Cross, Transfer, and Process Addiction

The “Whack-a-mole” of substance use recovery

Process and transfer addictions are often called the “Whack-A-Mole of Addiction” because they “pop up” as soon as you put down your drug of choice (which I will call DOC for the rest of this blog).

The Foundation of How Cross, Transfer, and Process Addiction Happy

DOC is determined by the effects of the drug itself, availability of the drug, the peer group of the individual, legality, and ease of access. It can also be influenced by the age of first use of substances. A person’s mental health may also influence the decision; they may choose a DOC due to an augmenting or a minimizing impact on mental health symptoms. Weed to “manage anxiety” is a common one.

Then the addictive cycle begins: The use then changes the brain, and continued use “hardwires” those changes into rituals, routines, and habits. Habituation is one of the 6 ways (that can c0-occur) that a substance use disorder happens.

If you stop using your DOC, your brain still wants the relief or sensation that the DOC created. It will seek it and “tell” you whatever it takes to continue use to continue the drug effects. It will tell you that “you didn’t have a problem with alcohol”  and you can “take Ambien to sleep” or that you liked stimulants and “didn’t have a problem with alcohol.”

When you cease using your DOC, your brain which hosts your emotions and feelings continue to seek the benefit that your DOC gave: stress management, energy, “numbing out,” the perception of celebration or connection. This happens when your recovery and sobriety habits are not developed and established and your brain naturally seeks an alternative. This alternative is often through a different mind-altering substance and/or process or behavioral addiction behaviors.

Here’s What Happens with Process, Cross, and Transfer Addiction Behavior

In substance use disorder, your brain is primed to use mind altering drugs and mind-altering behaviors and to process them with an exaggerated and augmenting biophysical process. If you use a non-choice drug or behavior, your brain will process that, lighting up the same neural pathways that were in play with your addiction to your DOC.

In addition, the propensity to seek the mind-altering drug or behavior strongly suggests that you were not managing life in holistic, healthy ways. Often this means that you did not have a stress management plan in place and operational. As you look for a chemical control of life, you displace, miss, or do not develop organic and holistic habits of recovery; the habits that satiate and reduce and eliminate craving.

The Risk of Process, Cross, and Transfer Behavior in Substance Use Disorder Recovery

In early sobriety, particularly if you had a preferred substance and are not interacting with it, your brain can frame this as an Illusion that you have control. As your brain seeks routine, ritual, and relief, this illusion of control becomes a relapse justification.

For example, you might tell yourself and others that using a particular substance that wasn’t “your thing” or using a class of drug that wasn’t “your thing” (for example, “I like downers, not stimulants.”)

Let’s review some relapse and slippery slope justifications. They include:

• Denying what you know to be true about the disease of addiction
• Denying what professionals, experts, or authorities in the field say about substance use disorder and treatment
• Viewing information regarding substance abuse and treatment as not pertaining to you
• Once again, thinking that this time, you would have control over your drinking/drugging 
• Not developing a recovery identity which includes being unwilling to be honest with others about your thoughts and feelings about recovery, using, and how you fit in for example, your brain tells you that you don’t belong in recovery or with “those people”
• Not appropriately managing your stress
• Not appropriately managing your feelings
• Misuse of the medical system
• Misuse of PRN (PRN is medical terminology that means as needed)

Here Are Behaviors that are Common Transfer Process Addictions:

• Engaging in romantic love or sex in recovery (especially in early recovery where it mimics use and allows recovery habits to drop)
• Over-gaming
• Religiosity
• Extreme working out
• Spending
• Gambling
• Risk taking/high adventure
• Mis/overuse of porn

What Are The Behaviors that Increase the Risk of Transfer and Process Addiction?

• Lack of a positive habit based program of recovery – (not creating habits that change neurobiology)
• Having a negative and/or hostile world view
• Having an Immature wish to “just be happy”
• Wanting to be “normal”
• Feeling stuck and not asking for help
• Not talking about triggers you might have experienced
• Resisting feedback by either not sharing or giving excuses or justifications. If confronted, you may get mad or defensive
• Looking for the person to give you the answer you want
• Searching the internet for research that supports the answer you want

• Disregarding information that is contrary to the answer you want
• Post-acute withdrawal (PAW) which will be covered in another video
• Achievement, productivity, and busyness (even in terms of recovery habits and activity)
• Dropping of recovery habits
• Sex/high risk sexual behavior
• Casual behavior with Rx – taking other people’s prescribed medicine thinking “it’s not a big deal”

Here is a list of slippery slope and risky substances

• Overuse of energy drinks
• Kombucha
• Pre-workout drinks
• CBD and THC products are problematic because it’s an unregulated industry and you can’t control the product
• Non-alcoholic beer and wine (I have a video on this)
• Not disclosing to medical providers SUD status when seeking Rx for sleep, pain, discomfort, and mental health
• “Using” or “exploiting” other medical issues to get a medical intervention or Rx
• Use of OTC medication that contains alcohol such as Nyquil or equivalents

What is Cross Tolerance and Why Is It Important?

Another thing to be aware of in developing a plan to manage the risk of transfer or process addiction is cross-tolerance.

Tolerance is when your body becomes accustomed to your DOC and you need to take more, more often, or more potent drugs. Cross tolerance is when a tolerance to a different class of drugs exists. Cross tolerance is when a person’s brain and body already have an elevated tolerance in a drug class different from their DOC’s drug class. In effect, the tolerance transfers.

Cross tolerance creates a risk for relapse to the DOC because it can (and often does) catalyze a craving for the person’s DOC. This carries the risk of the individual having to do more of the drug or behavior than expected and that can be dangerous in addition to a barrier to holistic recovery. Cross tolerance continues the craving,  the defense mechanisms, and relapse justifications.

A cross addicted drug or behavior can create or accelerate a relapse.

What Can a Person Do To Minimize the Risks of Process or Transfer Addiction?

1. Seek professional help with a specialized and licensed provider.
2. Remember to manage any co-occurring mental health disorders. I recently created some content on this. 
3. Build a solid recovery plan using proven and multidimensional tools. I have a video on this as well. In addition, I have created a FREE PDF that summarizes these strategies.

For more information, content, support, and tools on how to manage executive stress and enjoy life without drugs, alcohol, or over-relying on unhealthy coping, subscribe and check out my link to a free workbook on managing stress to help stop drinking.