How does exercise effect substance abuse recovery

Impact of Physical Training on Substance Abuse Recovery Process
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Abstract
Substance abuse such as alcoholism is among the very widespread health challenges impacting several people within the community. Many mental remedy methods for drug addiction have been proved to be fairly efficient such as the mental intervention therapies, 12-step programs as well as pharmacological medication. Nonetheless, regardless of the achievement of these methods in assisting in initial recovery, relapse is still a big challenge. Considering this occurrence, and coherent with a developing notion of drug abuse therapy which incorporates lifestyle adjustments within the recovery process, physical training is seen as practicable extra remedy method or relapse avoidance tactic for drug abusers. Further, the increasing desire to create interventions which enhance the efficiency of the therapies have resulted in the development of techniques that promote healthy living changes which may play a role in establishing a lasting maintenance of recovery from substance abuse. Thus, interventions aiming at physical activity might be especially useful as an addition to substance abuse therapy. In this paper, the writer shall review three pieces of literature on how physical exercise impacts drug abuse recovery and concludes by conducting an annotated bibliography on these pieces of literature.
Keywords: substance abuse, recovery, physical training
Introduction
Substance abuse is a vital matter of concern for the public health.

Substance abuse produces bodily, mental as well as social harms. Concerning approaches on available as treatment methods for substance addicts, stress is put on both the physical remedy as well as psychosocial counseling which have as its preliminary point a social action strategy. Researchers have indicated, especially under the psychosocial therapy of substance abuse that it is vital to undertake an interdisciplinary method which encourages physical weaning along with learning different models of motivation as well as conduct. Physical exercise may also be utilized as a way of early avoidance of addictive substances. It has also been established that working out produces positive impacts on the recovering addict’s body, mind and improves his or her social interactions. In this paper, the writer shall examine thematically the various pieces of literature on how physical exercise may impact the substance abuse recovery process in recovering addicts. The author shall review three primary works of literature on the themes that physical activity provides a positive substitute for the drug dependence, it enhances the recovering addict’s mood through decreasing anxiety as well as depression and lastly, it increases the recovering addict’s self-efficacy thus gaining control of the recovering and preventing relapse.
Literature Review
Provides Positive Substitute
Smith and Lynch (2012) in their analysis of various works of literature explain that there exist many behavioral and mental mechanisms that are the probable results of the positive impacts of physical exercise on drug addiction. These authors explain that it functions as a substitute reinforcer which is not a drug and that reduces drug self-administration. They assert that the capacity of substitute reinforcers to reduce procedures of substance self-administration has been accurately explained by researchers and might assume the mode of consumable or action-based motivators. They explain further that the majority of the researches investigating non-drug reinforcers normally give the drug as well as non-drug motivators on a simultaneous plan, a kind of operant possibility where two choices are concurrently presented, and the participants select the way to assign its conduct to the options. Smith and Lynch (2012) aver that in researches where physical exercise was utilized as a substitute reinforcer, the decline in substance abuse usage was experienced which could not be accredited to merely having minimal time to using or administering the drug. In every research examined by Smith and Lynch (2012), experiment duration took many hours. As a result, the capability of physical exercise to reduce substance abuse is accredited to a decline in the comparative reinforcing power of the abused substance if both are concomitantly accessible.
Further, Read and Brown (2003) supports Smith and Lynch’s (2012) study review by explaining in their research that physical exercise might produce constructive substitutes to alcohol abuse through generating enjoyable conditions, for instance, via dopaminergic strengthening. Read and Brown (2003) assert that it is broadly held that endogenous opioid system stimulation caused by alcohol consumption might mediate alcohol’s reinforcing features as well as play a role in extreme drinking. Conducts which escalate the production of these chemicals result in positive reactions inside the human body and therefore, strengthen the conduct linked to this positive reaction. Dopaminergic strengthening methods within the neural structure which are triggered by things, for instance, alcohol are as well stimulated at the time of physical training. Consequently, physical training might generate same enjoyable impacts as those encountered through alcohol intake or abuse. These authors explain that it is crucial for recovering addicts to acquire satisfying as well as pleasurable social and leisure behaviors which must not involve taking of alcohol or other addictive substances. They assert that physical training may function as this behavior. Furthermore, several addicts in their initial recovery stage might discover to have a large amount of free time which was initially used to abuse drugs. Under such instances, physical training may as well function as a replacement conduct where the addict involves in physical training rather than abusing a drug. Lastly, Read and Brown (2003) explain that participation a physical activity can assist in educating a recovering addict on the advantages that the researchers explain as “high-level wellness.” This advantage permits the recovering addict to adopt a broadly improved health quality as well as strength as an element of the determination to discontinue the substance abuse.
