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Since I have been involved in efforts to help people manage pain without the use of drugs or surgeries, I have watched addiction to opioids grow at exponential rates. I always felt there was something stronger, more primal if you will, at the root of addiction other than merely a desire to “numb out” to the difficulties and challenges life presents. And then I came across a recent New York Times guest essay that cleared everything up for me. It gave me a totally new perspective on the susceptibility to addiction and the Sisyphean difficulty of getting off the drugs. The piece was written by Maija Szalavitz and is entitled Opioids Feel Like Love. That’s Why They’re Deadly in Tough Times. (The link to the piece is at the end of this article.)

Greater Compassion For Addiction

The main point of the piece which Ms. Szalavitz makes is important and very clear. She writes, “If policymakers want to effectively treat and prevent addiction, they need to recognize why opioids have become attractive in such circumstances. By doing so, addiction can be viewed with greater compassion.” I agree 100% with this opinion.

At the very start of the pandemic, I knew we were going to see increased addiction as well as overdose deaths. According to Ms. Szalavitz’s essay there is a connection between motherly love and opioids in the brain. She explains, “The connections between brain opioids and motherly love were first explored by the neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp decades ago. Dr. Panksepp, who died in 2017, told me that when he first tried to publish data connecting brain opioids to attachment, he was rebuffed by a top medical journal. His research showed that morphine, in doses so low that it didn’t cause sleepiness, eased separation cries made by baby animals in multiple species.

At the very start of the pandemic, I knew we were going to see increased addiction as well as overdose deaths. According to Ms. Szalavitz’s essay there is a connection between motherly love and opioids in the brain. She explains, “The connections between brain opioids and motherly love were first explored by the neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp decades ago. Dr. Panksepp, who died in 2017, told me that when he first tried to publish data connecting brain opioids to attachment, he was rebuffed by a top medical journal. His research showed that morphine, in doses so low that it didn’t cause sleepiness, eased separation cries made by baby animals in multiple species.Nearly 100,000 Overdose Deaths Since Pandemic Began
Since April 2020 and April 2021, there have been more than 75,000 overdose deaths in the U.S. As Szalavitz notes, “There are many factors that contribute to addiction, and isolation is often one of them. During the past several decades, as overdose death rates have quadrupled in the United States, social isolation has increased. One study reported that from 1985 to 2004, the size of an average American’s social network fell by a third and the number of people who said they had no one to confide in tripled. A 2018 survey found that only about half of participants felt that they had someone to turn to all or most of the time. …A 2021 study found that over 60 percent of young American adults reported that they are either frequently lonely or lonely nearly all the time.”

Can We Love Our Way Out Of Opioid Addiction

There is no doubt that our sense of separateness feeds into our sense of isolation and aloneness. Add to that the fact that opioids mimic the love hormone and it’s easy to understand the epidemic proportions that opioid abuse has reached. The question is: Do we have what it takes as a collective to love our way out of this deadly dilemma?

Resource:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/06/opinion/us-opioid-crisis.