Rat Park.
Why we need connection to overcome addiction
I once got really bored and sewed my own lips together with a needle and thread. Another time I tried to side shave my own hair and ended up with only a triangle. Another time I went to the bakery and bought a pasty with the sole intention of eating it in front of the glass window of the local gym. I think it’s pretty safe to say that irritable restless and discontent sums me up. I’m also highly intelligent- not boasting, just telling the truth. I struggle to connect with a room full of people that only care about what was on telly last night or whatever biased news came up on their Facebook feed.
The Rat Park experiment was a famous and fascinating study about the effects of environment on addiction, led by psychologist Bruce K. Alexander and his colleagues in the late 1970s.
Earlier experiments on addiction had shown that when rats were given a choice between plain water and water laced with morphine or cocaine, they often chose the drugged water — sometimes drinking it until they died. This was taken as evidence that drugs themselves were irresistibly addictive.
Alexander however questioned that idea. His hypothesis was that instead of the drug itself being an issue - what if it was the rats environment?
He created Rat Park — a large, comfortable enclosure compared to the lonely cages used before. It had space to run, explore, and play. Toys, tunnels, nesting materials, an abundance of food and most importantly, lots of lovely little ratty friends for them to play with.
He did his study with two groups - one group of rats lived in the isolated boring cages which had been the traditional set up for studies on the effects of drugs on rats and the second group lived in a cage that was designed to be a kind of Disneyland for rats.
Both groups had access to two water bottles - One with plain water and one with morphine laced water (sweetened so it tasted good).
The difference was amazing.
The isolated rats drank far more morphine water and became dependent. The rats living their best ratty lives mostly avoided the morphine water, choosing plain water instead. They sampled it, but didn’t return to it regularly. Even rats that had been previously addicted in isolation would often give it up when they moved to Rat Park.
Alexander concluded that addiction isn’t about the substance itself. It’s a solution (albeit a bad one) to the problems of isolation, stress, and lack of connection.
When rats had a rich, connected, engaging environment, the drug became redundant.
He said:
“The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection.”
So for me, here’s the takeaway. We aren’t bad people when we turn to addictive substances. We are very bored very lonely people. Maybe those substances draw us closer to those around us or maybe they help us to bear the loneliness we feel without them - but without entertainment and connection we are screwed.
I got sober through 12 step fellowships but during that time my own experience has brought me into contact with a multitude of happy sober people who achieved the same freedom in a different way. I honestly believe that dragging people through a 12 step programme multiple times when it doesn’t work for them does more harm than good. What matters is we find something else to live for. We find love and community and a new passion and this replaces our need to blot out our own realities.
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