Enhances Mood
Smith and Lynch (2012) in their study explain that physical training might as well reduce drug abuse through diminishing comorbid danger factors which are linked to the substance abuse. They state that many studies reveal that physical training reduces amounts of depression as well as anxiety within the human populace. Anxiety and depression are danger factors for drug usage and dependence. In some of the studies they examined, they established that manipulation which escalates dejection as well as anxiety within the animal experiments as well escalate amounts of drug usage and dependence. These studies established that physical training dependably reduces depression as well as anxiety within the animals in the experiments. These authors also explain that in some researches, the investigators established that physical training regulates the behavioral effects of protracted anxiety within lab animals and it could have a similar effect in the human population. Therefore, physical training produces its positive impacts through decreasing the adverse affective conditions which function to instigate, sustain, as well as speed up substance abuse.
On the other hand, Read and Brown (2003) in their research states that depression with substance abuse typically co-exists. They assert that in the latest times, researchers have revealed that rise in depressive indicators is a danger factor for alcoholism. The authors explain that physical training bears a positive effect on depressive signs with many manipulated surveys illustrating that aerobic training is linked to positive results of depression when contrasted to the population having no treatment manipulation conditions. Therefore, for these researchers, physical training might function to change mood as well as depressive signs in addicted or recovering addicts. Positive impacts of physical training on mental wellbeing have as well been revealed in individuals suffering from Substance Use Disorders (SUD). The aerobic, as well as strength working out programs at the time of recovery from drug addiction, have caused reduced depression as well as anxiety signs. The researchers further aver that certain cognitive, social learning investigators have theorized that alcohol addicts consume the liquor at least partly due to the absence of some fundamental coping competencies needed to handle the stressors connected to everyday living. Coherent with these theorists, Read, and Brown (2003) affirms that physical training might function to lessen anxiety reactivity and to replace substance abuse as the principal coping method.
Martinsen (2008) in his study on anxiety as well as depression explains that these disorders are among the main public health challenges which are risk factors for several illnesses or health conditions such as substance abuse. The researcher states that fundamental variations in a person’s lifestyle, for example, physical training may bear an enormous potential in preventing as well as treating these disorders. Therefore, with prevention of the depression and anxiety by the physical training, the risk factors for initiation or relapse to substance abuse during recovery is reduced or may be totally eliminated. Martinsen (2008) further assert that there exist rising proof that physically active individuals are at a decreased danger of having dejection. Further, physical training intervention is linked to considerable advantages for patients suffering from weak to medium types of depression and in lowering stress.
Enhances Self-Efficacy
Smith and Lynch (2012) affirm in their review of various studies that with the human populace, physical training increases people’s welfare, self-worth, as well as self-efficacy in certain situations. These positive impacts are inversely associated with substance abuse, and they might provide a safeguard from acquiring substance addiction and relapse for the recovering individuals. As the researchers have reviewed from various studies, aerobic training generates constructive impacts on the lab animals; however, the character of these impacts are moderately vivid. The animal experiments on self-esteem as well as self-efficacy are nonspecific; however, it is commonly believed that physical training is beneficial for the health of lab animals, as revealed through assessment of their bodily health as well as long life. The authors acknowledge that through these experimental proofs, physical training might reduce substance abuse relapse in humans like it generates similar positive impact conditions in animals.
In support of the above findings, Read and Brown (2003) explain that self-efficacy (that is described as an individual’s trust in his or her capability to master specific competencies) is a cognitive method which impacts people’s conduct. Therefore, changes in this cognitive system (such as improving self-efficacy) can assist in causing changes in an individual conduct such as substance abuse. Read, and Brown (2003) assert that through the self-efficacy procedure, drug addicts can attain essential physical training competencies such as self-efficacy for exercise, which might after that spread to new areas. For example, self-efficacy for executing management tactics essential for the upholding of lasting sobriety and abstinence from and prevention of relapse to substance abuse.
Conclusion
From the above review on the various works of literature relating to how physical exercise may impact the substance abuse recovery process in recovering addicts, it is evident that physical activity provides a positive substitute for the drug dependence, it enhances the recovering addict’s mood through decreasing anxiety as well as depression. Physical training also increases the recovering addict’s self-efficacy thus gaining control of the recovering and preventing relapse of the recovering addict to drug abuse.
