Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence
Anna Lembke
This book is about pleasure. It's also about pain. Most important, it's about how to find the delicate balance between the two, and why now more than ever finding balance is essential. more
304 pages, ebook
First published Dutton Books
3.92
Rating
38082
Ratings
3330
Reviews
Anna Lembke
6 books 345 followers
Anna Lembke is an American psychiatrist who is Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic at Stanford University. She is a specialist in the opioid epidemic in the United States, and the author of Drug Dealer, MD, How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop.Community reviews
This book is moralistic hogwash parading as science. Lembke repeatedly uses inappropriate data (Page 38: She quotes a "famous seventeenth century physician" who thinks pain and inflammation are part of the healing process. Guess what. : 21st century research has found the exact opposite to be true: Pain impedes healing, and inflammation IS disease); over generalizes anecdotes from her work with severely addicted individuals to the general population; and uses bogus statistics (She lists lots of increases in drug use as percentage rates without giving a baseline. An increase from zero to one is a 100% increase, but that doesn't make it a significant trend). more
I have written nearly a thousand reviews on this site. The review that I wrote for this book has gotten hundreds more likes than any other, and it was the most negative one I ever wrote. Rather than continue to spread that negativity, I deleted the content of my original review and if you see this, I ask you to think on why that is. And no need to tag this with a like. Spare my notifications. more
Moral puritanism disguised as science. The author uses her credentials to make it seem like she is coming from a rational, scientific point of view, and then uses the kind of anecdotes you see in tabloids to cause scare/terrify you. For example, she tells the story of a four year old sodomizing his little brother as an example of the impact of widely available pornography on our society—as if such a bizarre, singular event had any statistical significance, and wasn't just meant to terrify you. There is no other way for me to interpret her polemic on "availability" and touting the success of prohibition as tacit approval of the war on drugs. This is what happens you spend your whole life wielding a hammer. more
TL;DR skip it. There are better books about addiction and psychiatry. A undercooked look at compulsive behavior and addiction, with lots of missing pieces. Seems like the author had a basic, mechanical understanding of homeostasis and tried to build out a global perspective on addiction that she wasn't prepared to give. 25% of this book was just lists of things people get addicted to. more
Short Summary: From simple pleasure such as eating food to watching porn and using drugs, the desire we fill is fueled by a hormone called Dopamine. Consider a scale in the brain. Whenever we indulge in a pleasure-seeking behavior such as scrolling through the Instagram feed to using drugs, it's like putting pleasure weights on this scale in the brain. The problem is that the brain always seeks to put this scale in equilibrium and balance. When you put pleasure on one side of the scale, the brain compensates by putting pain molecules on the other side of the scale. more
Dopamine Nation is Dr. Anna Lembki’s plain spoken exposition on the neuropharmacological substrates of addiction, with case study examples from her psychiatry practice, featuring clients who struggled and eventually successfully overcame a variety of substance and behavioral addictions. The book does a very nice job of normalizing addiction and tying drug addiction together with behavioral issues like sex and porn addiction by elaborating on the way they all operate on the mesolimbic dopamine system, and as such, share a common etiology. The book also does a fair to middling job of explaining the opponent process theory of addiction whereby elevating so-called “happy chemicals” (like dopamine) in your brain (via drugs, gaming and porn etc) make you feel great in the short term, but elicit escalated production of the opposite “crappy chemistry” (for example stress hormones like cortisol) that trash your mood and mental heath in the longterm. I think this book will be useful for people who are brand new to the issue of addiction and who need a brief, reliable, scientifically grounded introduction to the subject. more
Oh this book could have been a 5, I so desperately wanted it to be a 5. But I just had a few complaints that I can't get over:1. The opening shock-and-awe story of the man with the masturbation machine makes this book un-recommendable for lots in my conservative socal circle - which is super unfortunate because I want to recommend this book but now I have to put a big caveat on it. I felt the story was included for shock value and that disappointed me. 2. more
This book did contain some valuable information (mostly for people who are pretty new to the topic) and I found it interesting most of the time, but I had some frustrations with it, namely: - Complete vilification of cannabis. No mention of how people can use it medicinally or in a healthy way recreationally. - Praising Islamic and Mormon dress codes, which in my experience as an ex-Mormon, are a dangerous part of toxic purity culture as well as rape culture. The author could have used them to make her point while also mentioning their potential harmfulness. - Complete vilification of psychedelic drugs, with no mention of research showing that they’re an amazing tool for many with treatment-resistant depression, anxiety. more
