Drugs As Stimulus Essay, Research Paper

Throughout life we are subjected to countless stimuli, and our responses to

those stimuli shape and affect our lives and those surrounding us. This example

of real life classical conditioning is one that took a negative affect on a

close friend of mine. My senior year in high school my friend formed a new group

of people he associated with. This was not a problem until drugs entered the

equation, and soon after he began to associate drug use with fun, and enjoyment

whereas before just hanging out with his new friends provided his fun and

enjoyment. This conditioning occurred because he was too ignorant to realize

that it was his friends and not the drugs that provided the good times. This

example is one of classical conditioning, because it involves the association of

two stimuli, drugs and friends, one of which had no previous effect one him (the

drugs). Eventually through classical conditioning drugs triggered a response of

enjoyment. This differs from operant conditioning because his behavior with the

associated stimulus (drugs) was not strengthened or diminished from

reinforcement or punishment. The critical elements in my example include: the

unconditioned stimulus, the conditioned stimulus, the unconditioned response,

and the conditioned response. The unconditioned stimulus is the group of friends

he hung out with. These friends of his naturally and automatically triggered a

response in him, and that response was enjoyment and happiness. The

unconditioned response was his reaction from his friends, and this reaction was

one of happiness and enjoyment. The conditioned stimulus was the drugs he

started using. He began to associate this stimulus, which was neutral when

introduced, with the enjoyment he had when with his friends. The conditioned

response was the same as the unconditioned response, happiness, and enjoyment.

However, the conditioned response was in response to the drugs and not his

friends. So, eventually in his mind drug use meant a good time, when in reality

it was slowly killing him. Using the example of my friend there are several ways

to change his response to his continued drug use. One such option would be to

distance my friend from his other friends, and then in time hopefully the use of

drugs would become extinct, because he wouldn?t associate drugs with enjoyment

and realize how bad they are. One problem with this is the possibility of

spontaneous recovery or relapse; this especially has a much greater chance with

a drug user because you have to factor in the addiction problem. Another

possibility to change his conditioning involves the concept of generalization.

Many associate drug use with risk taking, if he could find some risky yet

healthy behavior such as sky diving or mountain climbing, those new risks could

take the place of the drugs. This is a somewhat similar method as when hardcore

heroin addicts are placed on methadone to satisfy the cravings. However due to

discrimination he might find these new risks to dissimilar to the old and not

have the same controlled response of pleasure and enjoyment. A final possibility

that could work would be to introduce a new controlled stimulus in a structured

environment, such as therapy. This new stimulus could be anything from electric

shock applied when a craving for drugs occur or pictures or stories from drug

addicts that will leave a negative image in his head whenever he thinks of using

drugs. The idea behind this would be to replace the feelings of pleasure

associated with drug use to feelings of discomfort and disgust whenever he

thinks of drugs. Through one or perhaps all three techniques my friends drug use

will stop, I guess I will have to wait and find out.