Annotated Bibliography
Martinsen, E. W. (2008). Physical activity in the prevention and treatment of anxiety and depression. Nordic journal of psychiatry, 62(sup47), 25-29. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08039480802315640
In this article, the researcher present an extensive summary of study relating to the efficacy of physical training as a way of averting as well as curing depression and anxiety that are risk factors for drug abuse relapse. The researcher also discussed matters concerning dosage as well as conformity. In contrasting physical exercise to various approaches to curing depression and anxiety, the author established that there exist no considerable differences between physical training, psychotherapy and medication in treatment for depression. The researcher also established that various studies had discovered physical training to decrease anxiety within the general populace.
This article is vital for this research since it essentially establishes that physical training can avert anxiety and depression. It proves that working out is equally better compared to other approaches in eliminating depression or anxiety. Though it is a summary, this article offers a succinct analysis of various works of literature on the treatment of anxiety.
As established in the other two articles reviewed that anxiety and depression factors are the two most common danger factors for the cause of relapse to substance abuse; this article provides enlightenment that these factors can be eliminated through physical training hence decreases substance dependence. So in my view, it acted as a link between the findings of the other two articles to the danger factors, their elimination via physical training and thus reduction of relapse in substance abuse.
Read, J. P., & Brown, R. A. (2003). The role of physical exercise in alcoholism treatment and recovery. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 34(1), 49. DOI: 10.1037/0735-7028.34.1.49
In this article, the researchers investigated the likely function of physical training within the drug abuse recovery stage through review of several pieces of literature. They reviewed the theoretical as well as experimental proof for physical training use in substances abuse recovery. The authors analyzed the several means through which physical training interventions can be exceptionally suitable for treating alcoholism and how therapy givers can integrate physical training into substance abuse recovery. They discovered among other findings that physical training provides the alternative through generating enjoyable conditions. They also assert that the rise in depressive indicators is a danger factor for alcoholism and by eliminating these indicators, relapse may be prevented in recovering addicts.
The authors reviewed several works of literature which offered a good view on the research topic. However, some of their themes such as enhancement of self-efficacy theme are shallowly analyzed; however, it offers the necessary details for the proper understanding of the impact of physical training on drug abuse recovery.
This article was used to back or corroborate the findings established in the other articles. Thus, it acted as a reinforcer to the already established results thereby making the literature review strong and dependable. Even though it focused on alcoholism thus, appeared narrow in its scope, the researcher assumed the findings could be applicable in most drug abuse recoveries.
Smith, M. A., & Lynch, W. J. (2012). Exercise as a potential treatment for drug abuse: evidence from preclinical studies. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2, 82. http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyt.2011.00082
In this article, the authors review various preclinical researches that had previously been conducted on the effects of physical training on substances abuse recovery. They have reviewed these studies based on many themes, but of interest to this research, the authors also considered the impacts that training has on drug self-administration. They established that in these studies, most researchers discovered that physical training decreases substance self-administration. They discovered that by utilizing a drug self-administration process, test parameters might be controlled to represent the various transitional stages of drug addiction such as acquisition, continuation, acceleration, overindulge, as well as relapse. The models offer a platform where investigators may analytically assess interventions which avert, decrease, or eradicate substance abuse at various transitional phases of recovery from drug addiction.
The authors have thoroughly reviewed many past and current studies. Through this approach, they have increased and ensured external validity. Together, the reviewed researches have offered a persuasive proof to back the advancement of physical training interventions to decrease addictive conducts of substance abuse within the population at danger.
This study aided in forming the basis of this research since it draws competent conclusions from various studies under review. Therefore, it was a good source to start the research by providing a one-stop-shop for most studies related to the research topic. The synthesis of these studies further enhanced understanding of how the physical training has impacted drug abuse recovery thereby affording the researcher the skills to analyze other studies. It also looks at the evidence from preclinical experiments which further improved its reliability.
References
Martinsen, E. W. (2008). Physical activity in the prevention and treatment of anxiety and depression. Nordic journal of psychiatry, 62(sup47), 25-29. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08039480802315640
Read, J. P., & Brown, R. A. (2003). The role of physical exercise in alcoholism treatment and recovery. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 34(1), 49. DOI: 10.1037/0735-7028.34.1.49
Smith, M. A., & Lynch, W. J. (2012). Exercise as a potential treatment for drug abuse: evidence from preclinical studies. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2, 82. http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyt.2011.00082