From: Bob and Rusty Taylor (brtaylor@TELEBYTE.NET)
Date: Tue Sep 05 2000 - 10:48:17 CDT
I don't know if this is accurate from a medical perspective.. that said, I
was reduced to tears by this guys decsription of how the craving mechanism
works, especially considering how many Scouters have cravings for coffee
and chocolate.
Bob Taylor
Please share your thoughts regarding cravings.
Suggestion. If you want to abstract the diagram from E1 with the text
accompanying it, I think it might clarify the position. But in this format,
a briefer overview. The general idea that seems universal is that cravings
are a bad idea, and you fight the good fight and batter them to death
before they get you. Apart from our horror that anyone should be so out of
touch with their inner self that they would contemplate this sort of
self-abusive behavior, it's a really stupid idea to start with. Here is our
perspective.
We see cravings as vital messages at subconscious level. This area of mind
function has total, or almost total, responsibility for the overseeing of
cell functions on an automatic basis. We need no conscious involvement and
if you think of a cell as roughly comparable in complexity to a capital
city, the average individual has 40 billion body cells. To co-ordinate all
of them every second of life is an unbelievably complex and miraculous task
which our subconscious achieves with effortless ease.
Lets use a 'standard' illustration of the alleged 'bad guy' chocolate. Lets
also assume that you are indulging in something as dire as the cabbage soup
diet. If this doesn't create instant depression, nothing will. So for some
reason, your brain production of a substance called pheylethylalanine shuts
down. It is sometimes known as the "happy" drug because it keeps you
buoyant. If the level in the body dips, depression ahoy bells start ringing
in subcon, and it has to kickstart production pronto. Which might not be
possible depending on the reasons for the shutdown. Here is a crisis
situation that is going to have a knockon effect on 40 billion cells, so it
isn't a minor matter.
We use the simplistic illustration of a computer system for conscious and
subconscious with 2-10% representing the proportion of the first and 90-98%
for the second. So you have a gigantically powerful and fast computer
system with a bouden duty to rectify this crisis situation. Only it's spun
through the standard options to get PEA levels up, and no joy. Second step
takes nano seconds. Check all memory databases to find a potential
alternative solution. Eureka. You were three years old, the doctor gave you
an injection and you cried your eyes out. So you were bribed with a square
of luscious chocolate. a) it's a quick sugar fix and b) chocolate is one of
the only external sources of phenylethylalanine, and it is absorbed rapidly
c) it tastes nice.
So end of tears and you are happy once more. Simple memory, lost in the
neurological junkyard. No matter. Subcon discovers it in the fraction of a
split second, evaluates it and realizes that this might be the answer it
needs. Step 3. Subcon knows the answer. Conscious does not. The former can
hardly pick up a telephone and say 'Hey, I need a choc supply, like last
week'. The two-way communication system is kinesthetic i.e. via feelings.
So the message goes out and you get a tap on the door announcing the polite
request, 'May I have some chocolate, soonest, please?' Do you respond
affirmatively, with the same courtesy? No, you take a club and batter the
messenger to pulp. Poor little guy limps back to base to report the
misfortune, and this is where the 'beat the cravings to death brigade' come
badly unglued.
Subcon needs that chocolate and the messenger, i.e. the craving, has to
continue returning to the door and knocking.
Only several batterings later, it starts to wise up and kick the door hard.
Your response remains the same, clobber it with a blunt instrument, and so
the exchange goes on, but escalating in intensity until a totally teed off
messenger kicks the door down in its despairing efforts to deliver a
simple, polite, request. And if you translate the outcome at this point,
you are out at the candy store buying up their entire stock because the
craving is no longer a whisper but a roar. And bang goes the diet rule with
a crash which wakes up guilt, and guilt was bunking with anger which also
gets disturbed, and there's a rare old dingdong going on in your head.
And all so tragically, totally un-necessary. The message was important. If
you had heeded the craving and slipped a square of chocolate in your mouth,
no harm would have resulted, guilt wouldn't have come calling to bawl you
out for waking him up, and, heck, don't you get the point? Cravings are
valid messages from subconscious level to conscious level. And they must
have an answer, or they simply keep repeating and intensifying until you do
respond. Respond first time, you stay in control, and all parts are happy
as sandboys. Particularly subcon which has the solution to its PEA shortage
plugged in and calming things down. End of crisis. No harm done. So message
loud and clear is that cravings are friends and not enemies. Respond first
time and you stay in control, and a little of what you crave will end the
crisis. Go to war on yourself and you'll start a forest fire.
--- "If you build it, they will come."
/ \
----------- Bob Taylor Troop, 1590 Committee Chairman
(| @ @ |) Chief Seattle Council
| > | WE1-609-97 (A good old Buffalo)
" \_/ " worked my ticket and always an Eagle!
"""""
""" brtaylor@telebyte.net (home)
webpage: http://pacific.telebyte.com/~brtaylor/
