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Genospirituality: Our Beliefs, Our Genomes, and Addictions
Addictions to smoking, alcohol, illicit drugs, and certain behaviors like gambling, overeating, and sex, are prevalent worldwide. These behaviors are highly destructive and costly to individuals and society due to health consequences, criminality and lost productivity. The genetic vulnerability, env...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
2013
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4068016/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24971227 http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2155-6105.1000162 |
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author | Blum, Kenneth Thompson, Benjamin Oscar-Berman, Marlene Giordano, John Braverman, Eric Femino, John Barh, Debmayla Downs, William Smpatico, Thomas Schoenthaler, Stephen |
author_facet | Blum, Kenneth Thompson, Benjamin Oscar-Berman, Marlene Giordano, John Braverman, Eric Femino, John Barh, Debmayla Downs, William Smpatico, Thomas Schoenthaler, Stephen |
author_sort | Blum, Kenneth |
collection | PubMed |
description | Addictions to smoking, alcohol, illicit drugs, and certain behaviors like gambling, overeating, and sex, are prevalent worldwide. These behaviors are highly destructive and costly to individuals and society due to health consequences, criminality and lost productivity. The genetic vulnerability, environmental exposures, and individual behaviors that contribute to the brain dysfunction and compulsive tendencies that mark addiction make it one of the most complicated diseases to study and treat. Although much has been learned about the genetic basis of and biochemical imbalances associated with the addictions, research leading to effective treatments has been slow. Addictions are often accompanied by an inner sense of disintegration, enslavement and meaninglessness that can be viewed in terms of a spiritual craving for wholeness, freedom, and transformation. Arguably, progress towards effective treatment has been retarded by insufficient attention being paid to understanding the role of spirituality in helping to heal addicts. Assuming one accepts the belief that the brain mediates all conscious and unconscious experiences- including spiritually experiences -healing, like addictions, can be related to the processes by which the human brain is organized for controlling pleasure and pain. Here we hypothesize that a healthy spirituality may come more naturally to some individuals because of the unique interaction of their genes and their environments, and we review the evidence in support of this view. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4068016 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2013 |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-40680162014-06-24 Genospirituality: Our Beliefs, Our Genomes, and Addictions Blum, Kenneth Thompson, Benjamin Oscar-Berman, Marlene Giordano, John Braverman, Eric Femino, John Barh, Debmayla Downs, William Smpatico, Thomas Schoenthaler, Stephen J Addict Res Ther Article Addictions to smoking, alcohol, illicit drugs, and certain behaviors like gambling, overeating, and sex, are prevalent worldwide. These behaviors are highly destructive and costly to individuals and society due to health consequences, criminality and lost productivity. The genetic vulnerability, environmental exposures, and individual behaviors that contribute to the brain dysfunction and compulsive tendencies that mark addiction make it one of the most complicated diseases to study and treat. Although much has been learned about the genetic basis of and biochemical imbalances associated with the addictions, research leading to effective treatments has been slow. Addictions are often accompanied by an inner sense of disintegration, enslavement and meaninglessness that can be viewed in terms of a spiritual craving for wholeness, freedom, and transformation. Arguably, progress towards effective treatment has been retarded by insufficient attention being paid to understanding the role of spirituality in helping to heal addicts. Assuming one accepts the belief that the brain mediates all conscious and unconscious experiences- including spiritually experiences -healing, like addictions, can be related to the processes by which the human brain is organized for controlling pleasure and pain. Here we hypothesize that a healthy spirituality may come more naturally to some individuals because of the unique interaction of their genes and their environments, and we review the evidence in support of this view. 2013-10-10 /pmc/articles/PMC4068016/ /pubmed/24971227 http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2155-6105.1000162 Text en Copyright: © 2013 Blum K, et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Article Blum, Kenneth Thompson, Benjamin Oscar-Berman, Marlene Giordano, John Braverman, Eric Femino, John Barh, Debmayla Downs, William Smpatico, Thomas Schoenthaler, Stephen Genospirituality: Our Beliefs, Our Genomes, and Addictions |
title | Genospirituality: Our Beliefs, Our Genomes, and Addictions |
title_full | Genospirituality: Our Beliefs, Our Genomes, and Addictions |
title_fullStr | Genospirituality: Our Beliefs, Our Genomes, and Addictions |
title_full_unstemmed | Genospirituality: Our Beliefs, Our Genomes, and Addictions |
title_short | Genospirituality: Our Beliefs, Our Genomes, and Addictions |
title_sort | genospirituality: our beliefs, our genomes, and addictions |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4068016/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24971227 http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2155-6105.1000162 |
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