Seneca Valley holds “Power of Prevention” seminar
JACKSON TWP — Dozens of parents and students assembled in the auditorium of Seneca Valley Senior High School on Wednesday night, Oct. 25 for the “Power of Prevention” seminar, which aimed to educate parents on how to deal with addiction in today’s world.
The host of the seminar was Dr. C. Thomas Brophy, medical director of the Ellen O’Brien Gaiser Center in Butler. Addiction is a topic that Brophy has a secondhand personal history with.
When he was studying neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh, his own brother was struggling with heroin addiction.
“I grew up with this in my own household,” Brophy said. “So I’ve always been that person to stand up and say it’s not a parenting failure.”
Brophy began the presentation by asking the audience whether they believed that addiction was a disease or whether it was caused by personal choices. The rest of the presentation, which lasted roughly an hour and 15 minutes, led to the conclusion that it was a combination of both.
He brought up the basic physiological pathway to addiction, when the addictive substance essentially hijacks the limbic system — the part of the brain that regulates the behavioral and emotional responses such as the need for food, shelter and reproduction.
“What happens when that part of the brain hangs on to that addictive substance over everything else?” Brophy said. “That person will forgo food, water, sex, shelter, safety. They will become a shell of the person that they once were.”
Brophy recounted a particularly harrowing experience he had roughly five years ago while he was working at one of the hospitals in the West Virginia University system. One night, a nurse rushed into the emergency room carrying in her arms a baby in her arms who, as he described it, was “pale white” and “lifeless.”
When Brophy got a look at the child’s pupils, he saw they were constricted — a telltale sign the baby had somehow overdosed on opioids. Life signs returned to the baby after it was administered a dose of Narcan.
“So now I had to step out into the hallway and have a very uncomfortable conversation with law enforcement,” Brophy said. “I'm about to put that mom in handcuffs.”
A key topic of the presentation was brain plasticity, and how certain individuals can use it to their advantage. One example that Brophy brought up was David Goggins, a retired Navy SEAL and ultramarathon runner who cited “hardening the mind” as the key to his success.
“When he was 23 years old, he was 300 pounds,” Brophy said. “He couldn’t run a mile. They wouldn’t let him in the military. But through that process of neuroplasticity, exposing his brain to different things ... he was able to direct those brain changes in a very specific way.”
Brophy concluded his presentation by advising parents to watch out for the differences between the typical signs of puberty in teenagers and the signs that their teenager may be going through a substance abuse problem. These include sudden personality changes and isolation, as well as changes in circles of friends.
“When people start abusing substances, they tend to isolate because they don't want other people to see what they’re doing,” Brophy said. “There's a shame element that comes with it in most situations.”
