One Brain's journey

A friend recently posted a link on Facebook to a report by a research team from Duke University Medical Central along with some Australian scientists who found that, “Addictive drugs may hijack the same nerve cells and connections in the brain that serve a powerful, ancient instinct: the appetite for salt.” One of the co-authors of the report, Wolfgang Lietke, M.D., Ph.D. said, “We were surprised and gratified to see that blocking addiction-related pathways could powerfully interfere with sodium appetite. Our findings have profound and far-reaching medical implications, and could lead to a new understanding of addiction and the detrimental consequences when obesity-generating foods are overloaded with sodium.” You can read more about the study and its implications for addiction research here.

This finding reminded me of something Tim Bilkey M.D. told me in a consultation following his diagnosis of my ADHD. He noted that in his clinical practice he was finding that patients with ADHD had cravings for salt in snacks not sugar. He wondered whether there might be some connection to the fact that the most commonly prescribed drugs for this condition–Dexedrine and amphetamine–are technically salts.

The day I was diagnosed with ADD I left the psychiatrist’s office and sat in my car in the parking lot and cried. In an instant I had the answer to all the accusations from age 12 to that moment of how I was lazy of how I didn’t apply myself of how I didn’t measure up. Now I knew for the first time that it wasn’t my fault. I was infinitely relieved to the point where it brought the tears. Unfortunately the feelings of relief didn’t last and within a month or two I was in the same psychiatrist’s office telling him that I was depressed. What I was now thinking about was of the promise of a good and interesting life that had gone unfulfilled.

I remembered the psychologist who did a complete psycho neurological, psycho-educational assessment after I had failed my second year in university, who told me that I had the intellectual capability to be successful in any course of action I should choice and in any educational program I might choose. I asked what she meant and she replied that I could study medicine, law, architecture, physics…anything. However, she had also picked up indications that there something quite wrong and recommended that I spent some time and effort finding out what that was. I didn’t. I was so relieved to find out that I wasn’t an idiot, not that they would have had the knowledge back then to find out anyway.

On yeah I had gone to night school and slowly, painstakingly acquired a bachelor’s degree in journalism, and then completed the BA at the university from which I had been debarred years before but these were not difficult programs and I still had trouble with them.

I realized, gradually, that most of the major choices in my life had not been made by me but by the disorders, ADD and the social anxiety subsequently diagnosed. I had jobs instead of a career. I had not chosen to stay single, to not raise a family, to not own property. I had not chosen to live most of my life alone. These things had been forced on me either by ADD or by social anxiety. Of course I also realized that there were thousands, maybe millions of people on the planet who would change places with me in an instant but quite frankly it didn’t make it any easier. It wasn’t about the quality of life, the opportunities or even about having a choice. It was about being deprived of the power of choice.

It cost me—mentally, emotionally and eventually financially. I filed for personal bankruptcy and spent too much of my time in regret for things that never were.

It took a few years, but then the medication, I was on both a stimulant and an antidepressant, began to work. I started to follow some of the other suggestions I had received, like taking a martial art and I came to terms with the past and began to look to the future…