Running Head: DIPLOMA COMMUNITY SERVICE - WORK IN AND ALCOHOL AND

OTHER DRUGS CONTEXT 1

Diploma Community Service - Work in and Alcohol and Other Drugs Context

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DIPLOMA COMMUNITY SERVICE - WORK IN AND ALCOHOL AND OTHER DRUGS
CONTEXT 2

Need for advanced medication for addiction has propelled the extensive and

transformation in the behavioral study over the past decades. Study shows that addiction is as a

result of a series of substance use that causes physiological or psychological disorder as well as

on the behavior of the individual (Koobi, 2006). This paper reviews mindfulness-based therapy

for addiction caused by activities such as alcoholism, smoking, and use of illicit drugs such as

cocaine. Mindfulness is the process of purposely creating awareness of events as they happen,

with an open mindset and developing curiosity about the phenomena. As a treatment model for

addiction, the mindfulness-based intervention aims at reducing misuse of substance and

addiction by promoting reasonable, efficient, psychophysiological process elemental to self-

control and reward process.

Mindfulness technique has been successfully integrated into other advance behavioral

programs such as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based

Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) to effectively treat behavioral addiction resulting from alcoholism,

smoking, and other drug abuse making this model more productive and reliable in relation to

other addiction treatment models. Recently, advance mindfulness-based interventions such as

Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) and Mindfulness-Based Relapse

Prevention (MBRP) have been designed to outline the processes that reduce addiction directly,

providing clinical for the individual addicted to cocaine, alcohol, and nicotine. Additionally,

Mindfulness model has been actualized as a condition, character, and practice to stimulate the

state of mindfulness; state of self-awareness characterized by alertness, non-judgmental

concurrent understanding, emotion as well as attention with no attention on past and future
DIPLOMA COMMUNITY SERVICE - WORK IN AND ALCOHOL AND OTHER DRUGS
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occasions. Mindfulness has brought about two key aspects; focused attention and open

monitoring (Lutz et al., 2008). Focused attention allows one to give attention to sensory objects

while one recognizes and avoid distracting thoughts. Free control entails monitoring the

condition of self-consciousness while acknowledging the importance of consciousness.

Moreover, mindfulness model has succeeded in restricting the reward hypothesis. This

hypothesis reduces addictive behavior by shifting the significance of the drugs and reward from

the valuation of addictive substance back to natural benefits that were beneficial before drug

addiction.

However, mindfulness as therapy for addiction, there is inadequate knowledge

in neurobiological mechanisms; neurocognitive mechanisms of addiction at attention- appraisal-

emotional interface, novel therapeutic mechanism, and hypothesized neurobiological mechanism

of mindfulness-based- relapse prevention of mindfulness model. Few tests have been conducted

on these specific mechanisms.

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References

Koob, G. F., (2006). The neurobiology of addiction: a neuroadaptational view relevant for

diagnosis. Addiction, 101, 23–30.

Lutz, A., Slagter, H. A., Dunne, J. D., & Davidson, R. J. (2008). Attention regulation and

monitoring in meditation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12(4), 163–169.