If it fires together - It wires together

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Hello Sobertown.

Along the journey toward sobriety you may have heard discussions around unhealthy loop’s, pathways or patterns within our mind which require breaking as we leave the habit behind.

So how does this work? What does it actually mean?

The term “neurons that fire together wire together” was deduced from a more technical description back in 1949 by a neuropsychologist named Donald Hebb in his book, The Organization of Behavior (1).

So, neurons that fire together wire together. Can we apply this to our journey in sobriety? Prior thinking in medicine and psychology presumed that once we reached maturity our behaviors, attitudes and the way our brain was wired was largely set in stone, unable to be altered to any meaningful extent. Thankfully through time and research we now know that neuroplasticity, the process whereby our brains can adapt to changes in our environment by forming new neural connections over time, is very much a real and observable process.

Your brain is made up of somewhere around 100 billion nerve cells, don’t even bother trying to truly fathom this number, it is beyond reasonable comprehension, for example the worlds population is well under 8 billion, a fraction of the number of living cells making up our own brain. But so it is, these tens of billions of cells create you, your thoughts, memories, beliefs, your personality, and they fire in groups, like twinkling stars in the sky lighting up in a beautiful wave, like random explosions in the dark night sky or like a universe of connections within your skull. Each of these neurons can potentially connect with tens of thousands of other neurons to form pathways. Our brain is plastic meaning it can alter pathways, form new connections, break old connections and remap itself depending on the demands we place on it. Plasticity means we can form distinct pathways based on our environment and our thoughts and actions.

When we learn or when we act out a behavior our neurons fire as groups and if we repeat these behaviors these groups become neurological networks or circuits and they strengthen, they solidify and stabilise. We can see this practically when we learn a new skill, any of you who have ever learned an instrument such as guitar might remember how foreign forming a chord is to begin with, any new skill for that matter, it feels wrong, impossible even. Practice and repetition leads to seamless and natural movement, positioning and application. Why? Repeating these actions or thoughts fires off the neurons within these circuits you develop and as you fire these circuits repeatedly, they wire up! The circuits strengthen, if you engrain something with diligence you can wire circuits so strong that you can neglect to practice that chord and pick up a guitar years later and form that chord without any thought or difficulty as your pathways light up that pre-established pathway with its hundreds of thousands of connections. Language is another example, the idea of speaking a different language is so foreign initially that it makes no sense and to speak it fluently can seem an absolute impossibility, but with time, repetition, proper learning and more repetition the words flow, they link into proper order and they roll off the tongue seamlessly. There are many examples of the brain building new circuitry out of necessity whereby stroke victims who suffer the death of a certain region of neurons in the brain show remarkable progress in regenerating motor, verbal or cognitive abilities as their rehabilitation causes the brain to re-establish pathways around the dead nerve cells caused by the stroke itself, like a GPS rerouting around roadworks and making a new and clear path the desired destination.

When we consume alcohol, we build circuits in our mind, unwanted circuits, we also degrade existing neuronal pathways and systems while we atrophy and waste away vital areas of the brain. In-fact the neurological effects of alcohol consumption are worryingly widespread. We diminish the nervous systems ability to communicate with itself via neurotransmitters and we effectively shrink regions of our brain, hindering their ability to function “normally” and detracting from our true self and out true nature (2).

Aside from the damage caused by alcohol we also develop circuits, loops and networks reinforcing the basic habit of consumption. We need to create positive circuits and consolidate them, we need circuits that serve us, and that force out the circuits which harm us in favour of the new ones. When we train a thought process with intent and vigour and repetition we consolidate that loop until like the guitar chord, like the language, like riding the bike, it is simply natural, normal. When we allow the addiction loop to remain or we fuel it, we simply strengthen the negative circuitry, we strengthen the loop of addiction and so regardless of our logic or our ambition to act reasonably or to think a certain way, our hardwired circuitry is telling us otherwise and the pathway toward the positive action is unformed and faulty (3). Some of us have wired that circuit in with such strength and over such a long period of time that yes, it is very difficult to break, but it can be done, you can do it, it just takes time, effort, work and repeat attempts.