This entire book can be summed up with two words: Citation needed. From beginning to end, the book drips with specious claims, not to mention moral puritanism. The author is repeatedly judgmental toward her clients (she is sickened by a client's masturbation machine, for example, and expresses overwhelming moral disdain for her temporary infatuation with romance novels). She alludes to ADHD patients abusing Adderall while ignoring the huge improvement these medicines have offered people with actual ADHD (and that these folks can take the prescribed stimulants and still end up taking a nap -- they aren't getting high). She seems to endorse at least one patient's disordered eating as a healthy lifestyle change. more
I had trouble putting this book down as the learning I was doing each page was supplying its own flow of dopamine to me. A fascinating read by Dr. Lembke which bubbles through a multitude of journeys her patients took through their own addictions to reach a more optimal balance of pleasure and pain in their lives. Lembke highlights her own personal experiences with addiction which offer a grounded perspective to the reader and establish her admirable honesty as a pillar of the book. To not become too attached to pleasure or pain appears to be the key to maintaining a healthy relationship with dopamine. more
What a terrible book. This book demonstrates how a buzzworthy title and good cover design can elevate mediocrity to the NY Bestsellers List. It joins the Sixth Extinction, Confederates in the Attic, and Wild as "books that fooled me" with marketing. So what was this book about. Not dopamine. more
«Самостримування – це необхідна складова сучасного життя у світі, надмірно обтяженому дофаміном. »🍓Анна Лембке починає свою книгу, наче професійна маркетологиня: з випадку пацієнта, якому потім вона поставить діагноз компульсивна статева поведінка (по-моєму, так це звучало, але це не точно). Хто ж після такого відкладе читання. ))) Наступні майже 200 сторінок заглиблять вас в природу залежності та історії людей, які або покажуть вам, що ви ще не так погано живете, або що живете дуже нудно😅«Ми всі тікаємо від болю. Дехто з нас приймає пігулки. more
I was looking for a refresher on "finding balance" (as promised on the book cover) in this pandemic time when binging Netflix or a glass of wine have become a bit too habitual. I was looking for a reminder about other ways to experience pleasure (laughter, yoga, joyful movement etc. ) and tips on restoring that balance. However the book was focused on serious addictions but without serious help for the reader. The author is a doctor, has won lots of awards and runs an addiction program so I want to believe that her treatments consisted of more than "abstain for one month and then tell me how you feel" but that seemed to be what she was doing with clients. more
The book is told through anecdotes and doesn't heavily emphasize the science or current research. Although some of the concept names were new to me, like self-binding, I didn't feel like I learned much from this book. more
Взагалі-то я не дуже задоволена своїми стосунками з інтернетом (ускладненими тим, що на інтернет зав'язана значна частина роботи і спілкування, тож просто відрубити соцмережі cold turkey я не зможу) і шукала книжку, яка допоможе виробити зручніший для мене спосіб співіснування з соцмережами й оцим усім. На жаль, це абсолютно не та книжка, хоча назва й анотації нібито обіцяють розповісти про пошук гармонії в нашу епоху, де дуже аддіктів практики завжди знаходяться на відстані одного кліка. Натомість ця книжка - це олдскульне бурчання про те, що наше покоління так прагне задоволень і уникати болю, що стає якраз вразливішим до болю, а от раніше операції робили без наркозу і ніяких залежностей від вікодину не було (ай кід ю нот) (між іншим, я не певна навіть, чи в об'єктивно безпечнішому і сповненішому насолод західному світі справді більшає кейсів депресії і тривожності - можливо, у Східній Європі ХІХ століття це просто називалося не депресією, а "чули, що Микола в сараї повісився. ") (при цьому я згодна, що є певна проблема в тому, що ми в середньому прагнемо задоволень, а не значущості, але книжку цю я читала не для того і вона не проте). І все це приправлено великою кількістю американського сексуального пуританства - може, це якраз ознака проблеми нашого покоління вседозволеності, але мене дуже смішило, коли авторка розписувала, яка в неї була Страшна Залежність Від Читання Вампірської Еротики, Вона Якось Зачиталася Твайлайтом До Ночі й Не Виспалася, А Потім Подумала, Чи Хоче Вона, О Жах, Серед Ночі Читати Про Баттплаги. more
I had high hopes for this book and was disappointed. There were several positions Lembke took that I just don’t agree with: 1) abstinence is gold standard for addiction (my opinion is that this is true for some, but not a universal truth) 2) “pro-social shame” is great for recovery 🤔 (no) and 3) absolute honesty is essential for a well balanced life (she gave the example of telling her daughter she was like the tone-deaf penguin on Happy Feet)… idk, the book felt very moralistic and judgmental. Didn’t love it. more
Sorry, but I can't take seriously someone who can read the entire Twilight saga four times. more
