Learning healthy behaviors

Substance abusers can learn healthy behaviors that provide the same (albeit less potent) good feelings they used to seek from a bottle, a pill or a needle. In fact, that may be what makes some rehab programs so effective for certain addicts. The behaviors these programs encourage — socializing, seeking companionship, anticipating, planning and finding purpose — are all part of an ancient, calibrated system that rewards survival behaviors with drugs from an animal’s inborn pharmacy. 


Barbara Natterson-Horowitz / Kathryn Bowers: Our Animal Natures 
The New York Times, 9 June 2011