Exercise as a substitute drug for addicts

I suggest offering addicts the possibility of creating internal substitute drugs by their own efforts.

Around 16 years ago 'endorphins', the brain's own opiate substance, were first described. Their effects resemble those of morphine and they are released into the circulation by, inter alia, vigorous physical exercise, such as running and jogging. They have been held at least partly responsible for the favourable mood - at its extreme the 'runner's high' - which such exercise can produce in ordinary people and in mildly depressed or anxious psychiatric patients. Exercise can also produce analgesia, reduced sensitivity to pain, which is probably the most important medical effect of externally administered opiate drugs.

Since physical exercise is increasingly being prescribed by GPs, sometimes in collaboration with sport psychologists, in their day-to-day practice, the time for systematic trials with addicts could not be more propitious.