In a recent interview with J.A. Leyrer, MSW, we discussed her 30-year career in drug and alcohol rehabilitation and asked if she might share the secret to her success. This is a short excerpt from that interview.
GVT: Your success rate helping young people overcome addiction is note worthy. Can you give us the secret to your success?
JL: Many years ago, right after I had completed my degree, I stumbled upon a practitioner by the name of Barry Neal Kaufman who was helping families deal with autistic children. He was using a method he called the Option Process which was a form of what Ram Dass eventually called mindfulness. I was fascinated by the idea that humans have two minds, really, and that we need to use one to control the other.
GVT: Two minds? What do you mean by two minds?
JL: What sets the human race apart from other mammals is that we have a highly evolved cerebral cortex, the part of the brain that does the rational thinking; what Eckhardt Tolle calls our “problem solving mind”. All animals have a well-developed limbic brain, the core brain stem of the central nervous system that houses emotions (feelings). Other than humans, however, animals do not have a well-developed cerebral cortex. In humans, two brains are operating simultaneously with emotions (feelings) emanating from the limbic brain while thoughts originate in the cerebral cortex. This, of course, is a simplification of the vastly more complex dual brain function we call the central nervous system.
GVT: Thinking about the human brain from that perspective, I realize what an amazing thing the human brain is, and why we have come to dominate the earth.
JL: That’s true. But it also explains why we suffer so much. Most human suffering is psychic or caused by psychic dysfunction.
GVT: It does seem that this highly evolved brain system goes off the rails quite often. What’s the problem?
JL: In my field, of course, the problem was that people were becoming addicted to substances that eventually interfered with a healthy functioning organism. The question for us was why did some become addicts and others didn’t? My work led me to see the problem from this perspective:
- Dysfunctional conduct was not a vice. It was, in fact, a natural consequence of evolution.
- The “problem solving” cerebral cortex never turns off. It even functions while we’re sleeping.
- The cerebral cortex has evolved to recognize threats to our survival and devise solutions. Because it can abstract, it learns from the past through memory and avoids danger by projecting these memories onto an imaginary future landscape. In other words, it abstracts dangers even when there is no actual present danger, and this process continues relentlessly every moment of every day even while we’re sleeping.
- The limbic system is functioning right along with the cerebral cortex. Therefore, it’s constantly producing emotions in response to dangers the cerebral cortex is working to avoid, both real and imagined. The limbic brain is the center of what we might call, awareness. It receives stimuli without thinking about it. It makes no judgment but it does react instinctively by producing, through the central nervous system, bio-chemicals like adrenaline. This is the source of what we call anxiety. When the cerebral cortex is overactive and drowns out the non-judgmental awareness of the limbic system, the human becomes dysfunctional. In other words, the evolutionary advantage the human-race enjoys has become the source of its dysfunction. I believe that all human dysfunction starts with fear.
GVT: Having recognized this evolutionary danger in everyone, how did you help your clients overcome addiction?
JL: Ram Dass, Barry Kaufman, and Eckhardt Tolle talk about staying in the present moment as a method of shutting down the problem-solving mind’s relentless search for danger in the remembered past and imaginary future. For people overwhelmed by stress and for those who suffer from anxiety disorders, the present moment may be relatively unfamiliar territory. With minds that alternately fixate on the past and ruminate about the future, they likely find the notion of living in the present an impossibility, a Catch-22. If they could remain in the moment, their symptoms might be relieved, but it's their symptoms that stand in the way of being in the present moment. Relief might be possible, they may think, if only the past and the future could no longer dominate their thoughts and trigger the symptoms of anxiety. I believe, however, not only can they learn to "be here now," but evidence suggests doing so can significantly alleviate their anxiety.
I will post the second half of our interview with J.A. Leyrer in next week’s blog. Be sure to tune in.
