NEUROLOGICAL
Addiction physically alters the brain. It rewires the reward system, making substances feel more necessary and pleasurable than natural rewards. It weakens areas like the prefrontal cortex that handle decision-making and impulse control, while heightening stress circuits that drive irritability and anxiety.
​
Even after abstinence begins, these changes linger, meaning the brain remains primed for relapse. Recovery here means giving the brain time to heal, developing new neural pathways, and supporting neuroplasticity through healthy activities.
SOCIAL
Addiction thrives in — and often depends on — certain social environments. Relationships built around drinking or using, family systems marked by secrecy or enabling, or cultural norms that glorify heavy consumption all play a part. At the same time, isolation and loneliness are powerful drivers of substance use.
Recovery means fostering healthy social connections, rebuilding trust where possible, finding community with others in recovery, and sometimes stepping away from old circles that threaten sobriety.
BEHAVIOURAL
Addiction embeds itself through habits and conditioned responses. People learn to turn to substances in moments of stress, joy, boredom, or pain — until using becomes almost automatic. Certain places, people, or emotional states trigger the old patterns.
Recovery requires more than resisting temptation; it demands building new routines, dismantling unhealthy rituals, and learning practical strategies to navigate triggers and break the chain of automatic responses.
SPIRITUAL
At its deepest level, addiction strikes at meaning and spirit. Many lose sight of their core values, abandon dreams, or feel disconnected from any sense of purpose. There is often a spiritual emptiness — not necessarily religious — but a lack of hope and belonging.
​
Recovery isn’t just about quitting substances; it’s about discovering what makes life worth living, reconnecting to principles that inspire dignity and direction, and building a sense of contribution and belonging.
EMOTIONAL
Many people start using substances to cope with uncomfortable emotions — fear, shame, grief, anxiety, or unresolved trauma. But addiction actually increases emotional instability over time, trapping people in a cycle where feelings drive use and use worsens feelings.
Full recovery means developing emotional literacy: learning to recognise, accept, and work through feelings without needing to escape into intoxication.
PHYSICAL
Addiction takes a heavy toll on the body. Malnutrition, disrupted sleep, and chronic illness are often part of the picture, along with years of neglect and physical wear. The body itself can carry unprocessed trauma, storing stress that shows up as tension, pain, or disease.
Recovery means learning to regulate that stress through breath and rest, tending to ongoing health conditions, and slowly restoring strength, balance, and vitality.
The Quintiva Framework© : A Comprehensive Guide to Addressing Neurological, Behavioural, Emotional, Social, Spiritual and Physical Dimensions in Recovery
​
The Quintiva Framework is a model born out of decades of hands-on recovery work, combined with deep study of neuroscience, psychology, trauma research, and spiritual traditions. Like many meaningful ideas, it didn’t appear all at once. It emerged gradually — from countless conversations with people battling addiction, from observing what truly helped them change, and from wrestling with what was missing in many traditional approaches.
​
Early on, I was struck by a simple but profound realisation: addiction does not exist in just one part of a person’s life. It affects — and is sustained by — multiple interlocking systems: the brain’s chemistry and wiring, a person’s habits and learned responses, their emotional wounds and stress patterns, their social environment and relationships, and finally, their deeper sense of purpose or spiritual grounding. Yet too often, treatment focuses narrowly on a single domain, hoping it alone will be enough. A purely clinical approach might stabilise the brain but ignore emotional or relational wreckage. A psychological approach might examine thought patterns but neglect brain biology. A mutual aid path might nurture spiritual growth but overlook trauma’s grip on the nervous system.
​
So I began asking: what if we could bring these domains together into one unified model? One that honours the complexity of human experience and offers a structured way to work on all the places addiction takes hold — so we can also heal all the places it hurts.
​
The core diagnostic insight
​
Addiction often begins as a way to cope — a response to pain, discomfort, or unmet needs. This might include:
-
Trauma: neglect, abuse, profound loss, or chronic emotional wounds.
​
-
Mental health issues: such as anxiety, depression, ADHD, or bipolar disorder, where substances are used to self-soothe or regulate mood.
​
-
Social and cultural norms: environments that normalise heavy drinking or drug use, making it seem acceptable or even expected.
​
-
Pressure and belonging: the need to fit in with peers, workplace cultures, or family patterns.
​
-
The substance itself: some drugs are so neurologically reinforcing (like opioids, nicotine, alcohol) that dependence can develop even without obvious emotional drivers.
No matter how it starts, once addiction is established it changes the brain, embeds compulsive patterns, and becomes a primary illness in its own right — sustaining itself neurologically and behaviourally long after the original cause may have faded. Recovery must address those origins, but never lose sight of the condition it has become.​​​
Integrating diverse roots: neuroscience, psychology, and lived experience
​
The Quintiva Framework stands on the shoulders of many giants. Neuroscience has shown us how addiction alters dopamine pathways, hijacks reward systems, and impairs regions critical for judgement and self-control. Behavioural psychology revealed how habits form and why triggers spark powerful urges. Trauma research, from pioneers like Bessel van der Kolk and Gabor Maté, exposed how adverse experiences embed in the body and emotions, often driving compulsive attempts to self-soothe. The 12 Step tradition illuminated the power of surrender, moral inventory, amends, and finding a sense of higher purpose. And countless individuals in recovery — people I’ve known, taught, coached, or simply sat with — demonstrated through their stories what it takes to rebuild a meaningful life.​​​
​
Quintiva does not discard any of these contributions. It weaves them together into a framework that helps us see the whole person and guides practical interventions that meet them where they are.
Why six domains?
-
​Neurological: Because addiction literally reshapes the brain. Recovery involves stabilising, rewiring, and learning how to manage triggers tied to neurobiology.
-
Behavioural: Because addiction is also a set of habits, rituals, and learned responses. Changing the environment, building new routines, and disrupting automatic chains are essential.
-
Emotional: Because unprocessed stress, grief, shame, and trauma keep people stuck. Recognising each person’s Adverse Emotional Stress Threshold (A.E.S.T.) helps tailor support.
-
Social: Because human beings heal or suffer in community. Relationships can be sources of strength or risk. Recovering a healthy social life is fundamental.
-
Spiritual: Because without meaning, hope, or guiding values, many find it hard to stay well. This doesn’t demand religious faith, but it does invite exploring what makes life worth living.
-
Physical: Because addiction ravages the body, it strips us of essential vitamins and minerals, is the cause of many illnesses and ultimately destroys health. Remember thold saying 'healthy body heathy mind' - nothing could be closer to the truth.