Recovery expert Tim Hilton explains 'The Addicted Brain'

Addiction is a disease, just as surely as lung cancer or diabetes, and it is not purely a result of poor life choices.

Non-addicts must also grasp that drug users are betrayed by the nature of their own brain chemistry, not some inherent moral failing.

Those were the key takeaways from “The Addicted Brain,” a presentation made by Birmingham recovery expert Tim Hilton on Thursday, Nov. 30, at Canterbury United Methodist Church.

The event, which was attended by about 250 people on a cold, wet night, was hosted by the Bradford Health Services Alumni Program.

Hilton draws on his own experiences as an alcoholic and cocaine user who nearly committed suicide before getting treatment at Bradford.

In part, Hilton seeks to help the friends and family members of users try to understand why a loved one seems powerless to control his or her drug habit, despite its horrible effects -- physical, financial and emotional.

When Hilton was using, he said people told him to use some “willpower,” but he said he learned that will power if not enough.

“I have a lot of willpower,” he said. “I am not a weak person, but for the love of my own child, I could not figure out why I could not stop putting dope in my body.”

Hilton took pains to point out to attendees that he is not a doctor or scientist and that what he has learned about the brain and its relationship to addiction is the product of lots of research and talks with experts.

He said that almost everyone will use something to medicate themselves and deal with the frustrations of life. They might go shopping or eat some ice cream, for example.

“None of these things is inherently bad,” he said.

However, he said that “addicts experience and process pain differently than non-addicts.”

All of us have neurotransmitters in the brain which carry chemicals to our frontal lobes -- chemicals that stimulate pleasure-giving dopamine.

But addicts can experience a shortage of dopamine caused by a genetic malfunction in their neurotransmitters.

Because of this, he said, “Most addicts are walking around with an elevated sense of restlessness, irritability and discomfort.’

Many turn to alcohol and other drugs to make themselves feel better about life and about themselves, according to Hilton.

Addiction is a “dysregulation” in the system of the addict's brain, Hilton said.

However, despite the scientific evidence, Hilton said that society “struggles so much to label addiction a disease.”

In part, he said, this is because addicts display such unattractive symptoms and behavior.

“The symptoms of the disease make it almost impossible to experience empathy or sympathy or compassion” for the addict, he said.

Some people have a strong family or genetic predisposition to poor regulation of malfunctions in their neurotransmitters, according to Hilton.

He discussed how addicts initially find pleasure and relief from using their drugs of choice.

However, the relief is temporary, and their drug eventually brings on disastrous life consequences.

People need to understand that when they tell addicts to just use willpower, they must realize that the use of drugs causes a dopamine rush for the addict that far transcends that provided for normal people by sex and food.

And the addict’s “primal brain now believes that the drugs are just as necessary as air or food or water,” Hilton said.

Hilton worked at Bradford Health Services for 12 years beginning in 2006.

Earlier this year, he started his own company in Birmingham, called Recovery Consulting in Birmingham.