On Monday night in Yankee Stadium, Josh Hamilton made yet another gigantic statement to the rest of the world with his record-breaking first round in the Home Run Derby. After being the first overall selection in the 1999 MLB draft by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Hamilton succumbed to a drug and alcohol problem that sent his life spiraling in the wrong direction. Over a four year period, Hamilton was suspended four times for drug violations and eventually was suspended for good by Commissioner Bud Selig. After cleaning up his life, Hamilton was reinstated in 2006 and has shocked many baseball experts with his meteoric rise to the top.
After a great 2007 for the Cincinnati Reds which included constant ribbing from opposing fans about his past drug use, Hamilton is the leading MVP candidate in the American League for the Texas Rangers. With 95 RBIs at the all-star break, Hamilton is on pace for one of the best seasons of the past 10 years. With his unbelievable performance on Monday Night in New York, Hamilton told the world that he was on top of the baseball world to stay. What surprised many viewers was the fact that Hamilton appeared to be a light-hearted kid that could have been the neighbor boy next door, not the drug-riddled thug that many critics labeled him during his years fighting his addiction. The thing that people don’t realize is that drug addictions, especially those to stimulants like cocaine and heroin, take over a person’s brain and often leaves the person helpless. Understanding what cocaine and heroin do to the brain will make a person better understand how incredible Josh Hamilton’s comeback has been.
In a normally functioning human brain, neurotransmitters are constantly firing to keep the brain on even grounds and to allow people’s cognitive abilities to function on a normal level. The main pleasure pathway in the brain contains large levels of dopamine transporters that, when triggered, provide people with a feeling of euphoria throughout their body. When cocaine is introduced into the brain, it binds with the dopamine transporters causing the transporter to stop functioning and creates a build-up of dopamine in the synaptic cleft where the reward circuit exists. Using cocaine results in extreme pleasure that people can’t normally feel when the brain is working
properly.
Prolonged exposure to cocaine causes the need for more dopamine in the synaptic cleft in order for the person to simply feel normal. The answer to the need for more dopamine in the brain is either for the person to use even more cocaine or to suffer the consequences of withdrawal. When an addict cuts free from cocaine, the brain is so deregulated that it often results in severe depression and research has shown that the brain’s reward center may never be the same after the use of cocaine. All of this seems to occur as a natural reaction from the body which gives you a sense of how difficult it would be to quit using. With other addictions such as cigarettes and marijuana, people can often will themselves to quit because the brain isn’t being altered. With cocaine, the brain becomes so deregulated that addicts are pulled toward cocaine by their natural instincts to fulfill the reward center, which makes it that much tougher to quit.
Not only was Josh Hamilton not fulfilling his baseball dreams, his addiction was causing his brain to react in ways that likely made his life a living hell. Once a person reaches that point in an addiction where they are no longer able to understand pleasure, death usually becomes the next destination. Now, Josh Hamilton is clean and fulfilling everyone’s dream of what he would be when he was the top pick in 1999.
After a great 2007 for the Cincinnati Reds which included constant ribbing from opposing fans about his past drug use, Hamilton is the leading MVP candidate in the American League for the Texas Rangers. With 95 RBIs at the all-star break, Hamilton is on pace for one of the best seasons of the past 10 years. With his unbelievable performance on Monday Night in New York, Hamilton told the world that he was on top of the baseball world to stay. What surprised many viewers was the fact that Hamilton appeared to be a light-hearted kid that could have been the neighbor boy next door, not the drug-riddled thug that many critics labeled him during his years fighting his addiction. The thing that people don’t realize is that drug addictions, especially those to stimulants like cocaine and heroin, take over a person’s brain and often leaves the person helpless. Understanding what cocaine and heroin do to the brain will make a person better understand how incredible Josh Hamilton’s comeback has been.
In a normally functioning human brain, neurotransmitters are constantly firing to keep the brain on even grounds and to allow people’s cognitive abilities to function on a normal level. The main pleasure pathway in the brain contains large levels of dopamine transporters that, when triggered, provide people with a feeling of euphoria throughout their body. When cocaine is introduced into the brain, it binds with the dopamine transporters causing the transporter to stop functioning and creates a build-up of dopamine in the synaptic cleft where the reward circuit exists. Using cocaine results in extreme pleasure that people can’t normally feel when the brain is working
properly.Prolonged exposure to cocaine causes the need for more dopamine in the synaptic cleft in order for the person to simply feel normal. The answer to the need for more dopamine in the brain is either for the person to use even more cocaine or to suffer the consequences of withdrawal. When an addict cuts free from cocaine, the brain is so deregulated that it often results in severe depression and research has shown that the brain’s reward center may never be the same after the use of cocaine. All of this seems to occur as a natural reaction from the body which gives you a sense of how difficult it would be to quit using. With other addictions such as cigarettes and marijuana, people can often will themselves to quit because the brain isn’t being altered. With cocaine, the brain becomes so deregulated that addicts are pulled toward cocaine by their natural instincts to fulfill the reward center, which makes it that much tougher to quit.
Not only was Josh Hamilton not fulfilling his baseball dreams, his addiction was causing his brain to react in ways that likely made his life a living hell. Once a person reaches that point in an addiction where they are no longer able to understand pleasure, death usually becomes the next destination. Now, Josh Hamilton is clean and fulfilling everyone’s dream of what he would be when he was the top pick in 1999.
No comments:
Post a Comment