Physiology

All drugs of abuse (including alcohol) resemble naturally-occurring neurotransmitters, or otherwise affect and impact key neurotransmitter systems in the brain. They exert their effect by ultimately "fooling" the brain into thinking that it has received a bona-fide message from an adjacent neuron, resulting in the inappropriate release of key neurotransmitters in the brain. Over time, and with chronic and repeated exposure to a drug or alcohol, the brain's receptors change in number or function ("adaptation"; physiologic tolerance) in an attempt to "get back to normal." The end result is that it takes more drug to attain the same "high," such that eventually it is nearly impossible to get "high" at all.

Eventually, at some point (and this always happens) the best the addict can do is to attempt to temporarily get back to "normal." It is at this point that drug addiction becomes truly a scourge, holding the addict in shackles, a prisoner, where all efforts to get high are futile, and at best only allow the addict to temporarily feel "OK" or semi-"normal." Failure to drink or use constantly results in painful withdrawal symptoms. At this point addiction is no longer fun; it is hell.

In conventional drug and alcohol treatment centers, the first step for the addict or alcoholic is to "detox," or detoxify. This is the process of getting drugs out of the addict's system, and to allow the drug-altered and drug-damaged neuroreceptors to gradually return to normal. Just as it takes weeks or months for the drug-altered brain to become addicted and physiologically tolerant, it normally takes days, weeks, and even months for the now drug free brain to return to "normal,", though some damage may be irreparable.

During the detox phase, the brain is extremely unstable and cognition is severely impaired. Detoxing from some drugs can be dangerous and life-threatening. Detox from alcohol is probably the worst and is without question the most dangerous drug from which to detox. Others, such as opiates (heroin, oxycontin, dilaudid and others), are absolutely miserable to go through, but are not life-threatening.

NTR™ works by stimulating the brain to shift itself into the "repair" phase, wherein it much more rapidly reverts from its drug-altered configuration, back to a normal, healthy, functioning brain. Imaging studies of the brain (PET scans) vividly illustrate the changes that occur in the drug-altered brain, and they show the return to normal that occurs much more quickly when medical treatments like NTR™ are administered.

In summary, recovery from addiction involves healing of damaged brain cellular function and is not easy. Success in finding and maintaining recovery depends upon addressing all three aspects of the disease of addiction: medical, emotional and spiritual.