The Body’s Role in Addictions

If the measure of effectiveness in any Human Services related field is the outcome in client care, the
substance abuse treatment field has been sadly ineffective for many of those seeking our help. Clearly there
are those who have made significant strides in overcoming the impact that the use of addicting chemicals has had in their lives. I applaud them for their persistence and great personal achievement. There are others who have gone to the same treatment programs, attended the same Twelve Step meetings, read the same books, talked with the same counselors and have not been able, up to this point, to achieve the same success.

Blaming is an unproductive way of skirting the issue of how we can develop skill in effectively relating to
those asking for assistance in achieving sobriety. Perhaps one of the contributing factors in our lack of
success has been our lack of understanding about the body, how substances affect the body, and what can be done to cooperate with the body’s wisdom for healing. What we have gleaned from the combined efforts of researchers, counselors, medical personnel and writers is that the body is truly a marvelous ‘piece of work’.

From the initial combining of the ovum and sperm, which sets in place an internal clock that will
orchestrate the timing of developmental tasks and lays the architectural blueprint for the unfolding of the
body and all its related functions, to the maintaining of life and making the necessary repairs as we experience the bumps of illnesses, toxins, accidents, and poor nutrition, our body has the internal wisdom to be successful. Our job is to discover the body’s wisdom, follow its lead in the healing process, and provide the support it requires for success.

The body is designed in a simple, yet complex way. It begins with building blocks and then creates the
structure that houses our sense of self, very much like a child with blocks who designs towers, houses, and
forts. The building block of the body is the cell. For our purposes we will think of the cell as a circle with a
membrane attached to its outer edge. There are little doors, called receptors, which allow the exchange of
certain nutrients into the cell and carries away waste products no longer needed. Part of the role of the
membrane is to provide protection for the cell in the form of monitoring what is allowed in, and to keep in
place nutrients the cell must have to function. Cell membranes are made from the fat that we eat (more
about that later), and their health influences the health of the cell and its ability to perform its specialized
duties.

The architectural design, or blueprint for the body, is encoded in the DNA and housed in each cell.
When cells that perform the same function in the body join together, they create an organ. Some examples of organs include the heart, lungs, liver, spleen, gall bladder and large intestine. When organs join together to perform specific functions, a system is created.

The gastrointestinal system is a combination of many organs working together to perform the task of
handling food. The steps of eating food, breaking it down into small particles, processing it into a form that
the body can use, passing it along a conveyor belt so the nutrients can be absorbed into the nearby capillaries, reabsorbing water back into the blood stream from the leftovers that were not used, and then holding the remains until it is convenient to dump them can be seen as the combined efforts of the organs in this system of the body.
There are other systems. The genitourinary system processes liquid wastes from the body, the
respiratory system handles breathing, and the circulatory system has the responsibility to transport both
nutrients and waste products throughout the body.

There are seven systems in all and when they join together the body is created. At each level the
membranes are hard at work. There are membranes covering the organs, the systems, and the body. The
membrane for the body is the skin, which has the same protective function as the membrane around the
smallest cell, to keep the contents of the body (cell) intact, to allow certain things to pass across the skin, and to keep out things that would be harmful.

Each cell knows what it needs to complete its task in the body and will be selective as it notices various
raw materials passing by in the capillaries. It is not unlike going to a cafeteria with our tray and picking what
we are interested in eating for that meal. The cell will select the raw materials it needs and allow others to
pass along to a neighboring cell that will select different materials for its needs. The wisdom of the cell in
knowing what it needs is baffling. As it is watching the parade of nutrients, waiting for what it needs, it may
be alarmed to discover there is nothing on the line it needs today. There may need to be a reconsideration of what it is looking for and Plan B may be instituted, adapting to what is available, not what is preferred. Of course, that also means that the health and function of the cell has also shifted to Plan B status (or maybe F or J).

We’ll talk more about the role of nutrition starting in Chapter 8, but at the moment it is enough to say that Nature’s way of providing the cells, organs, systems and body with the raw materials it needs is through the foods we eat on a daily basis. Just like our car would not run very well on paint thinner or kerosene, our bodies begin to sputter when the raw materials we need are not provided.

More sputtering happens when toxins are taken into the body. Those might come in the form of
environmental chemicals such as lead, mercury, aluminum, and bug spray. Or, they might come in the form
of addicting chemicals such as alcohol, tobacco, methamphetamine, or heroin. The body isn’t set up to
select any of these chemicals in the cafeteria line as preferred materials, and in fact, if the selection is made,
some disastrous results can follow. Some of these chemicals fool the cell into selecting them because they
look like the real thing, or are at least close enough to cause confusion, so they get selected any way. Once
they enter the cell, alarms can go off, sending messages out to all the cell members that a change in plans is
required to adjust to this situation. We’ll talk more about these changes and the chaos created in the body as we move through our time together.