense high. This is called polysubstance abuse and is defined as the use at least three different classes of addictive substances over a 12-month period, without forming a preference for any single drug that qualifies for dependence on its own. Polysubstance abuse is often accompanied with significant psychological problems and it is associated with impairments in thought processes (executive functions).
Illicit drug use is quite common with an estimated 24.6 million Americans aged 12 or older—9.4 percent of the population—having used an illicit drug in the past month. It is increasing as over the last 10 years it has increased from 8.3%. It is estimated that around 42% of substance abusers are polysubstance abusers. So, polysubstance abuse is a major problem affecting around 4% of the U.S. population.
Mindfulness training has been shown to be effective in treatment for substance abuse, helping to reduce relapse. Recently, a combination of goal management and mindfulness training has been shown to be helpful in recovery from polysubstance abuse. In today’s Research News article “Goal Management Training and Mindfulness Meditation improves executive functions and transfers to ecological tasks of daily life in polysubstance users enrolled in therapeutic community treatment.” See:
or below, Valls-Serrano and colleagues delved a little deeper into the effects of this combined treatment on the thought processes (executive function) of polysubstance abusers. They recruited polysubstance abusers and randomly assigned them to receive the combination of goal management and mindfulness meditation training or to a treatment as usual control condition. Treatment occurred over 8 weeks with one goal management and one mindfulness meditation training session per week. Measurements were taken before and after treatment of perceived stress and a series of “laboratory tasks of basic and complex executive functions (i.e., basic: working memory and inhibition; complex: planning and self-regulation) and in an ecological task of goal-directed behavior.”
They found that the combined training produced a significant reduction in perceived stress and improvements in executive functions, including working memory, reflection/impulsivity decision making, and real world planning. The reduction in stress would be expected as mindfulness training has been repeatedly demonstrated to reduce the psychological and physiological responses to stress. Mindfulness training has also been shown to improve memory and cognitive function and reduce impulsivity. The importance of the present study is to demonstrate that these improvements occur with polysubstance abusers in treatment. This suggests that the treatment improves their thinking and planning ability. Importantly, improvements in these areas, particularly in working memory and impulsivity, have been shown to be highly related to successful abstinence from drugs.
These are encouraging results and suggest that polysubstance abuse is amenable to treatment with a combination of goal management and mindfulness meditation training which improves both executive function and perceived stress, which in turn improves the likelihood of successful treatment outcomes.
So, improve thought process in addiction recovery with mindfulness.
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
“There’s a shift in the individual’s relationship to discomfort. Let’s say someone is feeling depressed, or sad, lonely or bored — something that tends to trigger craving and then substance use. These practices are teaching people to notice that arising, and to relate to that differently.“ – Sarah Bowen
This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts
Study Summary
Valls-Serrano C, Caracuel A, Verdejo-Garcia A. Goal Management Training and Mindfulness Meditation improves executive functions and transfers to ecological tasks of daily life in polysubstance users enrolled in therapeutic community treatment. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2016 May 20. pii: S0376-8716(16)30115-6. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2016.04.040. [Epub ahead of print]
Highlights
- Goal Management Training + MindfulnessMeditationimproves working memory and reflection-impulsivity in polysubstance users in therapeutic community treatment.
- Executive functiongains transfer to daily activities measured by an ecological task.
- The training was also associated with reduction of stress levels.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: We have previously shown that Goal Management Training+Mindfulness Meditation (GMT+MM) improves executive functions in polysubstance users enrolled in outpatient treatment. The aim of this study was to establish if GMT+MM has similar positive effects on executive functions in polysubstance users in residential treatment, and if executive functions’ gains transfer to more ecologically valid goal-oriented tasks.
METHODS: Thirty-two polysbustance users were randomly allocated to eight weeks of GMT+MM (n=16) or control, i.e., no-intervention (n=16); both groups received treatment as usual. Outcome measures included performance in laboratory tasks of basic and complex executive functions (i.e., basic: working memory and inhibition; complex: planning and self-regulation) and in an ecological task of goal-directed behavior (the Multiple Errands Test – contextualized version, MET-CV) measured post-interventions.
RESULTS: Results showed that GMT+MM was superior to control in improving basic measures of working memory (Letter-number sequencing; F=4.516, p=0.049) and reflection impulsivity (Information Sampling Test; F=6.217, p=0.018), along with initial thinking times during planning (Zoo Map Test; F=8.143, p=0.008). In addition, GMT+MM was superior to control in improving performance in the MET-CV (task failures; F=8.485, p=0.007).
CONCLUSION: Our findings demonstrate that GMT+MM increases reflective processes and the achievement of goals in daily activities, furthermore ecological test can detects changes easily than laboratory tasks.
http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.shsu.edu/science/article/pii/S0376871616301156