With Pleasure Comes Pain – Our Addiction to Dopamine

We all want to feel content and connected, and what we are going to explore today is the idea that contentment and connectedness relates to keeping the neurotransmitter dopamine in check. 

In her new book, Dopamine Nation, Dr. Anna Lembke, a psychiatrist and author, explores the exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the relentless pursuit of pleasure ultimately leads to pain, and more importantly, what each of us can do about it. In the book, Dr. Lembke reviews the experiences of many of her patients who are suffering with addiction and hoping for redemption. And these compelling stories give all of us hope for managing our pleasure-directed consumption and transforming our lives.

Anna Lembke, MD, is a professor in the department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine, and Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Clinic. 

In 2016, she published Drug Dealer, MD – How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016), highlighted in the New York Times as one of the top five books to read to understand the opioid epidemic. 

Dr. Lembke recently appeared on the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma, an unvarnished look at the impact of social media on our lives. 

Her forthcoming book that we review on today’s podcast, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence, explores how to moderate compulsive overconsumption, including digital products, in a world where feeling good is the highest good.