In a randomized
clinical trial with 98 addicts designed by Robert Duncan, Ph.D.,
biostatistician at the University of Miami School of Medicine, Dr.
Holder found that daily chiropractic adjustments five times a week over
a 30-day period increased the retention rate to 100%. “This is unheard
of; it’s never happened before in addiction treatment,” Dr. Holder
says. At a national average of only $40 per chiropractic adjustment,
this rate of success costs only about $800 per month. Add to this $50
for a one-month’s supply of amino
acids and $240-$400 a month for four addiction counseling
sessions, and you have a total program cost of $1,100 to $1,250.
John’s previously unsuccessful treatment, by comparison, cost his
family $16,000 a month.
John’s parents saw the results but couldn’t
understand how chiropractic could have achieved them. Dr. Holder
explains, “Simply put, addiction is compulsive use of a chemical or
activity in spite of negative consequences.” You keep using a
substance even though you know it’s bad for you. There are five types
of addiction, including work, food, sex, drugs, chemicals, and gambling,
and each one has many factors. “But these five categories are all
variations of one disease–addiction.”
According to research reviewed by Dr. Holder, two
key factors play a role in causing addictions. First, according to
Kenneth Blum, Ph. D., of the University of Texas Health Science Center
at San Antonio, there is genetic cause. Dr. Blum discovered the same
genetic flaw (called “the A-1 allele of the D-2 dopamine receptor”)
in 69% of severe alcoholics compared to only 20% of nonalcoholic people.
Blum’s treatment, based on 30 years research, involves the use of
amino acids to balance the brain reward cascade chemicals (called
neurotransmitters) which are chronically deficient in the addicted
person.
What’s the connection between a misaligned spine
and addictions? It has to do with the interruption of a precise sequence
of chemical changes in your brain called the “brain reward cascade.”
If this cascade is not interrupted, you feel a sense of well-being and
pleasure. If the sequence is interrupted, resulting in what is known as
“reward deficiency syndrome,” you may seek mood-altering substances
or activities. The brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters must be
released in the right sequence, like falling dominoes, for you to feel
good.
The biochemical end of the line is the release of
dopamine; dopamine reward may be the biochemical secret to understanding
addictions.
How does a misalignment in your back interfere
with the flow of chemicals in the brain? Holder’s theory is that
emotions and feelings are felt not just in your head, but in your spine
as well.
If your spine is misaligned anywhere along its
length, that condition can interfere with the proper operation of the
limbic system and the flow of reward chemicals in your brain
Chiropractic gets the dopamine flowing again, balancing the brain reward
cascade. Chiropractic offers the public something that conventional
medicine cannot: a drug-free addiction treatment program.
Acupuncturists achieve excellent results in
treating addictions but with only 7,000 for a population of 256 million,
there are too few to go around. Most conventional doctors cannot
successfully treat addictions because they are inadequately trained and
tend to prescribe mood-altering drugs which only replace one substance
with another and leave addicts at risk to relapse.
“Chiropractors, who number 50,000 in America
today, are the logical primary intervention resource to deal with
addiction,” says Dr. Holder. How this daring claim plays out in the
profession’s next one hundred years remains to be seen. But nobody
expects recovered addicts to argue the point.