Imagine this, you go to a waterpark, you visit here often and there are two big waterslides with the same staircase to reach both of them. You climb the stairs and get to the top, you look left, there is slide A, trusty slide A, the one you almost always choose, you don’t know why, you wish you didn’t but you use slide A every time. To the right is slide B, Slide B only gives you access if you put a coin in its entry mechanism, it has a cost to enter, not a high cost but a cost nonetheless, but slide A is easier, it doesn’t cost anything at all. You jump into slide A as usual to avoid the cost of slide B, it is comfortable and free flowing and you enjoy the comfort of knowing the upcoming corners and drops but then you shoot out into the slide A pool and it is terrible as always, the pool is freezing cold and everybody in it is unhappy, their is band aids and grime in the pool and you are fairly sure the little boy next you is peeing. You get out as fast as you can but a group of boys are yelling rude comments at you and blocking your way, finally you get out and as you do, you look to the right and you see the pool slide B leads to, it is sparkling clean, everybody in it is joyous, you walk over to it and dip your toe, the water is perfect and warm. You climb to the top again. The pool at the end of slide A is terrible, you know that, but the cost of slide B still deters you, you continue to use Slide A again and again with the same terrible plunge into freezing pool A. Eventually you decide it must be worth it to change so rather than going down slide A again you suck it up and you pay the price of admission to Slide B, the entry opens and off you go, you are excited, it must be good, but to your dismay you burn your legs as the water flow is too low, you bump around and feel terrible and then to make things worse you get spat out straight back into pool A, you cant believe it, you don’t even understand it but somehow you paid, had a terrible ride and ended up right back in pool A. What on Earth? That isn’t what was supposed to happen. You look longingly over to Pool B again and this time you decide you will figure it out, you will persist until it makes sense, you will get to Pool B eventually, off you go back up the stairs. You pay the fee, you jump into Slide B again and again, and again, you get beaten and battered, your legs are red from chafe and you keep plunging into the unhappy cold pee pool, but you push through, you know you can figure it out if you just keep going. Without you realising as you slide down Slide B again and again, the water flow increases gradually, you slide freely, you come through unscathed and you even begin to enjoy the ride, you keep pushing the coin into the slot and riding Slide B and one day, out of nowhere on a warm and sunny day you ride Slide B and bang! You shoot out into the air with a brilliant speed and then plunge into the pool and to your shock and surprise, the water is warm and enveloping and the pool is crystal clear, your head emerges and you cant believe it, you swim around and people smile at you and say hello, you are in Pool B, you made it. The water is fresh and clean, you feel wonderful. You go to emerge from the warm water and a nice stranger holds their hand out to help pull you out, welcome, they say and you know, you have found your way and pool B will now be your destination every time you ride. When you climb the stairs again you look left at Slide A, but it looks shonky now, and uninviting, it hasn’t been serviced in too long and riding it just doesn’t seem right, then you look to the right and to your excitement you see the fee for riding Slide B is gone, the entry is open to you, and you are free to ride whenever you want to with no fee. You are so happy you look behind you and you see a little kid waiting for you to ride and so you take the coins you no longer need and you give them to the kid, and you brighten their day and you brighten your day.

To explain the concept behind my waterslide story. The slides represent two different conceptual neurological circuits in your mind. Slide A represents a well engrained neural pathway of negativity, pessimism, narcissism, anger and judgement, bad habits and addiction leading to Pool A, a place you don’t want to end up but do every time circuit A fires. While Slide B represents circuitry lending itself to positivity, kindness, love and selflessness as well as self care and sobriety. Slide A is the well worn neurological circuitry you may have engrained in your mind years ago and Slide B to begin with is an unformed and disconnected neural pathway, it is only with repetition and persistence that we begin to reinforce the thoughts, habits and actions which lead us to the enlightened and clear pathway Slide B provides us. We must create a smooth slide B for ourselves. It is vital to understand though that as with almost everything worth anything in our life, the price of admission to healthy neural pathways is time, repetition, effort and a whole lot of discomfort. Learning new habits and breaking old neural pathways is tough, consolidating new pathways is also tough, but the eventual payoff is great and the more time that passes the more deeply these pathways become engrained and normalised. Remember “neurons that fire together wire together” that is, using positive pathways through thoughts and actions repeated, lead to formation of pathways that wire in and become normal and accessible in both positive and negative directions.

