William recovers from drug abuse

May 2006 When I walked into Dr. Dan Staso’s office one ordinary day in Ventura, I didn’t imagine that this treatment would alter my life with the magnitude that it did. I was a typical college drop-out from UCSB. I smoked marijuana everyday, as well as habitual use of cocaine, methamphetamine, oxy-cotton, and alcohol. I knew I was heading down a one way path, so I decided that seeking counseling was the best thing I could do.

Dr. Staso told me that his treatment was called neurofeedback. Neurofeedback is the study of brain waves and how different amplitudes of these waves direct behavior. The study has been around for over thirty years. Neurofeedback leaves typical western-medicine doctors sticking their nose up. Why? Neurofeedback is proven treatment for ADD, ADHD, OCD, chronic pain, as well as drug abuse, and it does it all without medication. How can this be? Well let’s take me for a typical example. I was a drug addict. (Well, according to Alcoholics Anonymous, we are always an addict, but let’s say that now that I no longer habitually use illegal drugs, I am no longer an addict.)

The human brain gives off four distinct waves; delta, alpha, beta, and theta.Apparently, when a person uses illicit substances, the brain generates a huge amount of alpha. When the drug has worn off, the alpha drops, and the body tries to keep the alpha waves higher, but it cannot produce the desired effect. So when the brain cannot keep the alpha where it wants, there is a craving. This is not different from anti-depressants. The body creates Serotonin, a substance that makes a person happy. When one is prescribed anti-depressant, synthesized serotonin is the “cure.” What happens is the body does not have to work so hard to create serotonin, so serotonin production stops. The actual amount of serotonin is higher in the body, but the body ceases to produce the desired amount. When the anti-depressant is ceased, the body cannot create enough serotonin, and so the patient drops into a higher depression, and has a craving. This is the same thing that cocaine and methamphetamine do to a user.

So what’s the solution? Harry Potter. That’s correct, no typo. Dr. Staso hooked me up to his mystery machine that monitors my EEG, or the different amplitudes of frequencies of alpha, beta, and theta waves coming from my brain. Then he plays a movie, in my case Harry Potter. He would set a certain threshold to decrease the excessive amplitude of my brain waves, and whenever it would pass that threshold, the movie would skip. The study of neurofeedback has found that the brain, if given a new set of guidelines, can adapt to the new set of guidelines. Without any conscious effort, I would start my 30 minute segment of Harry Potter with unintelligible skips and pauses, and end have a clear sailing movie. That threshold takes whatever amplitude your waves are at, and sets an according limit, so as to prevent spiking of the different frequencies, mostly the alpha peaks. The interesting thing is that neurofeedback has found that if the brain is presented with a more efficient schematic, it will adopt it. What does that mean? That means that the effects of my 30-minute session of alpha-control” are permanent.

So how does it make you feel? Well, on a typical Tuesday or Thursday, I would walk into Dr. Dan Staso’s office at 2 o’clock. By 2:15, I would be set up in the backroom. 2 electrodes were clamped on my earlobes, 2 behind my ears, at times 2 on the sides of my head, and a pair of glasses that rival Drew Carry’s on fashion sense but feature lights that blink around your eye. The purpose is to adjust your brain waves on the same phase as the computer. Not making sense?

Well, here is another way to explain it; have you ever tried to video tape a computer monitor? There is a significant amount of distortion that records until you adjust the computer monitor’s refresh rate to that of the camera. When the camera and computer monitor are in phase, the recorded video will have clear-reading computer monitors. Setting the refresh rate on the monitor is the exact same thing that these glasses do to your mind.

The room darkens and the movie starts. The focus that I had on these films is many times greater then any IMAX theater or movie theater I have ever been in. I would concentrate on the films and try to prevent the movie from skipping. The lights around my eyes made a flashing border around the movie picture. And I would watch. However, about 15 minutes into the movie, I would start to loose my thoughts of reality and of whom I was and what I was doing, and realize that the only thing that mattered was the movie. And strange as it sounds, my brain would numb. And then the next thing I would know, my session would be over and I groggily would pay and rush home to lie down for about fifteen minutes. I would emerge reborn, sober, and clear sighted. My ambition returned, and my desire for marijuana halted.

These sessions continued and I learned that the amplitude of the waves that we were controlling is recorded on a graph on the computer screen. When I started with Dr. Staso, my alpha amplitude was very high and would end low. However, now that we have finished the 20 sessions, the amplitude of my alpha starts and ends on the same level. I can even forcibly push my mind into the alpha-reduction state. If I feel out of focus or slightly off, I can put my mind in the state it was in with Harry Potter and can push down my alpha. I have trained my brain, to say the least, to learn to control the alpha.

So what’s the difference? I failed to mention that before entering Dr. Staso’s office, I was in a deep depression. I had been kicked out of college, my father’s alcoholism was rampant, I failed to move 2 times previous to return to college, my friend passed away, etc. But now, my depression is gone. My drug use is gone. I won’t even consider cocaine ever again. My ambition has returned in full. I feel as I did before I even knew what the word marijuana is. I wake up feeling happier and more energetic. And I don’t sulk in my room by myself anymore. All of this without anti-depressants.