Made it 30 minutes in and just couldn't handle how judgmental the author was. Just, wow. . more
This should be required reading for everyone. It really helped me to understand how the brain maintains homeostasis. Many people in our society are searching for pain free lives, but our brain knows we need equal amounts of pleasure and pain in order to maintain equilibrium. Miss Lembke states that we might need to face pain in our lives in order to find that equilibrium rather than overmedicating ourselves. "The rewards of finding balance and maintaining balance are neither immediate nor permanent. more
While this book was intriguing and has a few good parts, there are numerous problems. First: The author has some serious issues when it comes to her understanding of why people are fat. She claims that people are "obese" primarily due to food addiction, which is not supported by the science. But she just presents that as fact without supporting that claim with ANY scientific evidence, studies, etc. I feel like since she treats addictions for her job, she may just be seeing addiction as the root cause of this phenomenon. more
As someone who has an addictive personality and had a 10+ years drinking problem (nearly 4 yearssober) I found this audiobook extremely informative, with relevant case studies to hear about throughout. I have taken on a few of the tips that Lembke recommends and am already feeling the benefits. I am drinking less diet coke, using my phone less frequently, not taking pain killers, and not listening to music on my first walk in the morning. These have all made me feel fresher and have given me good awareness of dopamine and the pleasure and pain scales. I would like to thank my participant at work for recommending this to me and would also like to comment on how well the author does at delivering the audiobook version herself. more
So absolutely horrible that I couldn't finish it. Moralistic high horse bullshit and not a real science book. more
Neurodivergence and dopamine is a trending topic on TikTok right now and if you read the comments on popular videos, you will see a lot of people that struggle with ADHD, addiction, mood disorders, and other symptoms that leads to extreme and unproductive behavior in the pursuit of dopamine highs. I picked up this book to get a better understa nding of my own history with addiction and dopamine chasing and to find out more about the science behind it. The blend of clinical and anecdotal storytelling makes this book an easy read. I also appreciated the humanization of shameful behaviors and looking at it from a neurological standpoint. Lembke keeps it simple by organizing the topic by extreme behaviors that lead to the pursuit of pleasure and pain. more
It was an enjoyable simple read. It’s based not just on pure theory, but also on the hands-on experience the author has as a psychotherapist. The problem the book exposes is the increase in dopaminergic consumption in our modern societies. We became obsessed with the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake. That leads to neuroadaptation and tolerance to pleasure, ending in all sorts of nasty and harmful addictions. more
I came into this book really wanting it to be good, to be an insightful analysis of the dynamics of pleasure and addiction in America, studying the causes and offering solutions. One of my friends had given it a glowing rating, and thus. I found myself disappointed with the uninformed, surface-level moralizing glazed over the text. This book isn't for people who want to analyze, curb, or prevent addictions, this is a book that starts with the assumption that you're addicted to something and spends pages moralizing on your and other people's 'addictions', even if it has to define a short-term obsession or a minor bad habit as an addiction. I honestly feel like this author doesn't have a working grasp on the full topic of addiction. more
Коли життя і так суцільний біль, але ти вирішуєш все одно написати про більші страждання задля позбуття будь-якої залежності. Або для того щоб переповісти історію своїх пацієнтів, похизуватись своє роботою у Кремнієвій долині та постійно нагадувати читачу про свою обсессію до любовних романів та Twilight. Практичні поради там звичайно є, але якщо ви хоч трохи прислухаєтесь до себе, то добре їх знаєте і можете з цим працювати. more
Most helpful passage came at the very end on page 233 "I urge you to find a way to immerse yourself fully in the life that you've been given. To stop running from whatever you're trying to escape, and instead to stop, and turn, and face whatever it is. " There it is. Be present. more
Tl;dr: The concept for Dopamine Nation and the book itself didn't really gel. This is meant to be a book about finding balance, but I didn't really see any real insight into how exactly to achieve that. I found out about Dopamine Nation from an article in the WSJ, and my interest was piqued: Dr. Lembke promised in that article a book about how to find balance in our modern society that's overflowing with screens, technology, distractions, and excess. After reading the book, though, I'm underwhelmed and I also think that newspaper article was misleading. more
Lembke's thesis: Mental illness and/or neurodivergence can be "cured" with good ol' will power. Kids today; too many participation trophies made them soft and squishy. Now they can't handle an iota of mental or physical pain, turning to pills and weed for relief. SSRIs are bad. Stimulants for ADHD patients are bad. more