By the way , I highly recommend it if you haven't read it already . It's a fascinating uh exploration into dopamine as it relates to addiction , not just drug addiction but other types of addiction . Again , the name of that book is dopamine nation .
The same is also true for things like methamphetamine or cocaine or other types of substance addictions . And the same is also true for a lot of behavioral or what are sometimes called process addictions , things like sex addiction or video game addiction or any type of behavior that frankly is leveraging the dopamine system . But that engages this progressive narrowing of the things that bring someone pleasure such that nothing else is really salient .
So what's happening in addiction ? Well , addiction involves dopamine among other things , often the opioid system , et cetera . But if we were to think about what's the stimulus in an addiction and what's the peak in dopamine ?
I was combining too many dopamine releasing or stimulating behaviors and substances for things that I already enjoy doing as behaviors , namely exercise and doing experiments , anything related to science actually . So what this means is not to avoid taking things or doing things that amplify your amount of dopamine , but to be very cautious about how often one does that and how many different dopamine stimulating behaviors or compounds one stacks , especially in terms of taking those things or stacking those things in and around behaviors that you already really enjoy doing . I was essentially just creating another version of the kids in nursery school or first grade with the Gold Star experiment .
Well , addiction involves dopamine among other things , often the opioid system , et cetera . But if we were to think about what's the stimulus in an addiction and what's the peak in dopamine ? And then what happens after that peak ?
