American scientists conducted an experiment: they implanted an electrode into the brain of a rat, which, when current was applied, stimulated the pleasure center. In order for the current to flow to the electrode, and the rat could get pleasure, it was necessary to press the pedal - which is what the rat was taught to do. The animal died of exhaustion, pressing the pedal, although there was food nearby. The rat was lucky; with the help of experimenters, it found its meaning in life, dying in pleasure. Well, okay, the rat is a “brainless” animal, but what about people? I wonder how many people would do the same as the rat if given such a wonderful opportunity? Would you say no? But people who use stimulants (which include morphine, in the form of its derivative heroin, cocaine, and nicotine and caffeine) act exactly like this happy rat. In the human body, during his life, a certain the amount of hormones that control his condition, including feelings of happiness, anxiety, pain, pleasure. These hormones are mostly secreted in various parts of the brain, for example, in the pituitary gland, which, in order to perform this action, must receive a command from the hypothalamus, a kind of “command center” that determines the level of your happiness, in accordance with the goals of the evolution of life. And it determines whether you will be satisfied with your life and filled with the divine consciousness of the world around you, or lost in search of the elusive meaning of your existence. Depending on the individual characteristics of the physiology of the nervous system (it can be called fine-tuning), the amount of “happiness” or “anxiety and grief “It’s different for people, but more or less constant for everyone - that is, its quantity (a certain balance) that is prescribed in the job descriptions of the management center. This is something like a neurotransmitter “carrot and stick” that nature needs to control living organisms. Humanity has long known many ways to increase the amount of happiness and reduce anxiety artificially. The mechanism is simple: find substances similar in their molecular composition to substances that are secreted by organs that are “stingy” for this according to a certain limit, find a way to introduce them into the body - and here it is happiness (though not for long, but nothing lasts forever) . This happens because artificial ones are added to the natural and strictly limited hormones of pleasure. But we all know (if not ourselves, then from the outside for sure) what a hangover or withdrawal symptoms are for a drug addict. And this phenomenon is explained quite simply. When a person begins to introduce artificial stimulants (heroin, alcohol, caffeine, nicotine), the body, in accordance with its master plan for a limited amount of happiness, reduces the production of natural stimulants, trying to return the person to his normal level. The diagram is very simplified, but it is quite sufficient for understanding the operation of this mechanism. If at the beginning of use a person experiences obvious euphoria, since artificial ones are added to natural ones, then after some time the natural hormones decrease, being replaced by artificial ones. And the person returns, so to speak, to his norm of happiness. But now it already depends on stimulants introduced from outside, and in their absence a person experiences strong negative emotions (it’s better not to joke with nature here). I like this analogy of this process: taking a stimulant, a person, as it were, takes part of the pleasure, happiness, energy from the future. And when this future comes, you need to pay off your debts or make new ones. In general, in order to at least be normal, you need to continue taking the same amount. In order to be able to continue to receive pleasure that is not authorized by the body, you need to increase the dose - to which, of course, the body immediately reacts by reducing it. An overdose of a drug addict and the consumption of several packs of cigarettes a day is one of the consequences of this game. From this trap laid out for us by Mother Nature, there are two.