We are neurological representations of our environment, most of our adaptation comes in the form of neural network forming. When we lift weight and we strengthen our body we may be inclined to believe that our ability to lift more and more as we train over time is due to physical muscle growth but this is not the case, not alone anyway. Early in our training the largest gains we see are due the changes we force in the brain, our pathways form and consolidate movement patterns to increase efficiency and our brain learns to dial down the protective mechanisms it has in place which would usually inhibit force production past a certain point, allowing you to place more load on a joint or tissue. Aside from physical adaptations we might be inclined to believe as we become stronger in our sobriety that we are somehow simply increasing our willpower or becoming better at employing our strategies where what is really occurring is our strategies repeated are forcing formation and consolidation of these positive neural pathways which when consolidated activate and fire more freely leading to the change we desire. Although we can create very strong circuits, we must maintain them, there is exactly zero room for the notion that we reach a point where the loop is so strong that its maintenance is no longer needed and we can become complacent, we must maintain, however, as with our physical body the hard work is its creation and maintaining this is then far less strain on us, it is less strain but it is vital the maintenance continues. We are complex neurological beings and we can manipulate our brain pathways through time and repeated effort through healthy thoughts and actions just as we can through repeated physical strain with weight.

We residents here at Sobertown have previously been reinforcing neural pathways “loops” which do not serve us, but they are so normal and engrained and now, we are smashing them to bits and building new pathways in our mind, healthy pathways down Slide B and into Pool B! This is where we now live, this is where we shall remain. Any of you starting your journey will see that the formation of new circuits can be tough, but just remember that they simply take time, repetition and that your legs might chafe a little, that’s ok, you might even run back to Slide A at times, that’s ok, if you keep forming and fortifying positive circuits in your mind, eventually Slide A will crumble to bits and you wont even see it there.

Habit forming, breaking and maintaining is far more complicated than neural circuits alone, circuitry is one factor and I acknowledge that though it is a vital factor, I do not wish for any reader of this article to believe that the brain is capable of any adaptation to overcome any injury or behaviour, sometimes there are limitations and this is what it is. However, as an ex drinker and an individual whose mind had consolidated very negative loops I find it valuable to remember that in-fact the brain absolutely is capable of incredible change and I find it helpful to conceptualise the formation of new and positive pathways in my mind and fortifying them visually in my minds eye, because on a microscopic level this is exactly what we are doing to better our lives as we progress through our journey and live here in Sobertown. We can not see it, we can not feel it, but our brain is healing, our pathways are forming and holding and every tiny activity we do to strengthen our positive pathways we add another brick to the wall of our emotional health and our sobriety. Sobriety therefore in total is a choice HOWEVER, it is not a simple and single choice made once and altered forever, the choice lies behind the weeks, months and years of work to degrade the unwanted circuits of addiction and to build and wire the circuits of sobriety.

How do we create and strengthen these pathways, with our Sober Toolbox and our emotional health techniques, more to come on these topics soon. The concept covered here of neurological pattern forming underpins the most valuable techniques we can employ to get and remain sober and I will refer back to it in many future articles.

“Neurons that fire together wire together”.

Sobertown is where the water is always warm and a helping hand is always outstretched, let us stay here today, let us stay here tomorrow and let us come back every day, one at a time, for the rest of our lives. You have mine, I have yours and we all have each others backs. You are not alone.

REFERENCE

1: Hebb DO: 1949. The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory. New York: Wiley and Sons.

2: Tessner KD, Hill SY: 2010. Neural circuitry associated with risk for alcohol use disorders. Neuropsychology Review. 2010 Mar; 20(1): 1–20.

3: Sullivan EV, Pfefferbaum A: 2005. Neurocircuitry in alcoholism: A substrate of disruption and repair. Psychopharmacology. 2005 Aug;180(4):583-94.