Thinking Aloud

A mile consists of 1760 yards, a yard is made of 3 feet and one foot includes nearly 12 inches. Likewise, any long action consists of many subactions. Besides no goal can be achieved without a sequence of steps leading to this achievement. This principle is universal for humans, mammals and reptiles. In the simplest case, we make an way to a goal – often subconsciously – consisting of some learned and automated actions. Nevertheless, nearly always we’ve to correct our activities constantly. For example, before going to work we look through the window, think about the weather and choose the clothing according to it. Possibly, we also decide what means of transportation to use. However, given the weather changes in a way that nullifies every means we know to commute to work.

The scheme we discussed above can be well applied to analyze the alcoholic behavior. Let’s remember just one thing: the simpler an action is, the more it’s correlated with the subconscious including the reward center. It means this structure of our mind is “tuned” not only to feel long-lasting euphoria from a goal achieved nicely, but also to control responses to short actions that require instant response instead of long reasoning. In this respect, the alcohol consumption creates a vicious circle when the euphoric effect controls itself. For the time being, we leave aside purely physiological mechanisms that require special consideration. In particular, the euphoria may require an instant effect and the amount taken has its own speed of coming into the bloodstream. A person may continue drinking even after the effect is achieved and so on.

Any long-term activity program usually consists of many embedded in subprograms. Besides, the subprograms can be divided till one comes to the point of a simple action. Such action can be compared with a prick made by a needle. So, we prick a needle to our hand and immediately get a pain reaction. However, the example can be complicated a little. If we do it to test our pain threshold, then we have everything in order and we get what we actually expect. We can prick ourselves accidently and experience some unpleasant feelings, which will make us understand that this action was mistaken and we’ll try to avoid such situations in future. Nevertheless, there’s at least one more way.

We often hear that we shall learn to enjoy our life. It means we shall get out of the world around us some elements that may influence our reward system even a little. Running ahead of the story, I tell you that such dullness and natural deficiency of positive emotion can cause people fighting the consequences of alcohol addiction have a relapse. On the other hand, such automation has advantages. Routine saves us from stress. In this regard, we can give an example of an inclination to a compulsive behavior when a person repeats habitual actions many times because he or she suffers from anxiety. Thus, this person tries to get rid of an uncontrolled stress by a ritual of routine automated actions. The alcohol addiction is sometimes described with a similar type of compulsion within the disease model framework concept.

We can learn and study. Thus the society inserts conventional programs to our heads and installs them step by step, if we resort to the programming jargon. In this context, we talked about certain deviant patterns that shape us at the macrolevel. But the socialization does have a microlevel. It means our response to certain experiences. We shall say, first of all that most of such response is “automated”. For instance, going to work we know in advance the way to it, when the bus comes, how to pay the fare and many other things we really think about, but not much unless there’s a violation of the routine, such as traffic jams, abnormal weather conditions and alike.